“Hartley Invitational” Exhibition

Salmagundi Art Club

[Image: Odd Nerdrum "Egg Snatchers" (nd) oil on canvas, 70 1/2 x 79 1/2 in © Odd Nerdrum, courtesy of Forum Gallery, New York, NY]

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A brand new exhibition for the Salmagundi Club, the Hartley Invitational. The exhibition and sale draws together eminent master artists in the field of contemporary realism, with numerous top artists exhibiting at Salmagundi for the first time.

The namesake of the exhibition, American artist Jonathan Scott Hartley (1845-1912), was a sculptor who created realistic marble and bronze sculptures, including monuments, relief carvings, and portrait busts. After studying at the Royal Academy in England, he traveled and continued his artistic development in Berlin, Paris, and Rome, eventually settling in New York City. Here, he established a group for fellow artists to gather together and sketch in his studio, which became known as the Salmagundi Sketch Club, and later the Salmagundi Club. The club has cultivated a community to support and foster representational artists ever since.

In Hartley’s honor, this exhibition highlights artists working within the realm of representational art, an often overlooked genre in today’s art world. Representational artwork depicts aspects of reality, with images clearly derived from real sources or have strong visual references to the real world. These works often present their subject matter in a more or less straightforward way, though, at times, they can be more symbolic or non-figurative in their nature.

Jacob Collins, Salmagundi’s President, notes, “I am honored and delighted that so many eminent contemporary realists are participating in the first annual Hartley Invitational. These artists, and the work they have contributed, are realizing our goal for the Hartley Invitational to become the state of the art exhibition for realism in our time.”

The artworks on view in this exhibition cover a wide range of subject matter. The mediums are also varied, with the inclusion of oil painting, watercolor, drawing, photographs, sculptures, and reliefs. This exhibition will feature the work of Odd Nerdrum, Egg Snatchers, a well-known living painter of realism. Figurative art is prominently displayed and artists have chosen to feature subjects from the present moment, such as Kamille Corry’s John in the Garden, and Brendan Johnston’s Arcus, self portraits by Kate Lehman, Echo, and Steven Levin, Self Portrait, portraits by David Leffel, The Actress, and Nelson Shanks, Dragonlady, as well as figure drawings from Michael Grimaldi, United, and Mario Robinson, Half Open. Artists are also looking to nature for inspiration, as seen in Edward Minoff’s paintings of crashing waves, Tony Curanaj’s Malachite, and Charles Weed’s Trees by the Sea, Evening, or referencing scenes or styles from antiquity, such as Emily Bedard’s relief, Angel of Abundance, and Anthony Baus’s Plaza Hotel. The viewer will also encounter still-lifes in David Baird’s Red Pears, and Jeffery T. Larson’s Hope, and allegorical imagery in Patricia Watwood’s Dance of Life and Death.