June Kelly Gallery


Recent News about the June Kelly Gallery and Our Artists

IMPORTANT NOTICE: The entrance to the June Kelly Gallery has been moved to 166 Mercer Street.  The entrance at 591 Broadway is closed.  The gallery remains where it has been on the third floor since 1987.  We look forward to seeing you.


Updated: July 29, 2010

Gallery artist Sana Musasama is spending several weeks this summer teaching ceramics to Israeli and Palestinian artists at Givat Haviva Institute near Tel Aviv in Israel.  The institute, founded in 1949, conducts a broad range of educational programs aimed at promoting greater understanding among different groups in Israeli society. Musasama’s next exhibition at the June Kelly Gallery, entitled “The Unknown / The Unnamed,” will open on Thursday, September 6.

Gallery artist Kay WalkingStick has been invited to spend the month of September at the Montana Artist Refuge, a small artist colony in Basin, Montana, in the mountains of southwest Montana between Helena and Butte. Mountains and mountainous terrain are prominent symbols in WalkingStick's imagery.  The refuge, founded in 1993, offers an opportunity for quiet reflection and artistic creativity to a community of visual artists, writers and musicians.  Basin, an isolated hamlet 10 miles east of the Continental Divide, was once a bustling mining town; it had a population of 255 in the 2000 U.S. census.

The exhibition Ming Smith: Photographs 1977-2010, now on view at the gallery through the end of July, received a highly positive review in the New York Times in its July 9 issue. Written by Holland Cotter, the review was accompanied by one of Smith's photographs. The review can be seen here.

The exhibition Ming Smith: Photographs 1977-2010, on view at the gallery through the end of July, received a highly positive review in the New York Times in its July 9 issue.  Written by Holland Cotter, the review was accompanied by one of Smith's photographs.  The review can be seen here.  New Yorker magazine, in its August 2 issue, also carried a brief comment on the exhibition in its Goings On About Town section.  That report can be seen here.

An exhibition of paintings by gallery artist Karin Batten is scheduled to be presented at the Napa Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic, from October 6 to November 3, 2010. Entitled "Together," the one -person exhibition will include seascapes and cityscapes. Batten is originally from the Czech Republic.

Gallery artists Nola Zirin and Victor Kord are among some 50 American abstract artists whose paintings are in a traveling exhibition that opened in mid-June at the Aragonese Castle in Otranto, at the southeastern tip of the Italian peninsula, and is scheduled to be shown in Berlin and London.  The exhibition was organized by Marthe Keller, who teaches art at Hunter College in New York.  She is also the director of the summer arts residency program in Otranto, which is sponsored by the BAU Institute of New York and Otranto. Don Voisine, president of the New York-based American Abstract Artists association, curated the exhibition.

The widely read internet blog Huffington Post carried a lengthy illustrated report on the exhibition of paintings by Julio Valdez at the June Kelly Gallery and the opening reception.  Written by Jim Luce, regular contributor to the blog, he said the paintings "were more spectacular than I had expected.  Perhaps their large size added to the awe."  Luce's report can be found here.

Gallery artist Stan Brodsky has published a book of his recollections as a 19-year-old G.I. in Europe during World War II, including pen and ink drawings and watercolors that he used to embellish letters to his family.  He tells of his discovery of a set of watercolors in an abandoned home in Alsace that he says got him started on his very successful art career.  The New York Times carried a brief report on the book on April 29, 2010.  That report can be found here.

Gallery artist Kay WalkingStick has been selected to participate in a major PBS-TV series entitled "Art Through Time: A Global View," which is scheduled to air starting in September.  The 13-part series examines themes that connect works of art created throughout the world in different eras and reflecting diverse cultural perspectives on shared human experiences.  Each episode features a living artist and other experts discussing the theme of that segment; in WalkingStick's episode, the 10th, the theme is "The Natural World."  Other artists in WalkingStick's segment include Jacob Isaacksz, van Ruisdael, Albert Bierstadt, Eadweard Muybridge, Robert Smithson and Utagawa Hiroshige.  WalkingStick's painting Wallowa Mountains Memory is illustrated on the program.

