Nouveau to Modern

Allan Stone Gallery is pleased to present Nouveau to Modern: Transitions in Art and Design, January 16-March 2 (extended through March 16), 2013, part of an ongoing series of exhibitions investigating the late Allan Stone’s wide range of interests as a dealer and collector.

This exhibition gathers an array of works from the Allan Stone Collection, including decorative art, furniture, glass, painting sculpture and drawing, as well as African art, that together represent how changes in visual expression manifested from the late 1800s to 1945. Like the period of flux from which these works emanate, this exhibition allows the works to interact organically, evincing stylistic interconnections, formal influences and theoretical exchange.

Included are works by Alfred Boucher, Harry Bowden, Manierre Dawson, Willem de Kooning, Andre Derain, Arshile Gorky, John Graham, Franz Kline, Gaston Lachaise, Georges Lavroff, Elie Nadelman, Reuben Nakian, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, John Storrs, Van Dearing Perrine, and A. A. Weinman, with decorative works from the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements, Jean Besnard, Carlo Bugatti, Joan Busquets, Antoni Gaudi, Lalique, Loetz, Sevre and Louis Comfort Tiffany, as well as African sculpture from the Makonde, Mende, Nafana, Pende, and Songye.

Though he is most recognized for handling New York School artists such as Willem de Kooning and Joseph Cornell, Allan Stone had a covetous appetite for objects of formal vitality, visceral intrigue, unselfconscious conviction and personal vision. Combined with passionate connoisseurship, this appetite brought together the extraordinarily rich cross section of material from which this exhibition is drawn. In addition to reflecting the formal exchange that fueled Modernism, this exhibition alludes to how Allan Stone lived with and dealt with fine art, decorative art, and African art in a fluid flow, each informing the other, and each holding an equal place in his estimation.