My Favorite Paintings at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City was an iconic modern building, and I was a bit surprised to see some paintings from somewhat older era - early 20th century, which in current art market has almost become "classical".



My favorite painting was Saint-Séverin No. 3 (1909-10) by French painter Robert Delaunay (1885-1941). This monochromatic painting depicted the tall nave of the cathedral and the interlocking buttresses, elongated, soaring, resembling a giant pipe organ, or a glimpse of the hollow of abdominal cavity — vast, cavernous, seductive yet foreboding.


Saint-Séverin No. 3, 1909-10, Robert Delaunay [CC0 or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The other favorite of mine was a Cubism-influenced Paris par la fenêtre (Paris Through the Window) (1913) by Marc Chagall, who in his typical fashion, fancifully mixed together various motifs and elements — people, cat, village, window, city, his native Russia and Paris, folk art elements and cosmopolitan sophistication, and the sense of joy, freedom, anxiety and perhaps, malfeasance or even evil. Also very striking was the interplay of his vivid colors, though in a more muted way to his standards.


Marc Chagall, 1913, Paris par la fenêtre (Paris Through the Window), oil on canvas, 136 x 141.9 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Source:  Guggenheim Collection Online [public domain]


My Favorite Museum Collection Series
>> My Favorite Museum Collection Series 142: My Favorite Drawing and Artefact at Morgan Library & Museum in New York City
<< My Favorite Museum Collection Series 140: My Favorite Paintings at Neue Galerie, New York City

List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:

- Guggenheim Museum Collections
- Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York City 
- Max Beckmann's Paintings in MOMA and MET
- Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele in Wien (Vienna)
- Sunflower Seeds by Ai Weiwei at Tate Modern, London
- Last Trip to a Museum in 2012 - The William S. Paley Collection: A Taste for Modernism at De Young Museum in San Francisco
- "The Steins Collect" Exhibit in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
- Art in Subway Station, New York City
- Neue Galerie New York - Austrian and German Art Gallery
- Barry McGee Mural, Soho, New York 2010
- Arslan: In the Midst of a Single Breath - Dillon Gallery, New York

My Favorite Paintings at Neue Galerie, New York City

Practically a next door neighbor to the mammoth Metropolitan Museum, Neue Galerie in New York City was a modest and exquisite museum, which specializes in early twentieth-century German and Austrian art and design, and has become much wider known due to its addition of Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt, after a landmark judgement over its ownership, claimed by Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna, and the original owner's heir, resided then in the US.

That Klimt was indeed amazing and mesmerizing; however, to me, the most engaging painting was a self-portrait by German painter Max Beckmann, Self-Portrait with Horn. This painting had all the hallmarks of this remarkable artist in his artistic maturity: bold black outlines, amazing interplay of light and shadow, clashing yet harmonious palette, economically abstracted forms and shades, somewhat stylized stiff arms and hands, and above all, an unflinching inspection of the sitter and primal emotions emitted from the painting. The artist as the subject was somber, severe, yet fearfully curious, gazing tentatively and intently into the mouthpiece of the gleaming white horn his stiff hand barely held, with his head boldly framed by the golden frames behind him on the wall, and compressed by the narrow space defined by a red partition at the right edge of the canvas — a picture of a man being challenged and confronted by unknown destiny and conditions. Though severe and slightly menacing, the painting did not depress or repel, rather embracing, due to its beautiful and warm coloration and wonderful tonal contrasts, and the rather confident and bold gaze of the sitter.

Max_Beckmann's_'Self-portrait_with_Horn',_1938-1940
Image courtesy of DASHBot [fair use]

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Berlin Street Scene (1913) was an exercise of urban sophistication and wry irony. The painting was almost decorative, yet the seemingly elegant and harmonious existence could hardly conceal the inner angst, apathy, discontent or even contempt the people exhibited. Those stylized figures, with their fanciful dresses, particularly the head gears of those city women, telegraphed that the society Kirchner observed was perhaps both a decadent and depressing one, as however pleasant they looked, there were traces of ludicrousness and meaninglessness in them, which were equally manifested in the more broadly sketched and burdened people scurrying about in the background, and the composed, sure, and searching women in the center of the scene, and some men in the foreground who averted gazes from those glamorous women.  A wry commentary on the lack of human connection, or fluidity of genders in then Berlin?


