o An increasing number of galleries are turning to semi-scholarly shows and Salander-O’Reilly Galleries is a leader in this area. This month the gallery presents an exhibition on the influence of Venetian painting on Rembrandt. They have assembled a ravishing Veronese, several Titians and four Tintorettos along with a number of Rembrandts, with loans from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Nelson-Atkins as well as institutions in San Francisco and Philadelphia.
o The work of Richard Pousette Dart (1916-92) is at Knoedler & Company. He will also be the subject of a large museum show opening at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts in March next year, which will then travel to Frankfurt and Munich.
o Jack Kilgore & Co. are presenting their annual autumn exhibition of Netherlandish art of the Golden Age. Among the thirty pictures on view are a lush Cornelis de Heem flower painting and two botanical works by Jan Fyt. In addition to still-lifes, there are animal paintings by Adriaen Beeldmaker and a sensual mythological work of Callisto and Jupiter by Nicholaes Berchem.
o This month, Khalil Rizk’s Chinese Porcelain Company is featuring seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Chinese porcelain. Several of the examples were formerly in the collections of financier and noted Asian art collector John D. Rockefeller Jr and his son Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. Highlights of the exhibition include examples of blanc-de-chine and famille rose. Also on view are Kangxi porcelains favoured by the great turn-of-the-century collectors Morgan, Frick and Taft. Noteworthy is a rare Kangxi famille noire dish from the collection of Basil Ionides, the late Graeco-English designer and colour theorist.
o Weisbrod is presenting Eastern Zhou Dynasty and Han and Tang Dynasty vessels, along with a number of Qing Dynasty ceramics. Prices range from $11,000 to $160,000.
o The Corning Incorporated Gallery at Steuben is presenting the first public viewing of the original drawings and sketches by Thomas Hart Benton, Giorgio di Chirico, Jean Cocteau, Raoul Dufy and others. From 1937, Steuben commissioned these artists to create designs for engraving on blown glass.
o The first US retrospective devoted to architect Alessandro Mendini can be found this month at Rennie Johnson Art/Urban Architecture. On show are the two prototypes of his pointillist-decorated “Proust” chair of 1978 along with a number of drawings for his Groninger Museum in Holland.
o Mary Ryan Gallery presents an introduction to the avant-garde ex-patriates Ethel Mars (1876-1959) and Maud Squire (1873-1954), lifelong companions immortalised by Gertrude Stein in her short story, “Miss Furr and Miss Skeene”. Settling in Paris in 1906, the couple created everything from woodcuts and watercolours to hooked rugs.
o Caroline Wiseman is mounting the graphic work of David Hockney and Picasso. Included is Hockney’s amusing “Artist and model” from 1973 in which the artist sits opposite Picasso. The cost is $13,200. The Picasso etchings and lithographs date from the 1920s. Prices range from $1,200- to $60,000.
o Joseph Rickards is presenting prints by Niki de Saint Phalle. Many of the silkscreens come from her 1969-70, “Nana Power”, portfolio. These are prime examples of Saint Phalle’s earliest work in the colourful graphic medium that have come to define her style.