Long Island's winter art scene

With the cold and snow upon us, shake off those winter doldrums and warm the soul by checking out some of the many art offerings in the area. Local museums and libraries offer a wide range of exhibits. Here’s a sampling.

Milton Avery at Nassau County Museum of Art
Nassau County Museum of Art’s winter exhibit, “Milton Avery & the End of Modernism,” opening Saturday, looks at work by the artist who brought the sketch – with its spontaneity, movement and fleetingness – to the status of a finished painting.

“I try to construct a picture in which shapes, spaces, colors, form a set of unique relationships, independent of any subject matter, Avery has said. “At the same time I try to capture and translate the excitement and emotion aroused in me by the impact with the original idea.”
This exhibition features Avery’s intense saturated color fields, the simplification of form, and figures that emphasize the flatness of canvas surface. It is curated for NCMA by the museum’s new director Karl E. Willers, Ph.D., organized by the Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase College, State University of New York. For presentation at NCMA, the exhibition was expanded as Milton Avery & the End of Modernism, and examines the contributions of Milton Avery as a significant figurative painter from the late 1920s through the early 1960s.
The exhibit takes a concerted look at the development of Avery’s signature paintings from his idiosyncratic drawing style that captures the essence of a person, place or time. According to Dr. Willers, this places Avery’s work within a long history of modernist practice that recognizes the artist’s sketch as a “final, complete and a self-sufficient work of art.”
Within the emergence of his avant-garde style, Dr. Willers explained, Avery can be seen as one of the preeminent American painters of his time, exerting great influence among both his contemporaries and subsequent generations of artists.
Further assessing Avery’s place in American art history, Patterson Sims wrote in an essay for the Whitney Museum of American Art: “Early in Avery’s career, when Social Realism and American Scene painting were the prevailing artistic styles, the semi-abstract tendencies in his work were viewed by many as too radical. In the 1950s, a period dominated by Abstract Expressionism, he was overlooked by critics because of his adherence to recognizable subject matter. Nevertheless, his work, with its emphasis on color, was important to many younger artists, particularly to Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, Helen Frankenthaler, and other Color Field painters.”
As always, in conjunction with the exhibit, which runs through May 8, the museum presents related programming to add to the viewing experience. Two Tea & Tour events featuring exclusive docent-led exhibition tours with introductions by Dr. Willers, will be held on March 2 and April 6; also an illustrated talk by art historian Charles A. Riley II, Ph.D, is presented on April 3; as well as a series of three lectures on Milton Avery by Dr. Willers, on Feb. 13, March 13 and April 17.

Identity Crisis at Heckscher Museum of Art
The Heckscher’s newest exhibition “Identity Crisis: Authenticity, Attribution and Appropriation,” explores issues relating to the artistic use of other artists’ styles and images in historical and contemporary works.
Historically popular artists had followers, imitators and forgers, while more recent artists openly adopt well-known images and styles to comment on originality, authorship and culture. This exhibition presents old master and nineteenth-century works from The Heckscher Museum Permanent Collection, providing a framework for connoisseurship issues, such as authenticity and attribution. Some artists to be considered, such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and George Inness, have often been copied and faked, while the attribution of other works has changed with new
scholarship.
Contemporary artists add a new dimension to the use of adopted images, as seen in the work of such artists as Mike Bidlo, David Bierk, George Deem, Audrey Flack, Kathleen Gilje, Paul Giovanopoulos, Deborah Kass, Jiri Kolar, Sherrie Levine, Carlo Mariani, Yasumasa Morimura, Vik Muniz, Richard Pettibone, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and others, providing an instructive and stimulating counterpoint to the issues raised by the historical works in the show.
The exhibit can be viewed through March 27.

A glimpse of 75 years at Hofstra University
Hofstra University continues its 75th anniversary celebration with the concluding weeks of its commemorative exhibit, “75 Stories for 75 Years,” which presents a look at the university’s past. Curated by Assistant Dean of Special Collections and Hofstra University Archivist Geri Solomon, the exhibit focuses on the history of the university and highlights 75 stories from the university’s past. This exhibit, which remains on view through Feb. 4, tells the stories of William and Kate Hofstra, the university presidents, and Hofstra students, faculty and staff through the use of photographs, original documents, memorabilia, and objects.
The pictures and artifacts tell the stories of the university’s illustrious alumni, who include a movie producer, actors, sports stars, and political notables, among others. Some of the stories highlighted in the exhibit are of Olive Plunkett ’39, the first editor of Hofstra University’s yearbook, Nexus; Hofstra University Board Member, William Shea, whom Shea Stadium was named for; singer-songwriter Eleanor Greenwich ’62 and past Hofstra University campus architect, Aymar Embury II.
“As a proud Hofstra alumna, it is particularly exciting to mount this exhibition which brings the rich and textured history  of the University to life for others,” Hofstra University Museum Executive Director Beth E. Levinthal said. “This exhibit is filled with memorable moments that take us on an historic journey through the evolution of the University paying tribute to those who have left their indelible mark.”

Long Island Center of Photography connects to the community
“Community” is the subject of the Long Island Center of Photography’s latest exhibit, which can be seen at Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library. The group show is based on the definition of “community,” around which members were asked to submit photographs based on that theme.
“By definition,” according to the LICP, “ ‘Community’ could mean a geographic location such as a person’s neighborhood or it could be a group of people with a shared emotional connection be it ethnic, religious or social.” Stemming from different points of view, the exhibit itself is an example of what has come out of the organization’s own photographic community.
In keeping with the theme of the exhibit, LICP reached out to G.W. Hewlett High School students, with a special invitation to join LICP members in showing their photographic work alongside the group’s images. “We hope to bring in a larger audience that will experience the appreciation and love of photography that these two groups already share,” the Long Island Center of Photography explained in its exhibit statement.

Worth A Look

Nassau County Museum of Art
One Museum Drive (off Northern Boulevard, Route 25A), Roslyn Harbor.
Hours: Tuesday through Sunday., 11 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Docent-led tours of the main gallery exhibitions are offered each day at 2 p.m. On Sunday afternoons, the museum offers supervised art activities for children and their families and family tours of the exhibitions. Exhibition tours and Family Sundays are free with museum admission.

Heckscher Museum of Art
Main St. and Prime Ave., Huntington. (631) 351-3250 or www.heckscher.org.
Hours: Wednesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Hofstra University’s David Filderman Gallery
9th floor, Joan and Donald E. Axinn Library, South Campus, Hempstead. (516) 463-5672 or www.hofstra.edu.museum.

Long Island Center of Photography Group Exhibit
Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library
1125 Broadway, Hewlett
(718) 343-6797