Berlin Street Scene (1913), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons


My Favorite Museum Collection Series
>> My Favorite Museum Collection Series 141: My Favorite Paintings at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City
<< My Favorite Museum Collection Series 139: My Favorite Paintings at The Frick Collection, New York City

List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York City 
- Max Beckmann's Paintings in MOMA and MET
- Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele in Wien (Vienna)
- Sunflower Seeds by Ai Weiwei at Tate Modern, London
- Last Trip to a Museum in 2012 - The William S. Paley Collection: A Taste for Modernism at De Young Museum in San Francisco
- "The Steins Collect" Exhibit in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
- Art in Subway Station, New York City
- Neue Galerie New York - Austrian and German Art Gallery
- Barry McGee Mural, Soho, New York 2010
- Arslan: In the Midst of a Single Breath - Dillon Gallery, New York

My Favorite Paintings at The Frick Collection, New York City

The Frick Collection in New York City excelled with its Old Master paintings, particularly some "official" portraits.

The most striking one was a startling portrait Lodovico Capponi by Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572) – standing in front of a vast sensuous green velvet cloth, a fashionable and almost foppish youth, costumed in brilliant black silk tunic with white satin sleeves, with the handle of his sward provocative protruded from between his legs, gazed at viewers almost insolently.  This portrait perfectly captured the grace, insouciance, vitality and weakness of a well-to-do youth.


Bronzino [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Lodovico Capponi, 1550–55 by Agnolo Bronzino (1503–1572)
Oil on poplar panel
45 7/8 x 33 3/4 in. (116.5 x 85.7 cm)

Another interesting portrait featured a less ingratiating but much more fascinating subject - Thomas Cromwell of England, a supremely powerful, feared and even detested personality in Henry VIII's Tudor court.  The portrait, by the great Hans Holbein the Younger, caught the sitter at the apex of his ascension, before his ultimate downfall. Still, no matter how richly attired with fir-lined robe, and adorned with a huge ring inherited from his mentor, Cardinal Wolsey, the shrewd looking sitter still struck viewers as a cunning and formidable merchant, and content to be seen as such.  That ring was also a poignant reminder of the frivolity of royal favors, as Cromwell would follow precisely the trajectory of Wolsey, once ascended to the summit, he would had nowhere to go but down, and hard at that. This amazing painting was not only a great portraiture, but a cautionary story of the futility of pursuit of power and wealth.


Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/1498–1543) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Thomas Cromwell, 1532–33 Oil on oak panel (cradled) 30 7/8 x 25 3/8 in. (78.4 x 64.5 cm)

My Favorite Museum Collection Series
>> My Favorite Museum Collection Series 140: My Favorite Paintings at Neue Galerie, New York City
<< My Favorite Museum Collection Series 138: My Favorite Paintings at New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)

List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York City 
- Max Beckmann's Paintings in MOMA and MET
- Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele in Wien (Vienna)
- "The Steins Collect" Exhibit in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
- Art in Subway Station, New York City
- Neue Galerie New York - Austrian and German Art Gallery
- Barry McGee Mural, Soho, New York 2010
- Arslan: In the Midst of a Single Breath - Dillon Gallery, New York

My Favorite Paintings at Metropolitan Museum, New York

I'll be insanely rigid in following my formula to cite only two favorite works from the museums I've visited before, however big or small, even the Metropolitan Museum in New York or the Louvre in Paris.

Met, the most prestigious in the U.S., naturally has more collections I like than I can remember, put amongst its many glories, I pick the two paintings below.

