“The Seasons” at the Nassau County Museum of Art, located at 1 Museum Dr. in Roslyn, explores the creative response of artists to the spirit of the four seasons, brought to you by perennial favorite co-curators Franklin Hill Perrell and Debbie Wells of Artful Circle.
This exhibition is complete with a full harvest of paintings, sculpture, photography and design. From traditional landscapes to avant-garde works, The Seasons offers a fanciful experience of every season and an endearing look at holidays through the eyes of artists across the past century.
As you explore the galleries, see how artists have responded to color, texture, and shapes from nature. Feel the flow of the art depicting one season to the next, just as they do throughout the year. It is a great opportunity for celebrating the joy of the four seasons though a variety of lively depictions in styles. Be sure to record your visit on social media–there are some great spots for taking photos.
Key artists in the exhibition include:
- Painters: Marc Chagall, Grandma Moses, Norman Rockwell, Hunt Slonem, Toulouse-Lautrec, Wolf Kahn, David Hockney, Ashley Longshore and Pieter Brueghel the Younger
- Photography and Prints: Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and Tina Barney
- Sculptors: Federico Uribe, Peter Anton and Lesley Dill
- Illustrators: Milton Glaser, Al Hirschfeld, Roz Chast and JC Leyendecker
- Long Island Artists: Jane Freilicher, April Gornik, Christine D’Addarrio, Frank Olt, Glen Hansen, Adam Straus, Christian White, Bruce Lieberman, Susan Cushing and Mort Künstler.
- Fashion: Diane von Furstenberg and Lilly Pulitzer
In addition, there is a special show, a loving tribute to Judith Leiber, handbag designer extraordinaire. She and her artist-husband Gerson lived in the springs hamlet of East Hampton. Both of them died at age 97 (within hours of each other) in 2018.
The Nassau County Museum of Art thanked Long Island-based Kravet Fabrics for their generous donation of materials for the exhibition installation. The exhibition runs through March 1, 2020.
Museum Programming
Artist in the Gallery: Susan Cushing • Saturday, Dec. 7, at 3 p.m.
Free with museum admission.
Susan Cushing is a true original with a vision of the all too rarely seen in today’s art: it’s the “good life”—most likely Palm beach or Southampton, viewed through the lens of her own very special vantage point- a world of elegant cocktail parties by the pool, stylishly dressed people enjoying each other’s company. The girls wear Lily Pulitzer, men wear blue double breasted jackets and straw hats; rather like Alex Katz in projecting only positive news, everyone looks their best, no wrinkles, grey hair, and kids are always sunny and well-behaved.
Artist in the Gallery: Christian White • Sunday, Dec. 8, at 3 p.m.
Free with museum admission.
Christian White is a painterly realist in the tradition of Fairfield Porter, which is to say, that elements of abstraction and Expressionism are often a feature in the composition or handling of pigments. He has a bold and sophisticated way with design, and the painting exhibited, from the collection of the Long Island Museum is exemplary as a Long Island scene by one of Long island’s historically most important landscape painters. White is also an eloquent speaker and esteemed teacher.
Curators’ Panel Discussion • Sunday, Dec. 15, at 3 p.m.
$30 for members; $40 for non-members. Click here to register online.
Join us for a panel discussion with two stars of art history, The Seasons co-curators Franklin Perrell and Debbie Wells and one of horticulture, Richard Weir. Guest co-curators Franklin Hill Perrell and Debbie Wells take you through the seasons for an entertaining look at the paintings, sculpture, photography, fashion and design in the museum’s exhibition, The Seasons. Joining them on the panel will be popular radio personality and lecturer Richard Weir, horticultural and environmental educator and author who teaches at Cornell University. Weir will give his perspective on the seasons in nature and in art with a special focus on plants mainly from Long Island and the northeast (and his expert tips on how to plant and care of them!). Perrell and Wells will show how the artists in the show respond to color, texture, and shapes from nature and celebrate the transition between the seasons, such as the cavalcade of flowers shrubs and trees that denote each time of year. As a special bonus, all three speakers will give expert commentary on their favorite pieces in the exhibition and give the audience opportunity to discuss theirs. Join us after for a wine and cheese reception.
Artist in the Gallery: Peter Anton • Sunday, Jan. 12, at 3 p.m.
Free with museum admission.
Peter Anton does trompe l’oeil sculptures, in a hyper-realist mode, of such foods of the seasons as watermelon for summer, pecan pie for winter, or a heart-shaped box of candies for Valentine’s Day. For Anton, the exemplary colors, textures, and taste of these items conjure up a vision of those times of year. The tradition of still life painting goes back hundreds of years, but these works are distinctly pop in flavor, because of their giant scale and iconic status as immediately recognizable images.
A Talk on Anna Mary Robertson Moses: Grandma Moses with Jane Kallir of Galerie St. Etienne • Sunday, Feb. 9, at 3 p.m.
Free with museum admission.
Grandma Moses’ painting captures her vision of the upstate countryside in winter, with farm houses, barns and animals in the snow. Her work embodies a certain attitude toward well-being and abundance. That she was discovered as an artist when she was already in her eighties, by a specialist in German Expressionism, Dr. Otto Kallir, the founder of Galerie St. Etienne, is consistent with how such art (once termed folk art, later outsider, and now self-taught) is indicative of America’s vernacular culture and also came to be esteemed for its kinship with modernism.
Artist in the Gallery: Frank Olt • Sunday, Feb. 23, at 3 p.m.
Free with museum admission.
Frank Olt is a contemporary who expands upon the NY School ideas of abstraction but with the unique twist of using ceramic media and glazing to create an idiom at the intersection of color field and bold abstraction, producing richly hued abstract imagery with just a hint of the landscape. It’s the color and pattern in these works that bespeak the season, and with the four-piece work in the exhibition.
A Talk on the Life and Art of Judith Leiber • Sunday, March 1, at 3 p.m.
Free with museum admission.
Ann Fristoe Stewart, Collections Manager of the Leiber Collection, presents the work of internationally celebrated handbag designer Judith Leiber. Fristoe will discuss the illustrious life of Leiber and her prolific career as a Hungarian-American fashion designer and entrepreneur. Leiber founded her own business in 1963 and is known for her crystal minaudières, evening purses made of a metal shell often encrusted with Swarovski crystals, plated with silver or gold that took various forms, such as baby pigs, slices of watermelon, cupcakes, peacocks, penguins and snakes.
—Submitted by the Nassau County Museum of Art
