One of the summer’s high points was a visit to the Frelinghuysen Morris House and Studio in Lenox, Massachusetts, a Bauhaus-inspired 1930s-40s time capsule preserving the bohemian upper-crust summer retreat of abstract painters, and wife and husband, Suzy Frelinghuysen and George L.K. Morris.

Kinney Freylinghuysen, the foundation’s director and Suzy’s nephew, guided us through the  house, filled with a dazzling array of artworks, personal artifacts and period furnishings by designers including Donald Deskey and Paul Frankl.

Later in the summer, I saw Kinney Freylinghuysen at Larry Salander’s sentencing. The dealer had robbed the estate of several million dollars.

To read more about Morris and Freylinghuysen, go here. Photos from my visit follow below.

Facade of white-washed 1930-1941 Bauhaus-inspired house and studio, with Morris mural. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Entrance hall with Morris' circa 1936 aluminum sculpture "Configuration," and Morris' circa 1941 mural. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Morris mural on staircase. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Living room with Morris marble bas-relief over fireplace with Morris fresco murals flanking fireplace, circa 1942. Leger drawing on left wall. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Close up of Morris living room mural, inset with reverse painted glass. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Frelinghuysen mural in dining room, circa 1942. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Frelinghuysen dining room fresco mural with pleated brass sheeting, circa 1942. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Picasso's "Dinard" oil on canvas, part of Foundation's collection. © Photo: Lindsay pollock

Kinney Frelinghuysen holding photo of his tirara-clad Aunt Suzy being presented at London's Court of St. James. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

In Morris' bedroom, the painter's own circa 1950 painting and tennis trophies. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

A 1933 Morris mural over the artist's bed, titled "The Battle of Indians." © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Corner of Morris' studio with two of his 1930s paintings on easel. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Artwork in Morris' studio, including, on left Juan Gris' 1917 "Still Life with Guitar," and Fernand Leger's 1920 "Composition." © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

View of Morris studio with Lachaise bust on first floor and David Smith sculpture on second floor. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Morris collage incorporating found images of Chinese pottery, circa 1930s. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

1936 Marble bust depicting Morris, by his friend Gaston Lachaise. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Morris' paints, brushes in his studio. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Circa 1938 David Smith sculpture, the first sale he made to a private collector. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Kinney Frelinghuysen standing in staircase with Morris mural. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Grounds of 64 acre Lenox estate of painters Morris and Frelinghuysen. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Forget about the measly soup can. Andy Warhol’s Pop aesthetic is being used to hawk bottles  of Dom Perignon in a promotional gambit done with the Warhol Foundation.

The champagne wizards commissioned the folks at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art & Design’s Design Lab to reinterpret its bottle with a Warholian twist.

Dom Perignon claims Andy was a big fan of their pricey bubbles and favored it as his beverage of choice at Studio 54.

The Warholesque bottles are vintage 2002 champagne, and will come in three hues – red, blue and yellow.

Each bottle is $150 and will be available for sale beginning October 15th at wine retailers nationwide.

Click here to watch a promo video.

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has named Christy MacLear, former executive director of the Philip Johnson Glass House, to head the late painter’s foundation. The appointment was confirmed by David White, the foundation’s vice-president.

[UPDATE: MacLear has been appointed executive director of the Rauschenberg Foundation. Christopher Rauschenberg, the artist's son, is the foundation's president and chairman.]

MacLear resigned her position at the Glass House earlier this week, according to sources. She oversaw the public launch of Johnson’s transparent New Canaan, Connecticut, architectural landmark in 2007. The Glass House is owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The 47-acre property, with 14 structures, is maintained with a $1.9 million annual budget.

MacLear’s prior work experience includes positions as manager of strategy for the Walt Disney Company’s project called Celebration and director of the Museum Campus project in Chicago.

Rauschenberg died in May 2008. His estate is represented by Gagosian Gallery. A fall exhibition is planned.

