art

Byron Dobell, one of the most respected and accomplished editors in New York magazine publishing history, is also a painter, and his seventh solo show, “Recent Works,” is currently on view at Chelsea’s First Street Gallery (526 West 26th Street). Mr. Dobell, who’s 80 (but doesn’t look a day over 65!), worked as an editor at many important magazines in the city, including Time, Esquire, New York and American Heritage, and edited writers like Tom Wolfe and David Halberstam before they were household names. But 17 years ago, Mr. Dobell left the media world to pursue a lifelong passion: portraiture painting. Over the years he’s painted many friends and colleagues, including New York magazine founder Clay Felker; Tim Forbes, chief operating officer of Forbes, Dominique Browning, editor in chief of late House & Garden, and feminist icon Betty Friedan (the Friedan piece now hangs in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery).

At his Recent Works’ opening last week, Mr. Dobell dressed in a sharp navy jacket, an eye-catching tie and round, thin-framed spectacles. The room was noisy and bustling with his friends, mostly graying folks from the magazine business, who braved the biting cold to make it to the party. They held their hands behind their backs and considered Mr. Dobell’s small, sketchy “Life Study” chalk drawings of his less famous models lounging, seemingly in mid-air. There are also serene landscapes inspired by his travels to Scotland, Rome and New Hampshire. In some paintings, little trees sway in front of fuzzy bushes swirled with strands of India ink.  read more »

Besides being Manhattan realty mavens, what do Michael Shvo, Louise Sunshine, and Dennis Mangone have in common? They've all fled New York this week for the well-tanned haven of Miami Beach, where Art Basel ("the most important art show in the United States, a cultural and social highlight for the Americas") began yesterday.

"My clients are collectors... They collect art, they collect Yachts, they collect condominiums, they collect lifestyle," said Mr. Mangone, a senior vice president at the Cororan Group. On the art fair's first day, Mr. Mangone met a European gallerist who's now interested in an apartment at 40 Bond, the hip new condo building developed by Ian Schrager.  read more »

In the current issue of New York, art critic Jerry Saltz reviews the new Urs Fischer exhibit at Gavin Brown's gallery in Greenwich Village.

The installation is described as "[a] 38-foot-by-30-foot crater, eight feet deep," which "extends almost to the walls of the gallery, surrounded by a fourteen-inch ledge of concrete floor."

It took 10 days to "build," as Mr. Saltz reported, costing the gallerist Mr. Brown roughly $250,000.

Wow!

"Heaven only knows what his landlord thought of it," quipped Mr. Saltz.

According to PropertyShark.com, the gallery building at 620 Greenwich Street is owned by Patrick La Frieda.

Sarah Jessica Parker, Marc Jacobs and Elizabeth Hurley all showed up to the Christie's auction last night, witnessing Andy Warhol's "Liz" painting sell for $23.5 million, according to The New York Times. The 40-inch-square painting, one from a series of 13, originally belonged to Hugh Grant, and will now be passed on to an anonymous bidder.  read more »