NEW YORK Nov 26 – The 2015 edition of MASTER DRAWINGS IN NEW YORK (www.masterdrawingsinnewyork.com) January 24 – January 31, promises to be the best ever. More than thirty of the world’s leading dealers are coming to New York City to offer for sale master art works in pencil, pen and ink, chalk and charcoal, as well as oil on paper sketches and watercolours, created by iconic artists working in the 16th to 21st centuries. Each exhibition is hosted by an expert specialist and many works on offer are newly discovered or have not been seen on the market in decades, if at all.
In addition, Margot Gordon and Crispian Riley-Smith, co-founders of MASTER DRAWINGS IN NEW YORK, are delighted to announce that John Marciari, the new head of the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, (www.themorgan.org) will provide the introduction for the 2015 MASTER DRAWINGS IN NEW YORK brochure. (See separate JOHN MARCIARI release attached) Highlights at the 2015 edition of MASTER DRAWINGS IN NEW YORK include….

• A major rediscovered masterpiece by Sir Joshua Reynolds, listed as missing since 1905, and a star attraction at the exhibition of London gallery LOWELL LIBSON LTD. “’Dionysius Aeropagites’ has only been known from an 18th century engraving,” according to Libson. It depicts Reynolds’ favorite model, a street mender from York, George White. The painting perfectly communicates Reynolds’s ambitions as a history painter shortly after the founding of the Royal Academy.” Painted in emulation of an Italian old master, the powerful head was published shortly after its completion and given the title identifying the sitter as a follower of St. Paul. Libson is also featuring works by William Blake, John Singleton Copley, Thomas Jones, Samuel Palmer, Simeon Solomon and a fascinating group of British portrait drawings of the 1830s and 1840s depicting Queen Victoria, Talleyrand, Chopin and Paganini. Plus Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington’s nieces and J.M.W. Turner’s Alpine tour watercolor, The Val d’Aosta. • Returning exhibitor DAVID TUNICK is showing a major gouache by Fernand Leger, Les Constructeurs of 1950, publicly shown only once before at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1971. The definitive study for the painting of the same subject in the Sonja Henie-Onstad Art Centre Museum in Oslo, it last was on the market in 1980. Tunick says, “We were very pleased that the executors of the estate handling the Leger chose to go with us instead of the auction route.”

• Gunther Gerzso’s “Surrealist Sketchbook” is among the star attractions at MARY-ANNE MARTIN FINE ART. The hardcover sketchbook is a work from the artist’s estate and has never before been exhibited. It includes 55 original drawings mostly done in the carbon transfer technique some with frottage and many augmented with pen, India ink and colored pencils. Some are experimental, reminiscent of Miro and Matta, others depict pre-Columbian clay fertility figures in Surrealist settings. Plus seven sketches related to well-known paintings from his Surrealist period, such as a portrait of Benjamin Peret. Martin also is showing a group of drawings by Frida Kahlo made between 1928-1946 including an academic study of a Greek Mask, two political drawings representing Kahlo’s “redesigns” of the Statue of Liberty, and a tender portrait of “Tonito” Frida’s nephew, Antonio Kahlo, drawn c1940.

• A small group of noteworthy David Cox watercolours MARTYN GREGORY is bringing to New York includes a very large one that is completely fresh to the market. Gregory says it is interesting as it is made on several sheets of the “Scotch” paper Cox used later in his career, which he had carefully pieced together to make a much larger sheet. It is a fascinating watercolour which shows Cox working on grand scale, mastering one of his favourite subjects: Betwys-y-Coed in North Wales. Gregory is also showing 18th and 19th century British watercolours including Richard Parkes Bonington’s The Ruins of Chateau d’Harcourt near Lillebonne, a pencil and watercolour dating to 1821-22 when Bonington made his first tour of Normandy, a 1793 watercolour by British artist William Alexander showing Chinese Barges of the first British embassy preparing to pass under a bridge, led in 1792-4 by Lord Macartney, and a highly detailed wash drawing, John Hood’s The East Indiaman Essex in three positions.

• First time exhibitor at MDNY, ERIC GILLIS FINE ART, is showing a top-quality selection of 19TH century French drawings including an outstanding Seurat work of 1881-82 that once belonged to Paul Signac, The Reader, and a very rare group of drawings from the finest late 19th century Belgian artists, including examples of symbolism and expressionism. Exceptional among these are works by Leon Spilliaert, such as Bird of Prey, and Henry van de Velde, whose Two Haymaker Women which will be among the highlights. • DALVA BROTHERS are also exhibiting at MDNY for the first time, showing a collection of small scale graphite drawings by William Trost Richards (1833-1905) depicting plant studies, rocky shorelines and pastoral scenes from the 1850s through the 1860s, among them views of Atlantic City and Maine.