Gallery artist LeRoy Henderson is prominently mentioned in a review of an exhibition of photographs at the Bronx Museum of the Arts by David Gonzalez on the Lens blog of The New York Times.  The exhibition, entitled "Road to Freedom: Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968," captures "the unforgettable moments and forgotten heroes of the struggle for equal rights," Gonzalez writes, and led to a very personal decision for Henderson.  The exhibition was organized by the High Museum in Atlanta and contains two photographs by Henderson.  The Bronx Museum is the exhibition's final stop on its five-city tour.  It will be on view in the Bronx through August 11.  Click here for the review.

Gallery artist Moe Brooker has won the 2010 Artist's Equity Award for his artistic and educational achievements over more than 35 years.  The award is presented each year by the Philadelphia/Tri State Artist's Equity Association.  Brooker has taught at schools and universities throughout the United States and in China, and his paintings are included in the collections of The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, The Cleveland Museum of Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

The exhibition by artist Nola Zirin at the gallery in December is the subject of a highly positive review by Cynthia Nadelman in the March issue of ARTnews.  Nadelman writes that "Zirin's works on canvas and paper often evoke the sculptures of such powerful antecedents as Lee Bontecou and Louise Nevelson."  The review can be seen here.

A painting by gallery artist Karin Batten has been chosen for the permanent collection of the projected National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center site.  The piece, St. Paul's Chapel, 2002, is an oilstick on paper mounted on canvas measuring 60 by 36 inches.  Batten's studio was on 91st floor of the North Tower.  The painting was also used in a new feature film, "Clear Blue Tuesday," about the 9/11 attacks.

Gallery artist LeRoy Henderson is included in a new book, 100 New York Photographers by Cynthia Dantzic, a compendium of significant New York photographers who have made important professional contributions over the past 70 years.  Other photographers represented in the book include Annie Liebovitz, Mary Ellen Mark, Carrie Mae Weems, Joel Meyerowitz, Amy Arbus, Bruce Davidson and Hugh Bell.  The book was published in September by Schiffer Publishing.

Gallery artist James Little has been awarded a prestigious grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, one of a few contemporary artists to receive this year's award and its $25,000 prize. The award is granted annually to acknowledge painters and sculptors nationwide who create work deemed to be of exceptional quality. Little 's latest paintings were shown at the gallery in the spring of 2009. The Joan Mitchell Foundation was established in 1993 to fulfill Mitchell 's desire to assist contemporary artists and to demonstrate that painting and sculpture are significant cultural necessities.

Gallery artist Philemona Williamson has two paintings in a traveling exhibition, “A Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art,” that has been organized by the Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts. The exhibition, which opened in 2009, will travel nationally until 2012. It was co-curated by Dr. Martin Rosenberg of Rutgers University and Dr. J. Susan Isaacs of Towson State University.

A photo feature in The New York Times highlighted the Ralph Ellison Memorial, a 15-foot-tall bronze sculpture designed by gallery artist Elizabeth Catlett. The sculpture is located in a park at Riverside Drive and 150th Street, near where the novelist lived for many years. Click here to see article and photo.

Gallery artist James Little has received significant critical notice for his exhibition of paintings at the June Kelly Gallery.  The New York Times critic Holland Cotter likened Little's eye for "choosing, mixing and gradating color" and his application of paint with that of Mondrian.  The review is here.  Artist Joanne Mattera writes positively and insightfully about Little's exhibition on her blog, which also carries color pictures of his work on the gallery walls.  Her report can be found here.  The June issue of New Criterion praises Little's new work in an article that surveys "the excellent optical painters" at work today.  Here is a link to that article.

And in the October issue of ARTnews, critic Kiki Turner describes Little's work as a "tightly crafted, thoughtful show." (Read review)

Brooklyn Rail carries a lengthy Q & A with James Little in its May issue in which he discusses in detail his approach to his art and his painstaking technique.  The article can be found here.