The foundation had assets of $15.9 million as of the fiscal year 2008-2009, according to tax filings.

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Abstract Expressionist painter Nicolas Carone died last Thursday at the age of 93.

Born June 4, 1917, in New York, Carone was raised in Hoboken, New Jersey. At age 10, he began commuting to New York for nightly art classes at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School, a small studio school in a church on St. Marks Place. His peers at the Da Vinci School included sculptors Isamu Noguchi, Peter Agostini and Conrad Marca-Relli.

Later Carone worked part-time as a model at the Art Students League, serving as the subject for artists such as William Zorach, Isabel Bishop and Rico Lebrun.

Following a stint in the army, he traveled to Italy where he received a Fulbright Fellowship and held his first ever exhibition in Rome in 1949.

Upon returning to New York, he worked for three years as assistant director of the new 58th street Stable Gallery, owed by Eleanor Ward. He exhibited with the Stable Gallery, and then Staempfli Gallery, until the early 1960s.

Carone was pals with Jackson Pollock, Hans Hoffman and Arshile Gorky. He considered Roberto Matta to be “one of the greatest influences” on his life and work.

He painted for over 70 years and also taught.  “For me, teaching is creative,” he said in a 1968 interview with Paul Cummings, conducted by the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art. (Read that interview here.)

Carone taught at New York’s Cooper Union, Columbia University, Yale University and became a founding member of the New York Studio School. In 1988, he established the International School of Art in Umbria, Italy, where he taught drawing, painting and sculpture classes.

Carone’s work is owned by the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

His visibility faltered during a forty year period when he ceased exhibiting, from 1962 and 2005. A 2008 exhibit at the Washburn Gallery, featuring recent work by the 90-year-old artist,  was described in a Brooklyn Rail review as “nothing short of miraculous.”

In 2009, Carone received the Lee Krasner Lifetime Achievement Award.

An exhibit of Carone’s rhythmic paintings from the 1950s, revealing a De Kooning influence, is on view at the Washburn Gallery in New York until July 30. UPDATE: Carone’s works on paper and sculpture are represented by the Lohin Geduld Gallery, who helped reintroduce Carone with a 2005 show.

Carone was predeceased by his first wife, Nell Mager, and second wife, Adele Bishop. He  is survived by three children: Christian Carone, Brooklyn, NY; Claude Carone, Claverack, NY; and David Hart, Fort Wayne, Indiana, as well as a sister and two brothers.

A memorial will be held in the fall.

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views, Contributor

Get out your timed tickets. Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917 has arrived at MoMA.

The show includes 110 works characterized by strong geometries and stripped of detail.  The show, the first to hone in on this particular period, is the product of a five-year effort by MoMA’s chief curator emeritus John Elderfield, and Stephanie d’Alessandro, the curator of modern art at the Art Institute of Chicago.

They began with a study of the Art Institute’s Cezanne-inspired Bathers by a River, which Matisse worked and re-worked off and on from 1909 to 1917.  Elderfield and d’Alessandro employed digital technologies, laser scanning and ultraviolet illumination to uncover Matisse’s process.  A video tracing Matisse’s steps in producing “Bathers,” and a bronze sculpture titled “Back,” is on display one of the galleries.

Matisse’s grandson, Paul, attended MoMA’s press conference held earlier today.

Elderfield made his remarks standing at a podium. He expounded on Matisse, noting the artist’s emphasis on process and the radical change in his works over time. He praised Matisse’s openness to the influence of a generation of younger artists and noted his espousal of John Keats’ philosophy of negative capability described by the scholarly Elderfield as “the capacity to accept the uncertain” and “live through instinct.”

In addition to the “Bathers,” there is a series of studies and versions of the sculpture, “Back,” as well as a group of Cubist-influenced portraiture. A group of prints Matisse sold during World War I to French collector Jacques Doucet in order earn money to send food rations to French soldiers is on display as well. Each print is inscribed with the phrase: “For the civil prisoners of Bohain-en-Vermandois.”

