A NEW MUSEUM OF OLD GEMS

PHOTO BY WILLIAM M. DOWD
(Double-click to enlarge image)

CANAJOHARIE — For more than 75 years, the attractive stone building on Erie Boulevard housed both the local library and a small portion of a stunning collection of American art.

The Canajoharie Library and Art Gallery was built in 1925 through funds contributed by Bartlet Arkell, the man who created the sprawling Beech-Nut food processing plant located right across the street as well as the art collection.

On Sunday, a new incarnation of the building was unveiled to the public — the spacious new two-story Arkell Museum at Canajoharie that is connected to the original library and holds Arkell’s huge collection of late-19th century and early-20th century embracing works by the likes of Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Gay, Childe Hassam, Thomas Hart Benton, Walter Lunt Palmer and the contemporary painter Walter Hartke.

This gritty little industrial village of 2,300 residents is an easy drive on the Thruway from the Capital Region. Use Exit 29, a $1.80 toll, and you’re at the museum in less than a minute. It will be the best $1.80 you’ve ever spent.

From the 1930 bronze sculpture “Humoresque” by Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (1880-1980) that dominates the exterior courtyard (seen above) facing the iconic Beech-Nut factory to grouping after grouping of oils, watercolors, sketches, advertising art and engravings, New York State’s newest museum is a joy.

For a look at a cross-section of the art on display, go here and click on the individual pieces of art.

AN ARTIST DRAWS TO AN END

Many years ago I worked for a newspaper in Binghamton, NY. It was a time when that upstate New York city was a place to be. The center of a vibrant manufacturing community that included sprawling facilities run by IBM, General Electric, GAF and Endicott Johnson.

It also was a time when the arts scene there was at its peak.

The leading local newspaper of the time had a wonderful collection of excellent writers, incisive reporters and strong photographers. Vibrant gallery showings, live theater and musical performances were available virtually every night of the week.

It also was a time when the creativity among local folks was finding a wider audience. The writer-producer Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone” was being embraced by millions fascinated by the strange tales it contained. Johnny Hart’s “B.C.” comic strip was gaining momentum after a few years on the market, and he and creative partner Brant Parker had created “Wizard of Id.”

Many of us at the newspaper who harbored ambitions of eventually having a broader audience for our work were both proud of Johnny and jealous of his seemingly easy success after he had gone “big time” following a few years working in the General Electric art department.

Johnny went on to international fame with his cast of prehistoric characters — both animal and human — who engaged in philosophical debates, their own brand of baseball, and a lot of star gazing. Among countless honors, he was given the prestigious Reuben Award for “Cartoonist of the Year” from the National Cartoonist Society, and an award from the International Congress of Comics. In recent years his religious views popped up in some of his cartoons, usually causing consternation for one group or another.

Johnny died Saturday at age 76 in his home studio in Nineveh, a tiny hamlet near Binghamton. He was 76.

The Binghamton scene I knew when he, too, was a young man died long ago. It suffered the same fate as many an upstate community — major manufacturing moved away, not enough jobs could be filled by other industries, Rod Serling died in 1975, the media big hitters of the era either died or retired, and the newspaper itself faded to a mere cookie-cutter publication owned by a mega-corporation.

All things do pass, and it’s easy to lament what has been lost. But, like his inspiration — the late Charles Schultz and his “Peanuts” comic, Johnny Hart did leave us with a treasure trove of comic art and commentary, something he was adding to when he died at his drawing board. For that we can be grateful, even if we feel a bit gloomy.

THE ART OF EVIL

Historic lore has it that would-be painter Adolf Hitler was so disappointed the top German art schools kept rejecting his applications that he decided to channel his creative energies into murder, mayhem and destruction.

However, much like so many painters whose artistic value — of the commercial, even if not the esthetic, variety — increases after their death, the madman’s work still commands interest.

Nineteen watercolors and two sketches purported to be by Hitler have been sold for US$223,000 at auction in a small town in southwest England by an auction firm that says the art was discovered in a Belgian farmhouse. Hitler was stationed in Belgium as a young soldier during World War I.

Not everyone is convinced the works actually are by Hitler and, besides, most top art houses have refrained from handling any work thought to be by him.

The question is, why would anyone want anything created by one of the great evil minds and mass murderers in human history? Curiosity value is one thing, but collecting such work borders on the macabre.

Better to pay attention to the better life forms, like the turning of the leaves we’re now seeing in various parts of the country. Autumn colors, pastoral scenes, the inevitability of life’s cyclical nature … Those are topics worthy of the hand of a true artist. And the heart of a true collector.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. VAN RIJN

Conventional wisdom says an artist needs to die to become universally revered.

In the case of Rembrandt van Rijn, that’s not true.

Yes, the Netherlands is marking the 400th anniversary of his birth with exhibitions of his work, the debut of “Rembrandt the Musical” and various other events in his birthplace, Leiden, and Amsterdam, where he later lived.

But he was one of the few master artists who was highly celebrated in his lifetime, when he won major commissions and lived large — until in his later years he went into bankruptcy and wound up being buried in a pauper’s grave.

Reminds me of rock stars of the present day. Except one wonders what they’re leaving behind that anyone will care about 400 years from now.

IF I HAD A HAMMER

The federal government probably gets tired of hearing that it is so inept it spends $50,000 for a hammer. An unidentified bidder has made that look like chump change by paying $3,500,000 for a hammer.

Well, not just any hammer. It’s actually a nearly-300-year-old Stradivarius known as “The Hammer.” It was the point of interest yesterday at Christie’s auction house in New York, where the winning bid for it topped the previous record for a Strad of $2,030,000 paid in 2003.

“The Hammer,” nicknamed for Christian Hammer, a 19th Century Swedish collector, had been privately owned but was loaned to several world-famous orchestras. It was made during Antonio Stardivari’s golden period of 1700-1720. He created more than 1,000 violins, violas and violincellos in his career.

$3.5 million. A fascinating figure. For a violin. Enough to make the Christie’s audience leap to its collective feet and applaud and cheer when the figure was reached.

By the way, if you Google “3.5 million” you are informed that Microsoft has committed $3.5 million to Indian Ocean tsunami relief, that 3.5 million Afghans are facing critical food shortages, a drought in Kenya is threatening the welfare of 3.5 million people … .

Just saying.

Kind of casts a pall of gloom over the giddiness.

IT’S IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

OK, what am I bid for this striking example of dark, brooding, quasi-murky photography? $5? $50? $500?

Try $2.9 million. Put another way, TWO MILLION, NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!! Ye gods.

The photo, called “The Pond-Moonlight,” was taken in Mamaroneck, NY, in 1904 by U.S. photography pioneer Edward Steichen. He began experimenting with color photography that year and was one of the first Americans to use the autochrome, a then-revolutionary method of producing color photographs.

It just fetched $2.9 million — that’s TWO MILLION, NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!! — at a Sotheby’s auction in New York, the highest price ever paid for a photo. But, and here’s the catch, it isn’t even the original. It is one of three copies. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has another copy in its collection, put this one up for sale. The buyer’s identify has not been made public.

There must be something about pricey photos that for some people is irresistible but for others would be a turnoff. In the case of the Steichen, it’s that there are three of them. In the case of the previously highest priced photo, a Richard Prince work that went for $1,248,000 last November, it’s that he didn’t even title it. Most people just call it “Cowboy.”

Encouraged by such profligacy (look it up, it’s good for you to know these things), I plan to go out on a moody, cloudy Thursday to see what sort of masterpieces I can conjure up with my cameras.