One of the noblest buildings on Manhattan’s Upper East Side is 903 ParkAvenue, which commands the northeast corner of the avenue at 79th Street. As it happens, this building makes two compelling claims upon your attention. First of all, it was completed exactly one century ago by Warren and Wetmore, who gave the world Grand Central Terminal a year earlier. It is thus about fifteen years older than most of the other, more typical buildings on Park Avenue, and this fact is expressed in a certain assertiveness in the cornice and the other details, a certain vigor in the volumes, that remind one more of the residential palaces of Central Park West than of those on Park, which tend, when all is said, to be simple boxes with a few ornaments slapped on.
“Autumn Lake” by Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900), 1875. Signed and dated J. F. Cropsey 1875 at lower right. Oil on canvas, 12½ x 20¼ inches. Courtesy of Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, NewYork, New York.
“Sunset Over the Shawangunks” by Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823-1880). Estate stamp on verso. Oil on canvas, 8½ x 14 15/16 inches. Courtesy of Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, New York, New York.
“Paradise Rock” by Régis François Gignoux (1816-1882). Signed “Gignoux” at lower left:. Oil on canvas, 12 x 18⅛ inches. Courtesy of Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, New York, New York.
“Red Rock, Arizona (Coconino Pines and Cliff, Arizona” by Thomas Moran (1837-1926), 1902. Monogrammed, inscribed, and dated “TMoran. N.A. / 1902” at lower left. Oil on canvas, 20 5/16 x 30¼ inches. Courtesy of Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, New York, New York.
“Boats Ashore at Sunset” by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902). Monogrammed ABierstadt at lower right. Oil on canvas, 13¼ x 23 11/16 inches. Courtesy of Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, New York, New York.
“After a Storm” by William Trost Richards (1833-1905) , 1899. Signed and dated Wm. T. Richards. 99. at lower left. Oil on canvas, 19¾ x 32¼ inches. Courtesy of Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, NewYork, New York.
“Coastal Twilight” by William Hart (1823-1894). Signed “Wm HART” at lower left. Oil on canvas, 9¾ x 17¼ inches. Courtesy of Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, New York, NewYork.
The building’s second point of interest is that much of its third floor–though unsuspected by most pedestrians at street level–is occupied by Questroyal Fine Art, which was founded nearly forty years ago, and is still being run, by Louis M. Salerno. Although Questroyal sells works of early twentieth-century modernism, it is best known for its holdings of nineteenth-century American art, especially the Hudson River school. Nearly seventy-five of these works (together with some loans) are now on view in a substantial exhibition, Through Eagles’ Eyes: Paintings of the Hudson River School, that would do credit to many a mid-sized American museum.
All the most eminent names in nineteenth-century American landscape painting are here, from Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand to George Inness, Worthington Whittredge, and Frederic Edwin Church. Also included are such worthy, if less renowned artists as William Hart and Régis François Gignoux. Among the more admirable works in the present show are Hart’s Coastal Twilight and Gignoux’s Paradise Rock, a pair of diminutive seascapes dominated by the rosy hues of the setting sun.
The visitor to this exhibition will be immediately impressed by the high level of quality that governs the selection of every last painting. Whether the work in question is imbued with some trace of early romanticism or reveals some of the luminist strains from later in the century, every work stands up to scrutiny as an act of artistic and curatorial intelligence. This fact proves, first, that there were many more landscapists of the first rank in nineteenth-century America than we tend to acknowledge today, and second, that Mr. Salerno and his eight colleagues at Questroyal have a real, and all too rare, taste and discernment in the selection of these works.
In conversation with Mr. Salerno, one is impressed by his commitment to these older artists. He is well aware that the art that delights him most, although it surely does not want for admirers, cannot claim, and does not seek, the kind of “edge” and trumped-up glamour that have come to dominate the market in contemporary art. The audience for his Hudson River school masters tends to be a little older than the investors in more recent art. His collectors are more apt to hold onto their paintings for generations and so to develop an emotional bond and a spiritual commitment to them that are far less likely to emerge, now or in the future, in connection to the current idols of the art market.
Questroyal Fine Art * questroyalfineart.com