A 166-page, coffee-table monograph, Julio Valdez, has been published by FTC Group, New York, with color plates, a foreword by Guillermo D.  Clamens, introduction by gallery artist Julio Valdez and an essay by Federica Palomero.  For more information on the Julio Valdez book, please click http://www.latinamericanmasters.com/english/publications.html

Gallery artist Claudia DeMonte is the subject of a 112-page monograph entitled Claudia DeMonte, with a foreword by Agnes Gund and an essay by Eleanor Heartney.  The book, the first retrospective look at DeMonte's career and published by Pomegranate, contains approximately 120 color and black and white reproductions of her work.  Autographed copies of the book are available at the gallery for $30.00 each plus shipping and handling. See cover here.

Gallery artist Su-Li Hung has created a 138-page book entitled Hama San that highlights significant events in the area of Taiwan where she grew up.  Hung has written four short stories and three essays and illustrated them with woodcuts and pencil drawings.  The book has been published in Chinese by Chung-Hwi Publishing Company, Kaohsing City, Taiwan.  The cover of the book can be seen here.

A book of poems and woodcuts by Su-Li Hung has also been published in Taiwan. Entitled "Trees of Takao," the book contains 66 poems that are illustrated by 55 color woodcuts. Eleven of the poems have been translated into English by Tommy McClellan. (Click here to see one of her woodcuts, “Palm Leaf.”)

A number of large public murals that were created by gallery artist Karin Batten or on which she was a collaborator are among those highlighted in a new book, On the Wall: Four Decades of Community Murals in New York City, by Janet Braun-Reinitz and Jane Weissman and just published by the University Press of Mississippi in Jackson.

Il Bollettino, the newsletter of the Calandra Italian American Institute at Queens College, highlights the work of gallery artist Claudia DeMonte in an illustrated article in the winter issue. (Click here to see article.)  DeMonte says her work "is heavily influenced by my Italian Catholic background and my interest in folk art."

Herbert Vogel, a retired postal clerk, and his wife Dorothy, a former librarian, who devoted all of their spare time and money to collecting art, have donated 2,500 paintings, drawings and sculptures to 50 museums throughout the country. Included are 12 pieces by Claudia DeMonte.  The Vogels have given DeMonte’s work to the Speed Museum, Louisville, KY; Honolulu Academy of the Arts; Portland Art Museum in Maine; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor; Frederick Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson; Academy of the Arts, Easton, MD; St. Louis Art Museum; Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Las Vegas Museum of Art, and Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH.

A full-page illustration of one of DeMonte's works is included in a new book, "The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States." The book was published by the NEA and the National Gallery of Art and is available as an exhibition catalogue at each of the participating museums.

A multiple hand-made print by Lisa Mackie is among a group of prints that has been given to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London by a benefactor of the Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers University. Mackie's print, The First Thaw in Ludlow, was created on hand-made paper in 1987 at the Dieu Donné Papermill in New York City and was in the Rutgers Museum's collection of Prints and Drawings.

Philemona Williamson has completed Seasons, a large public artwork consisting of 18 colorful, painterly fused-glass panels underwritten by the MTA and installed at the Livonia Avenue Station of the L line in Brooklyn. The glassworks highlight shared experiences of the changing seasons. Williamson strove to capture expressions of timelessness and bring light and peace to the station environment, inspiring commuters with thoughts and memories of internal destinations and the potential of each new day.  To see Williamson's entire installation, click here.


Glass panels created by Philemona Williamson for the Livonia Avenue subway station in Brooklyn.

Broadside Print Projects, an organization that supports projects involving artists and poets and writers, has brought together artist Nola Zirin and former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky to create a special portfolio based on Zirin’s paintings and a poem by Pinsky.

A 138-page, hard-cover monograph, Mark Alsterlind: Perspectives has just been published by Lucie Éditions, with color plates, an introduction by Yannick Breton, an essay by Jean Golzink and a Q-and-A interview of Alsterlind by Pierre Manuel.

 

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166 MERCER STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10012/212-226-1660
(Between Houston and Prince Streets)
Gallery Hours during July: Monday to Friday, 11 am to 6 pm
The June Kelly Gallery is closed during the month of August, except by appointment.

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