The show runs July 18 to October 11.

Henri Matisse "Blue Nude (Memory of Biskra)" 1907, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Cone Collection. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse/Artist Rights Society (ARS) New York

Henri Matisse "Portrait of Yvonne Landsberg," 1914, Louise and Walter Arnesberg Collection, 1950. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

New York’s bucolic Storm King Art Center’s newest resident is a twelve-ton, 28-foot tall steel and copper sculpture by Chinese artist Zhang Huan. The artist, along with Pace Gallery, donated the 2007 Three Legged Buddha in honor of the sculpture park’s fiftieth anniversary.

The work resembles a Buddha, eyes closed, mid-back bend. The piece was installed on a grassy field alongside Magdalena Abakanowicz’ Sarcophagi in Glass Houses.

Zhang is a well-known Chinese artist initially known for his endurance performance pieces and photography, recently dabbling in large-scale sculpture. Most of the new sculpture relates to Buddhist culture, inspired by a Tibetan trip.

His 2008 large-scale outdoor work Three Heads Six Arms, on display in a San Francisco park until 2011, also portrays a contorted Buddha.

At the June Art Basel a 32-foot cowhide sculpture sold to Japanese artist Takashi Murakami for $1.8 million, according to reports.

Storm King is located an hour north of Manhattan, in New York’s Hudson Valley.  The park’s collection dates from 1945.

The 500-acre museum contains works by American and European modernist and contemporary sculptors such as David Smith, Alexander Calder, Richard Serra, Alice Aycock and Robert Grosvenor.

Zhang’s Buddha joins a roster of international artists, which includes Tomio Miki, Nam June Paik, and Tomonori Toyofuku.

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views contributor

The Kiev based PinchukArtCentre announced today the nominees for the $100,000 Future Generation Art Prize 2010. The award is given to emerging artists up age 35 and provides support to further their career. It was established by the Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk’s foundation. The ArtCentre was founded in 2006.

After an open application procedure via the Internet, the  finalists were chosen by a seven-member selection committee. Those selected were among more than 6,000 applicants from 125 countries. The nominees represent 18 different countries and include 13 men and 8 women.

The shortlist for the Future Generation Art Prize 2010 includes:

Ziad Antar, 32 (Lebanon)
Fikret Atay, 34 (Turkey)
Fei Cao, 32 (China)
Keren Cytter, 32 (Israel)
Nathalie Djurberg, 32 (Sweden)
Simon Fujiwara, 27 (United Kingdom)
Nicholas Hlobo, 34 (South Africa)
Clemens Hollerer, 34 (Austria)
Runo Lagomarsino, 32 (Sweden)
Cinthia Marcelle, 35 (Brazil)
Gareth Moore, 35 (born in Canada)
Mircea Nicolae, 30 (Romania)
Ruben Ochoa, 35 (United States)
Wilfredo Prieto Garcia, 32 (Cuba)
Katerina Seda, 32 (Czech Republic)
Guido van der Werve, 33 (Netherlands)
Nico Vascellari, 33 (Italy)
Jorinde Voigt, 33 (Germany)
Artem Volokytin, 29 (Ukraine)
Emily Wardill, 32 (United Kingdom)
Hector Zamora, 35 (Mexico)

The exhibition of shortlisted artists will open at the PinchukArtCentre on October 29, 2010. The winner will be announced at the award ceremony on December 10, 2010 in Kiev.

There’s usually not much time during Art Basel to explore events beyond the convention center, but this year I managed to attend the annual brunch held at the Schaulager, a wondrous Herzog and de Meuron museum and art storage space (the architect team is based in Basel) where Matthew Barney ’s Prayer Sheet with the Wound and the Nail including Drawing Restraint was installed on the first two floors.