The first one is a triptych - I hope this doesn't mean that I'm cheating - Beginning, 1949, by German painter Max Beckmann:


Beginning 
Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York City) 
Date: 1949 Medium: Oil on canvas 
Dimensions: 69 x 125 1/2 in. (175.3 x 318.8 cm) 67 1/2 x 36 x 3 1/2 in. (171.5 x 91.4 x 8.9 cm) (Frame, 67.187.53a left panel) 71 1/2 x 61 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. (181.6 x 156.2 x 8.9 cm) (Frame, 67.187.53b center panel) 67 1/2 x 36 x 3 1/2 in. (171.5 x 91.4 x 8.9 cm) (Frame, 67.187.53c right panel) 

Beckmann is one of the very few artists I not only love, but draw inspiration greedily and incessantly.  I am very partial to the pessimistic and apocalyptic Germanic sensitivity.  I love Beckmann's insistence of staring down the deepest pit of human miseries and more importantly, the sources of them, while not dismiss a flicker of hope for the humanity.  More important, he was able to create paintings with real depth and gravity with incredible beauty and appropriate one.

A survivor of medical services during World War I, "he saw his world as a tragedy of man's inhumanity to man and saw life as a carnival of human folly. His work remained intense and allegorical throughout his life.
The theme that connects the three panels of "Beginning," the most autobiographical of Beckmann's ten triptychs, is a childhood dream. The central panel shows a playroom where a little boy in military costume brandishes a sword as he mightily rides a rocking horse. His Puss 'n Boots doll hangs upside down behind him, presumably slayed by his weapon. The noise he makes has alarmed his parents (seen at the left near the ladder), who have climbed up to inspect his attic kingdom. More prominently placed is the figure of a redheaded woman who reclines seductively, blowing blue bubbles from a pipe. Squeezed between the boy and his fantasy is an old grandmother reading a newspaper. To the left and right, on separate panels, Beckmann painted other memories from his childhood — a hurdy-gurdy grinder and a classroom with teacher and students." [metmuseum.org]

My second favorite, another painting, is a portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam by Hans Holbein the Younger:


Erasmus of Rotterdam 
Hans Holbein the Younger (German, Augsburg 1497/98–1543 London) 
Date: 1528–32 Medium: Oil on linden panel 
Dimensions: 7 1/4 x 5 9/16 in. (18.4 x 14.2 cm); painted surface 6 15/16 x 5 1/2 in. (17.6 x 14 cm) 

I love this painting, first by the beautiful colors Holbein employed.  I'm always partial to the green-tinted blues.  His portrait of this great scholar and humanist, was somber, serious yet open.  The face of Erasmus was wise and like an opened-book, invited people to benefit from the light it emitted.  His features were sharp in the alerted sense, not in a preying mood.  His gaze knowing yet humble, and full of consternation and mediation.  A wise sage indeed.  The brilliantly painted fur trimmings offered the warm tones to balance the cool aqua tint of the background, without rendering his or the painting flamboyant which surely would have made this great scholar a simony hawk.

Though the brush works of Hans Holbein the Younger was not as celebrated as those by Da Vinci, Rubens or Rembrandt, his austere style here, almost a thrown-back to the icon paintings, left us a most memorable and beautiful portrait in the canon.  Met surly is proud to have this in its collection.


My Favorite Museum Collection Series

>> My Favorite Museum Collection Series 6: My Favorite Collections at The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York  
<< My Favorite Museum Collection Series 4: My Favorite Paintings at Cincinnati Art Museum

List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

 

On Authenticity and Mastery

There are a spate of news in the art world involving the authenticity of paintings by famous artists, from New York, Amsterdam and China.

The biggest news was the possible forgery story reported by New York Times, Possible Forging of Modern Art Is Investigated.  The reported said that

Federal authorities are investigating whether a parade of paintings and drawings, sold for years by some of New York’s most elite art dealers as the work of Modernist masters like Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock, actually consists of expert forgeries, according to people who have been interviewed or briefed by the investigators.

