Babcock Galleries Presents American Sculpture from Three Centuries

Written by Henry Tannenbaum Thursday, 03 May 2012 23:02

New York City.- Babcock Galleries are pleased to present "The American Hand - Sculpture from Three Centuries", on view at the gallery from February 2nd through March 16th. Masterpieces of American sculpture help commemorate Babcock Galleries’ historic 160th Anniversary celebration. This exhibition is carefully curated from the gallery's holdings and includes superb works by such notable masters as Hiram Powers, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, William Zorach, Seymour Lipton and Dorothy Dehner. "Stories that attend the art we encounter are often as vivid as the art itself," observes John Driscoll in his introduction to the exhibition's full-color catalogue.  The American Hand celebrates some of the greatest achievements of American sculptors and some of the great stories that accrue when works of art subsequently pass from hand to hand, collection to collection.

"A work of art has its own life through time, through various additional hands, through generations…when the artist's work is done, the life of the work of art begins....” Among the two dozen sculptures that compose this exhibition are Augustus Saint-Gauden's iconic 1899 "Diana of the Tower", which was originally modeled to stride atop Stanford White's new Madison Square Garden; Theodore Baur's poignant "The Buffalo Hunt", an 1876 commission for the United States Centennial Celebration; William Zorach's introspective female nude, "Young Woman", 1956 that Marilyn Monroe gave to her husband, Arthur Miller, as a Hanukkah gift; and the haunting Felix Weihs de Weldon "Bust of John F. Kennedy", commissioned by Mrs. Kennedy in the spring of 1963 a few months before his tragic assassination. Important works by William O'Donovan, Frederic Remington, Elihu Vedder, Paul Manship, Abe Ajay and Deborah Butterfield are among those featured.


From the Babcock Gallery’s earliest years it has been an important source for major works by America’s greatest masters. Highlights of Babcock Galleries’ history include the 1866 George Inness exhibition, which featured the monumental "Peace and Plenty" now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among the Inness paintings they have placed in recent years are "Sunset at Montclair" acquired by the Montclair Art Museum and "Sunburst", an exceptional masterwork acquired through Babcock Galleries by the Palmer Museum of Art. Babcock Galleries has handled many works by Winslow Homer, including the famous "The Gale" sold to the Worcester Art Museum in 1916 for a then record price of $30,000. The Gallery was also agent for the Estate of Thomas Eakins, placing significant paintings in major museums from New York to Honolulu. In recent years we have sold a number of significant Eakins works, including one of his largest paintings: "A Street Scene, Seville". For the past half century Babcock Galleries has also been the leading source for works by Marsden Hartley. More than fifty museums, including the National Gallery of Art, the National Museum of American Art, and the Huntington Museum and Library have acquired Babcock Hartleys. During the past few years the gallery has sold nearly twenty major Marsden Hartley paintings, including one of his most famous works, "Mountains of Stone, Dogtown", 1931, which was featured in both the National Gallery’s Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and his New York Galleries, and the Wadsworth Athenaeum’s retrospective exhibition Marsden Hartley.


For more than ten years Babcock Galleries has been the exclusive agent for the heirs of Edwin Dickinson. In that role they have sold more than one hundred works to important public and private collections nationwide. Similarly, as agent for the Estate of Charles Hawthorne, we have recently placed more than thirty works in collections. Today, Babcock Galleries remains a key source for important American art of all periods. In the past few years the gallery has sold many exceptional works including a life portrait of George Washington by Edward Savage; Charles Deas’ famous "Long Jakes", Randolph Rogers’ iconic "Nydia, the Blind Girl of Pompeii", a major luminist painting by Jervis McEntee; a classic Frederic Church American landscape; and Robert Duncanson’s amazing 1850 "View of Ashville, North Carolina". In recent years five museums have acquired six highly important Severin Roesen still life paintings from the gallery. We have sold important works by Fitz Hugh Lane, Asher B. Durand, William Sidney Mount, Sanford Gifford, and placed more than twenty-five works by John F. Kensett, including what is perhaps his finest Beacon Rock, Newport painting. Masters such as Ralph Blakelock, Winslow Homer, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Mary Cassatt, and Childe Hassam have figured in sales and exhibitions. We are particularly pleased to have sold some of the finest works that have entered the market place by George Luks, Ernest Lawson, Arthur B. Davies, John F. Carlson, Arthur Dove, Charles Demuth, Georgia O’Keeffe, Max Weber, Milton Avery, and Franz Kline. Our current inventory includes landmark works by John F. Kensett, Severin Roesen, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, Marsden Hartley, Charles Webster Hawthorne, Edwin Dickinson, George McNeil, Will Barnet, and Paul Wonner. Babcock Galleries’ long and distinguished tradition of connoisseurship and service assure the highest quality of important American art to their clientele, museums and private collectors alike. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://www.babcockgalleries.com

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