I took a few photos of the building’s exterior where a pair of giant screens broadcast Barney’s video. Visitors were even able to watch the video as they waited for the tram across the street, a sort of high-brow drive-in. For moving pictures, Vernissage TV has great footage, found here.

Crowds gather outside the Schaulager. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

A shot from the coat check into the bookstore. A guard prevented me from taking more interior shots. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Exterior Schaulager with Barney video on screen. Gladstone's Max Falkenstein on right. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Left to right: Andrea Rosen, unindentified man, Barbara Gladstone, Neville Wakefield, Rosalie Benitez. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Exterior Schaulager with Barney video on screen. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Curator Neville Wakefield at Schaulager Matthew Barney show. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Exterior Schaulager with Barney video on screen. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

That's me in the middle, taking a photo in a mirror at the Schaulager. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

London based art writer Ossian Ward at Barney brunch. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Exterior Schaulager with Barney video on screen. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Exterior Schaulager with Barney video on screen. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Exterior Schaulager with Barney video on screen. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Exterior Schaulager with Barney video on screen. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Last night at the New York Public Library, a jam-packed room of Warhol acolytes, disciples and aging Superstars assembled for a panel on the occasion of re-release of John Wilcock’s enticingly titled 1971 book, The Autobiography and Sex Life of Andy Warhol.

The rollicking panel was moderated by Factory Made author and Warhol buff Steven Watson, who chatted up members of Warhol’s inner circle about sex, drugs and even Andy’s preferred diet pills: Oberol.

The panel included the Ray-Ban wearing Factory actress Bibbe Hansen, the soft-spoken photographer and journalist Gretchen Berg, who kept referring to Warhol as “the zen master,” cussing actor Taylor Mead, Warhol’s former right-hand man Gerard Malanga, and journalist John Wilcock, who proceeded to videotape the proceedings from his seat on stage.

Though Wilcock admitted the book is not an autobiography and contains nothing about Andy Warhol’s sex life, the gang didn’t hesitate to share stories about their encounters with the seedy going-ons at the famous Factory.

Malanga reminisced about the “amphetamine sub-culture” and the so-called “dawn-patrol’s” stumble to their hangout at the former diner on the corner of Lafayette and Bond Streets.

Taylor Mead quipped about Warhol movies shot in a borrowed suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel, a locale so dull the troupe moved to a motel.   Mead proved he hasn’t lost his sass.  When the screen behind him showed the infamous shot of his tush, a still from the aptly named Factory film, Taylor Mead’s Ass – the spritely Mead waved to his derriere, declaring it “his Georgia O’Keeffe” moment. He later admitted Warhol “tried to made it with me. Not my type.”

For those who missed last night’s banter, the book’s editor, Christopher Trela, along with Gretchen Berg and John Wilcock will be signing books at the Gagosian shop on Madison Avenue tonight from 6:00-8:00pm.

Warhol panel at New York Public LIbrary. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Warhol panel at New York Public Library. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Veteran figurative painter Lester Frederick Johnson died on May 30th at the age of 91 of natural causes. He was a member of the second generation of the New York School and former chair of the art department at Yale University Graduate School of Art.

During a career that spanned over five decades, Johnson garnered an international reputation with over 100 one-man shows. His work belonging to the Smithsonian American Art Museum can be found here. A New York Times review of his 2004 show at James Goodman Gallery is here and a review of the same show in the Brooklyn Rail is here.

Johnson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1919 and attended the Minneapolis School of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. He moved to New York in 1947 where he shared studio space with artists Larry Rivers and Philip Pearlstein. He moved to Connecticut in 1964 with his wife Josephine Valenti. He taught at Yale University’s Graduate School of Art and was named chair of the art department in 1979. He retired from Yale in 1989.

Johnson’s work has been exhibited with the David Klein Gallery in Detroit and the James Goodman Gallery in New York City. He is survived by his wife of 61 years, his daughter Leslie Lowery, a son Anthony Johnson and four grandchildren. Johnson lived in Southampton, New York.