March 2013 | Sunday, March 24 thru Saturday, March 30

Modernism in Manhattan

$1,275 painter l $850/non-painter (tour only)

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE ART STUDENTS LEAGUE OF NEW YORK
Workshop Instructor: Frank O'Cain
Art Tour Guide: Charles Emerson

Our week in New York is focused on art!

Please arrive in Manhattan during the weekend of March 23/24 in order to get settled and ready for your intensive week ahead. (See the Accommodations page for our list of recommended hotels) Our group convenes on Sunday evening in a collector’s home for a convivial opportunity to view art, sip, nibble and get Charles Emerson’s perspective on our exciting week ahead.

 

Monday morning, our painting participants head to the venerable Art Students League for a daily abstract painting workshop with Frank O'Cain. (All non-participants get their mornings off to explore on their own.) The Art Students League, founded in 1875, has been a fixture in the American art scene for the past 136 years. The League's was created by students (including many women) who were unhappy with an antcipated gap in studio programming at the uptown National Academy of Design's School of Art. It continues to be led by its membership of students and alumni.

 

Located in a landmark-designated Beaux-Arts building on 57th Street, the school’s impressive register of instructors, lecturers and students include well-known historic and contemporary artists such as George Bellows, Thomas Hart Benton, Alexander Calder, Helen Frankenthaler, Georgia O'Keeffe, Barnett Newman, Norman Rockwell, Winslow Homer, Man Ray, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Louise Nevelson, Reginald Marsh, Romare Bearden, Red Grooms, Donald Judd, Roy Lichtenstein, Mark Rothko, Ben Shahn and Cy Twombly. A reception with painter and League Director, Ira Goldberg, is also planned in the Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery during the week.

 

For our workshop painters, your abstract painting workshop runs from 8:45am to 12:30pm each weekday. Your instructor, Frank O’Cain, is unusual in that he began his abstract career utilizing fifteenth-century techniques; in fact, his early paintings involved no fewer than a hundred separate glazes. Recently, O'Cain has been exploring a new approach to space in painting. As he says, "I am always wandering about in the unknown, asking myself questions, creating new problems, finding fresh possibilities." For this workshop, O'Cain teaches you the basic principles of pictorial structure to push your work toward a personal, abstract expression with a planned series of exercises in white, black and gray; in color; and in line, all with or without an object or model.

 

Your workshop instructor, Frank O’Cain studied at the Art Students League of New York for four years. His long professional career includes one-man shows at Purdue University, IN; the Miriam Perlman Gallery, Chicago and, Flint, MI.; Levitan Gallery, NY, Saginaw Art Museum, MI; Ella Sharp Museum of Art & History, MS.; Northern Illinois University; and the Theano Stahelin Kunstsalon, Zurich. He has participated in group shows at DD & B Gallery, NY; Gallery Korea, NY; and Gen Paul Gallery, Paris. O’Cain’s work is represented in the collections of the White Building, University of Michigan; the Midwest Museum of American Art, IN.; and in the Saginaw Art Museum. He has taught at Merrimack Valley of Music and Art in Manchester, New Hampshire, and at the Fairlawn Community Center in New Jersey.

 

Each afternoon during the week, your modernist painter/guide, Charles Emerson, leads you through New York's most important 20th century museums and galleries in Manhattan. Your art destinations include the new Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggenheim, modern classics at the Museum of Modern Art, Secessionist masterworks at the Neue Galerie, and any important temporary exhibits that would enlighten the theme of the week’s touring. Wednesday evening is reserved for a group dinner in a restaurant to be chosen for its hospitality, cuisine and proximity to your touring locale at the end of the day.

 

On Saturday, the last day of your tour, the group meets mid-morning at Grand Central Station for a scenic 80-minute train ride up the Hudson to the remarkable 21st century DIA-Beacon. We recommend lunch in the charming town of Beacon above the station, before strolling down to your cavernous and experientially-powerful destination - Dia:Beaon, which houses major works of art from the 1960s to the present in a factory building built in 1929 now considered a model of early twentieth century industrial architecture. In keeping with Dia’s history of artist-specific, site-related presentations, each gallery is designed for the works of a single artist such as Andy Warhol, Dan Flavin, Richard Serra, Michael Heizer, Agnes Martin, etc.

 

The group heads back to Grand Central before dinner where you can make your final farewells in the star-studded"Main Concourse, or stay a little longer for drinks with your new friends in the station balcony bar or in the renovated, upscale Campbell Apartment. Your tour itinerary is designed with both Friday and Saturday nights free so that you may have time for a musical, play, opera, ballet or symphonic concert in one of Manhattan's renowned performance halls.

Please book your flight out of New York no earlier than Sunday, March 31, 2013.




One Workshop & Tour $1,275





One Tour Only $850





One Workshop & Tour PLUS one Tour Only (two people) $2,125




Then make sure to download and complete the booking form and return to Margaretta Lantz, Tour Registrar at Gage Academy of Art.

Please contact Pamela Belyea by e-mail or phone (206-323-GAGE, ext. 13) with any questions about this tour.