Rolph Scarlett Exhibit by Portico NY at Gregory James Gallery
Portico New York, Inc., a fine art firm with offices in Soho and Kent, CT, is presenting its second guest exhibit at Gregory James Gallery, “Rolph Scarlett, Geometrics, Landscapes & Drips.”
It follows a pop-up exhibit that opened with a reception in July in the gallery space devoted to more contemporary works.
See All the Works in the Exhibit
Rolph Scarlett (1889-1984) was a prolific painter, jeweler, and industrial designer, according to Portico New York. He was discovered by the Baroness Hilla von Rebay, the founding director of the Guggenheim Museum, through the museum’s innovative education program.
Rebay considered Scarlett to be her greatest discovery. The Guggenheim collected more than 60 examples of Scarlett’s art, and he worked for many years as a lecturer and docent promoting the museum’s collection of abstract painting.
Born in 1889 in Canada, and taught to paint by his grandmother, Scarlett learned how to evaluate precious stones at an early age, as well as designing and executing settings for them, through an apprenticeship in the family business of jewelry making. He came to New York in 1907 for further training in this craft.
Scarlett’s romance with Non-Objective art began in 1924 with the purchase of a box of pastels and a stack of paper. As he began to test the pastels on the white sheets, he became enamored with the purity and power of these chromatic marks. He lost track of time and eventually fell asleep. When he awoke the next morning, he found he had created completely abstract compositions. The artist entered the best of this work in a juried competition at the Toledo Museum of Art. After much debate, the jurors, who had never seen a completely abstract work of art before, awarded it first prize. The drawing was so controversial that people waited in line to see it.
When Rudolf Bauer emigrated to America in 1939, Scarlett was anxious to meet the artist whose work dominated the Guggenheim collection. Despite the language barrier the two artists developed a strong rapport, and Scarlett had an open invitation to visit Bauer at his villa on the beach in Deal, N.J. In the Early 1940s Scarlett regularly visited Bauer with a portfolio of preparatory drawings which Bauer would critique. These drawings would then be translated into large scale paintings many of which were purchased by Rebay for the Guggenheim.
About Portico New York, Inc.
A fine art firm headed by Lowy, Portico New York specializes in “The Art of Tomorrow” – 20th Century modernist paintings and drawings, with an emphasis on artists represented in the “Founding Collection” of the Guggenheim Museum.
Founded in 1981, Portico has established a reputation for identifying under-recognized non-objective art of superior quality and historical value, bringing it to the attention of both institutions and private collectors, and building a market for these works in the process.
Lowy has curated and published catalogue essays for numerous museum and gallery exhibitions and consulted for such venerable institutions as the S.R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Villa Stuck in Munich.
About Gregory James Gallery
Gregory James Gallery is a fine art framing shop and gallery whose core artists include some of the finest landscape painters in the Northeast, such as Thomas Adkins, Jim Laurino, and James Coe.
The gallery has an extensive collection of original, hand-signed linoleum block prints and watercolors by the late New York and New Milford artist Woldemar Neufeld – as well as a collection of non-representational works by such artists as Ralph Della-Volpe, Ralph Ferrucci, and Ira Barkoff.
Located at 149 Park Lane Road (Rt. 202) in New Milford, the gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. The phone number is 860-354-3436, the email is GregoryJamesG@aol.com, and the website is gregoryjamesgallery.com.