Most of the works, which have sold individually for as much as $17 million, came to market though a little-known art dealer from Long Island, Glafira Rosales, who said she had what every gallery dreams of: exclusive access to a mystery collector’s cache of undiscovered work by some of the postwar world’s great talents, including Mark Rothko and Richard Diebenkorn.

In several cases, Ms. Rosales sold the works through an art-world luminary, Ann Freedman, until 2009 the president of the prestigious gallery Knoedler & Company on the Upper East Side. Other works were sold by Julian Weissman, an independent dealer who had worked for Knoedler in the 1980s and had represented Motherwell when he was alive.

A lawyer for Ms. Rosales, Anastasios Sarikas, acknowledged that she was a target of the inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Sarikas said that his client had "never intentionally or knowingly sold artwork she knew to be forged."

The Knoedler gallery, which abruptly closed Wednesday after 165 years in business, has not been implicated in the investigation. But on Friday a London collector, Pierre Lagrange, who bought one of the works, "Untitled 1950" by Pollock, for $17 million in 2007, sued the gallery and Ms. Freedman, contending that it is a forgery. His forensic analysis found that two paints in the work had not been invented until after Pollock's death, the suit said.

Below are two of the works suspected of being forgeries, one was once attributed to Robert Motherwell and the other Jackson Pollock:


A painting no longer attributed to Robert Motherwell. [Image source: NYTimes.com]


A painting exhibited as a Jackson Pollock. In 2003, an independent art research group declined to authenticate it for a potential buyer, citing unanswered questions about its provenance [Image source: NYTimes.com]

Another story came from Beijing, China.  According to People Daily, a Chinese painting, West Lake Cooking Smoke, by Mr. LIANG Baiyun, a former student of the much more famous painter, Mr. XU Beihong (1895-1953), was being offered at Beijing Poly 2011 Autumn Auction as work by Xu, after the tinkering of signatures and other inscriptions.  People Daily elaborated that the painting had been included in Christie's 1992 Spring Auction in Hong Kong.  The original inscription stated clearly that Mr. Liang invited Mr. Xu to write more inscriptions on the painting.  It was largely due to Mr. Xu's calligraphy, the painting was included in Christie's aution.  

On December 5, 2011, when it made appearance in Beijing, the alleged Xu' painting look exactly the same as the one by Liang, [see picture below, the left was offered in Hong Kong, attributed to Liang, while the right was offered in Beijing and attributed to Xu], except for the absence of Liang's seal at lower right corner and part of the writing was changed from Liang invited Xu to write an inscription to Liang invited Xu to paint the painting.


[Image source: People.com.cn]

To my eyes, they look the same, if the images provided by People Daily were true.

The third story was the authentication of a Rembrandt painting, Bearded Old Man, which was attributed to his student(s). 

X-ray analysis revealed outlines of a self-portrait underneath the 1630 "Bearded Old Man." [Image source: Rembrandt House Museum / AP]

SFGate.com reported that

Experts have reclassified a painting of an old man long thought to have been made by one of Rembrandts' students as having come from the hand of the Dutch master himself, after X-ray analysis revealed outlines of a self-portrait of the artist as a young man underneath.

Ernst van de Wetering of the Rembrandt Research Project cited the new X-ray scans of the painting "Bearded Old Man," in addition to stylistic analysis and circumstantial evidence in support of the conclusion.
Van de Wetering dates the small (6 by 8 inches) but emotive painting to 1630, when Rembrandt van Rijn would have been 24 years old. His reputation as a portraitist was rapidly growing and he was preparing to leave Leiden for Amsterdam, which at that time was enjoying its golden age as a major naval power.
The painting shows a man with unkempt white hair, lost in thought with just a hint of sadness.

The scans revealed what is thought to be an uncompleted self-portrait by Rembrandt underneath, though the X-rays reveal only bare outlines.

Van de Wetering said that the style and quality of the painting itself provide the strongest arguments for its authenticity, but the existence of the underlying portrait was important, too.

However, four works formerly attributed to his students - a talented group in their own right - have been reclassified as by Rembrandt since 2008, often with the help of new technology.

