5-day trip to New York City

I haven't posted any new paintings lately and with good reason........I haven't been painting. I've been doing home renovations, all DIY - to both bathrooms and the foyer of our house. There were many surprises along the way, so it took me much more time than originally anticipated. We are so happy with the finished projects, now the inside of our 30-year old house has been completely redone from top to bottom.

I also took the time to do an itinerary for a 5-day family vacation in New York City. Our last visit in the Big Apple was in 2002. On this Columbus Day weekend, I think that others also had the same idea, as we greated to gorgeous weather. Fifth Ave, Central Park, Times Square, the ferry to Liberty Island and even the Brooklyn Bridge were jam packed with tourists. As this was our son Jean-Luc first trip here, we did all the major points of interests plus two Broadway plays (In the Heights & The Adams Family). As for the museums, we visited the American Museum of Natural History, the new Museum of Modern Art and The Brooklyn Museum of Art. I had previously visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, the Guggenheim; now the only major art museum to visit is the Frick.

One of the first stops on day-1 was the newly opened expanded space of the Bernaducci-Meisel Gallery on 57th Street, which hosted a stunning group exhibition of Photorealists. This would turn out to be one of the personal highlights of our trip for me. Seeing these paintings up-close does create a greater impact of the imagery, but also give you me a greater visual appreciation as far as technique is concerned. The whole show was breathtaking, but the Italians Roberto Bernardi and Luigi Benedicenti's artwork completely seduced me.




On day-2, we visited the Brooklyn Museum of Art. This is New York City's second largest art museum at 560,000 square feet, and houses more than 1 million artifacts. Because it's not in Manhattan, it never really got the recognition it truly deserves. We spent two hours here even if several galleries were closed on this Sunday. Among the highlights were John Singer Sargent's ''Paul Helleu sketching with his wife'', Adolphe William Bourguereau's ''The Elder Sister'' and ''The Seine and the Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil'' by Gustave Caillebotte. Caillebotte had a retrospective here in 2009. The Brooklyn Museum will be hosting a retropective of Norman Rockwell this November. The museum has an equally amazing collection of Egyptian art. Also on exhibit was a solo exhibition of Abdi Farrah, the winner of the Bravo's TV show , Work of Art: The next great artist. A section of the vaults of the museum is open to the public. Several Louis Comfort Tiffany's art glass and lamps were on display. We also had the chance to view an early oil painting of him. He was first a painter before became reknown for his famous stained glass.




On day-3, we visited The American Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

On day-4, we did a walking tour of Chelsea, Greenwich Village & Soho. Here we visited more than a dozen commercial galleries. Here I got to preview Don Eddy's latest paintings at the Nancy Hoffman Gallery. Gallery Henoch was setting up a solo show of Steve Mills that was opening the next day (photo below). He's one of my all-time favorite Photorealists and it was the first time that I would get a chance to see his artwork up-close. Other galleries included The George Billis Gallery, Bertrand Delacroix Gallery, the Stricoff Fine Art, Pop International Galleries, the Louis K. Meisel, the OK Harris Gallery, the Martin Lawrence Galleries where you can actually purchase an original Marc Chagall oil painting, and the Arcadia Gallery, housing classically inspired artists: Jeremy Lipking, Daniel Sprick & Joseph Todorovitch.

With all of this said, I have returned to the quiet haven of my art studio. During evenings and week-ends I will be able to squeeze in a few hours to paint. Being away from my brushes for so long is never good for my confidence. It's as if I forget I know how to paint. It will take a while before I can get a few kinks sorted out and I feel that I am in the zone again.