Grenning
Gallery’s Sculpture Showroom “Draws” In
Students
Joan Baum |
|
"Sailboats Sag Harbor" by Ben
Fenske |
Sag
Harbor - To judge from what’s going on in the
expanded studio space across from her Main Street
gallery, Laura Grenning has resolved with the new year
to ensure that the classical methods of the Old Masters
that have defined Grenning exhibits for the last ten
years have greater presence in Sag Harbor. Long
associated with the Florence Academy of Art, the
Grenning Gallery dedicates itself to promoting the work
of emerging artists who draw, paint and sculpt in an
academic style that traces its origins to Renaissance
schools of portraiture and landscape art, and through
these to the 19th Century academic masters, whose
ateliers in Italy and France applied and refined those
techniques, influencing, among others, John Singer
Sargent and William Merritt Chase.
Those Old
Master traditions applied to contemporary subject matter
have always been on display at Grenning by way of
exhibits featuring the work of artists who have studied
at the Florence Academy and also by the use of the
upstairs gallery as a studio where, on occasion, Academy
artists can be seen working on commissioned portraits.
With the opening of a new space on Washington Street,
Grenning has become, in effect, a Sag Harbor Fine Arts
Academy: a series of drawing workshops for beginners and
professionals has already been started. A Jan. 5-6
weekend intensive workshop led by Stephen Bauman, and
which may be repeated later on this year, as well as
Sunday evening drawing sessions, directed by Thomas J.
Shelford, are slated to begin Feb. 3.
Bauman’s
two-day intensive, “Introduction to Sight Size Drawing,”
demonstrated Florence Academy of Art techniques that aim
to “equip each student to reproduce nature in its truest
form,” whether portraiture, still life or nude models.
Drawing from plaster casts (strategically lit, stable
subjects) students were instructed in the Sight Size
Method, which relies on making “precise measurements
regarding the position of the subject.” The method is
emphasized by Daniel Graves, co-founder of the
Graves/Cecil Academy in Florence and differs somewhat
from the method advanced by Shelford, a proponent of the
“classical, progressive instruction of drawing and
painting” offered by NYC’s Grand Central Academy of Art
(GCA), founded by Jacob Collins.
"Condons Creek" by Marc
Delessi | Shelford, who
ran a December-January mini-series, exudes an intense
but amiable intellectualism, not to mention attractive
eclecticism reflecting years spent as an illustrator and
website designer. He explains that plaster casts are
typically used for introductory workshops because
participants need to concentrate on line, light, and
form without having to confront complications of surface
texture or color. Attracted by classical realism’s
dedication to skills and beauty based on an aesthetic of
balance, harmony, proportion and organic wholeness, and
turned off by previous generations’ obeisance to
abstract expressionism, pop art and a culture that
celebrates irony, alienation and self-reference,
Shelford found a sympathetic artistic home in GCA. He
also found surprising contemporary resonance - an
aesthetic based on “connectivity” - to the earth, to
history, and, by way of the Internet, to a vast number
of other human beings. The Sunday charcoal drawing
classes will use a classical method that moves from
“block-in [lines], massing in average [geometric and
tonal] values, and modeling conceptualized form and
[painterly] finish.” (Summary handouts provide detail).
Selected drawings from the earlier workshops will be
displayed for sale starting Jan. 19.
Across the
way, Grenning Gallery continues to exhibit what
commitment to the academic tradition can mean. There,
Marc Dalessio and Ben Fenske’s “Latest Works” show that
the Florence Academy is alive and well in Sag Harbor.
The artists, long-time colleagues and good friends,
worked both sides of the street this past fall, Main
Street that is, amazing passers-by with their talent and
speed. Some of the results are on view at Grenning in
both the upstairs and downstairs rooms. Though both
Fenske and Dalessio have had shows at Grenning before,
this one, their second together, gives evidence of
subtle mutual influence, though for sure their
distinctive styles remain, so much so that seeing their
work together on one floor means knowing who did what or
the other – no IDs needed.
Gallery visitors may
want to concentrate this time around on the local scenes
- Dalessio’s smooth-stroke en plein air paintings (more
compelling than his theatrically lit portrait and figure
works on display here) and Fenske’s looser depictions.
Dalessio’s “Congdons Creek, Shelter Island”, for
example, with its surprising but just-right slip of
off-center yellow-green sunlight that unites the
composition and his Italian field scenes with their
luminous, judiciously placed white flower dots that
nicely pull together a canvas of roads, hill and sky
accent his signature flat green trees.
Fenske’s
more impressionistic pieces – “Sailboat Sag Harbor”,
with its slim red slash on the horizon line that pulls
the eye to the less busy side of the canvas; the huge,
shimmering “Mashomack”, brush strokes of every width,
shape, texture patterning the trees; “Sag Harbor Main
Street”, sunlight sparkling like snow; and the striking
almost abstract “Self Portrait With Setting Sun”, with
its hot facial strokes of red and orange set against a
light blue sky - give only partial proof of Fenske’s
freer application of Academy rules - his domestic
interiors sold out.
Grenning Gallery is located at 90 Main Street, the
Sculpture Showroom at 17 Washington Street. Call
631-725-8479 to register for the classes. The Marc
Dalessio/Ben Fenske exhibit will remain on view through
the end of the month.
Joan Baum lives in Springs and covers literature
and the arts for print and radio.
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