All these made very interesting read and challenge people's perceptions on the value of artworks, connecting to established brand (artists) or not.

Ideally, artworks should be judged by artistic merits alone but since the perception of artworks are mostly subjective and if they were a financial burden, in practice, branding was just as important.  As a painter, surely I would love to see my name as a successful brand, to enable more people to appreciate my work.  I am not guilty free from judging works by its authorship.  Therefore, I cannot condemn such tendency of human condition.

I do hope is that art buyers would buy works more relying on if the works would truly touch, impress, stun and move them, and try to be influenced by the branding less.

This discussion leads to the fourth story in the artwork, which involved one of the most influential collectors in the world, Charles Saatchi.  British newspaper, Guardian reported that Saatchi portrayed the art world as 'Vulgar, Eurotrashy, masturbatory':


Charles Saatchi has launched an incendiary attack on the buyers and dealers who populate the art world. Photograph: James King for the Observer [Image source: guardian.co.uk]

Charles Saatchi, the most important British art collector of his generation, has launched an incendiary attack on the buyers, dealers and curators who populate the contemporary art world and concluded that many of them have little feeling for art and cannot tell a good artist from a bad one.


He says: "It is the sport of the Eurotrashy, hedgefundy, Hamptonites; of trendy oligarchs and oiligarchs; and of art dealers with masturbatory levels of self-regard." Saatchi described the Venice Biennale, scene of the world's biggest contemporary art jamboree, as a place where these people circulate "in a giddy round of glamour-filled socialising, from one swanky party to another".

"Do any of these people actually enjoy looking at art?" asks Saatchi. "Do they simply enjoy having easily recognised big-brand-name pictures, bought ostentatiously in auction rooms at eye-catching prices, to decorate their several homes, floating and otherwise, in an instant demonstration of drop-dead coolth and wealth? Their pleasure is to be found in having their lovely friends measuring the weight of their baubles, and being awestruck."

For 30 years he has been a voracious buyer of new art and was instrumental in the success of the Young British Artists movement, buying up the best of the likes of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin and exhibiting it at the groundbreaking Sensation show at the Royal Academy in 1997.

But Saatchi says he finds the new art world toe-curling. "My little dark secret is that I don't actually believe many people in the art world have much feeling for art and cannot tell a good artist from a weak one, until the artist has enjoyed the validation of others.

"Few people in contemporary art demonstrate much curiosity, and spend their days blathering on, rather than trying to work out why one artist is more interesting than another."

The Turner-nominated artist Louise Wilson – half of the Wilson twins – said: "Many artists and art works have now definitely become a brand in a sense and some people may well go 'I'll have a Koons and a Gucci.' You can see that happening in certain contexts so in a way he does raise some interesting observations."

The curator Norman Rosenthal said it was impossible to generalise.

"It is very difficult to make a good exhibition," he said, "and the real problem is the art world has become so huge. When Charles and I were younger and doing the world of art it used to be much easier to sort it all out."

What effect Saatchi's intervention will have on a buoyant contemporary art market remains to be seen but Sarah Thornton, the author of Seven Days in the Art World, predicted it would change little.

"This is so disingenuous of Charles Saatchi because he is selling art to these people and he is their role model. I find it shocking that he would come out and say this because his gallery has become a showroom for upcoming auction lots."

Thornton said Saatchi had made many millions selling on much of his collection. "He is feeding the people he is condemning." She put his comments down to "misanthropy".

Saatchi has had a London gallery for contemporary art since 1985 in different locations including St John's Wood, County Hall and since 2008 the former Duke of York's HQ in Chelsea.

According to the Art Newspaper's survey, in 2009 and 2010 the most visited UK show was Van Gogh at the Royal Academy followed by five shows at the Saatchi.

