Gerda Wegener & La Belle Parisienne
December 19, 2015 - January 30, 2016
A Danish artist who gained recognition in Paris for her art deco fantasies, Gerda Wegener had many artworks published in such magazines as Fantasio, Vogue, and La Vie Parisienne during her lifetime. One of the figures often featured in her paintings and illustrations was her husband, Einar Wegener, who later went on to become a transgender woman with the first publicly recorded gender-reassignment surgery as Lili Elbe. Although Gerda's fame died with her, the artist's works and life's story is now receiving acknowledgement and popularity once more. Opening alongside the biopic of the artist in The Danish Girl and the Arken Museum of Modern Art's retrospective on Gerda Wegener, Leonard Fox Ltd. is delighted to present their second exhibition of Gerda's artworks in Gerda Wegener & La Belle Parisienne.
Art to the Avenue
May 7, 2015 - May 29, 2015
"Art to the Avenue, the Greenwich Arts Council's annual spring celebration, turns downtown Greenwich into a strolling art gallery which brings works of art to store windows throughout the month of May."
Leonard Fox, Ltd. is thrilled to be participating in the 2015 festival, and will be presenting the evocative and vibrant figurative collages from local artist, Ellen Gordon.
Sirooni in Context
December 1, 2008
Leonard Fox, Ltd. is pleased to announce Sirooni in Context, an exhibit of original designs in gouache from the New York design firm Sirooni, Inc.
Sirooni, like many design firms working in America and abroad, developed large selections of swatches for the design industry. Swatches were intended as a source of inspiration--to spark creative ideas for a variety of products including fabrics, garments, accessories, home furnishings and wallpapers. The Sirooni swatch designs--some 2 by 3 feet or larger--offer a full range of colors, patterns, themes, and provide insight into American culture of the 1920s to the 1950s. They can be linked to specific periods in history through their stylized shapes such as the linear, angular, and rounded forms as well as art deco repeats. Collected and commissioned by Sirooni, the swatches were painted throughout the first half of the 20th century, predominantly in New York and France. Most designs are the work of anonymous artists and illustrators, though some are signed. The artists identified most frequently are French: Thierry Studd, Gerspracher, Maerky, and Alfred Wonnenburger, all of Paris, and Latscha, Lerdung & Albisser of Mulhouse, a town famous for its mills and with a strong connection to Louisiana. These decorative designs are shown in Sirooni in Context alongside canonical examples of European design and fashion publications by such greats as Seguy, Delaunay, Poiret, Dufy and Garcelon, who clearly demonstrate their influence.
Another major influence was the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in 1925, which was followed by several exhibitions on European design in American museums. These exhibitions centered on the importance of art in everyday life through design of mass-produced goods. The American Museum of Natural History, MOMA, Brooklyn Museum, and the Newark Museum were all instrumental in opening their collections to designers to study and to use as a source of inspiration. M.D.C. Crawford, in his role as editor at Women's Wear, promoted the use of museum collections for design inspiration and encouraged designers to make use of Museum's ethnographic collections. The growing importance of industrial design, the impact of European modernism, and the influence of Americans museums has a direct impact on the design industry. This influence can be seen through the images in the Sirooni swatch collection.
Salvador Dali: Works on Paper
October 29, 2008
Salvador Dali: Works on Paper presents a retrospective of the master Surrealist Salvador Dali’s works on paper, notably his books and suites. The works in Salvador Dali: Works on Paper typify the various stages of Dali’s career, from his early “traditional” Surrealist style of the 1930’s, to the more expressionistic Surrealism that characterizes his later work of the 1960’s and 70’s. The exhibition includes Dali’s original woodcuts, lithographs and etchings from The Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, Tauromachie Surrealist, and The Hippies—just several highlights from this rich visual display.