Mr. Saatchi definitely had some point but like it or not, this trend will not change and had not changed since Renaissance time.  It was due to Da Vinci's reputation that he was invited to the French court.  Artists, who have always been relying on influential patrons and dealers to make good names for themselves, will continue to struggle to establish and nature such valuable relationship, and to adept to the rules of the art-world, despite the fact that most of them would rather spend all their time and energy their studios.

My Photo of Kirk Theatre, New York on CitySeekr

Last September, I saw a play - Oresteia  in Kirk Theatre, one of the theaters in the Theatre Row, Manhattan.  Last week, I was contacted by CitySeekr.com for permission to use the photo.  Naturally, I granted the use of the photo if they would give me proper credit.



Now, it is the featured picture for Theatre Row, New York on New-York-CitySeekr.com.

It is a wonderful play to see innovative plays and I'm glad they found my picture interesting. 

My Next Show - Prince Street Gallery, Chelsea, New York

Earlier this year, I made a statement that I would have chance to show my work in Chelsea, the mecca of contemporary art in the US.

It was rather a boast and I am very glad and relieved to receive a notification from Prince Street Gallery, in Chelsea, New York City, that my "White Dress" would be included in their annual national juried exhibition, 12 - 30 July 2011.  The juror this year is William Bailey, who is represented in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art and was elected to the National Academy of Design and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 

The notification letter informed me that Mr. Bailey selected 64 pieces from 934 images out of 259 submissions.

Opening Reception: Saturday, July 16, 3 – 6.

Prince Street Gallery is located in Chelsea and originated in SoHo in 1970. The year 2010 marked the gallery’s 40th anniversary.

530 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11-6

My selected work "White Dress" was also shown in ViewPoint 2007, 39th Annual National Juried Art Competition, Cincinnati Art Club, Ohio, November 2007.

White Dress
Oil on Canvas
20" x 16"
Completed in 2005

© Matthew Felix Sun
www.matthewfelixsun.com

Schmap New York Sixteenth Edition: Photo Inclusion - Greek Vases, The Metropolitan Museum

I just got a rather cool news - one of my photos taken in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was chosen to be part of "Schmap New York Sixteenth Edition".  The notification reads:

Subject: Schmap New York Sixteenth Edition: Photo Inclusion
Date: 13th January, 2011

Hi Matthew,

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo has been selected for inclusion in the newly released sixteenth edition of our Schmap New York Guide:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://sch.mp/02Bz190

This latest release is our first to include real-time local buzz for New York events, restaurants, bars and more...

Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please enjoy the guide!

Below is the snapshot of the said picture on Schmap:



and below is the picture itself:

I "What" NY

This is the last report of my New York trip in September.  After so many reports of my New York trip, if my readers feel tired of these, I sure can understand.

This made me think of the sign of "I heart NY" - the banality of it has made me, a west-coast dweller cringe at the sight of it, I can imagine how a New Yorker feels about it.

A shop sign I saw in Lower East Side neighborhood, expressed it the best:





Till next trip!

<< New York City Report, September 2010, Part XXIV: Artworks in New York's Streets 

Artworks in New York's Streets

There are many incredible artworks on "display" in the streets of New York City, besides world-class museums and wonderful galleries.  I mostly enjoyed my viewing artists' displays in street, which sipping wonderful cappuccino in Soho.  Unfortunately, I didn't see any transactions during the time.  Hopefully it was due to early hour.  The quality of those offerings of course varied greatly.  It was very familiar scene and the lady with hat made me feel that I was in Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley.









I've taken many pictures and the below are a sample of notable things:


5th Avenue


5th Avenue


Union Square


Union Square


Lower East Side


Lower East Side


Chelsea


Chelsea


Lower East Side


Lower East Side




Lower East Side


Soho


Soho


Soho, Fashion Week


Soho


Soho


Flatiron Building


Cooper Union, New Academic Building


Lower East Side



Lower East Side


Lower East Side


Chinatown


Lower East Side





New York is quite wonderful, isn't it?

>> New York City Report, September 2010, Part XXV: I "What" NY
<< New York City Report, September 2010, Part XXIII: New York Gallery Wrap Up