Current Exhibitions

Palm Beach

André Hambourg

& L’École Normande

Findlay Galleries proudly presents an exhibition of new works by the renowned French post-impressionist André Hambourg. The exhibition also features works by important Normandy painters, from Camille Pissarro and Eugene Boudin, to more recent painters of the group, such as Gaston Sébire and Isabelle de Ganay.

During their lifetime, few artists attain the international acclaim that has been accorded to André Hambourg. His paintings hang in more than fifty museums, and his name is synonymous with the highest standards of French art. Hambourg is that rare creative talent, a complete artist. Apart from his oils, pastels, watercolors and drawings, he has developed an enviable reputation in lithography, engravings, ceramics, mural decorations and illustrations. Year after year, his one-man shows in Paris, Honfleur, Cagnes-sur-Mer, Brussels, London, North Africa and the United States added to his fame and stature in the art world.

For a more comprehensive text about André Hambourg and The School of Normandy painters, please click to view the online catalogue.

 


Henrik Simonsen

Recent Works | Palm Beach Exhibition

Findlay Galleries proudly presents an exhibition of new works from the Danish contemporary artist Henrik Simonsen. Simonsen continues his exploration of time, memory, and the human experience as understood through his unique lens and remarkable talent conveyed through his exploration of highly detailed and often vividly colored plants and trees.

Henrik’s work is executed entirely freehand. Although his work sometimes gives the appearance of stenciling, this is merely the result of a master draftsman who is as talented with a brush as with a pencil. Stencils would be stifling and deadening. For Simonsen, each work is an organic creation, a mystery unfolding, the end result a revelation even to the artist himself.

“Whether it is a thicket in the proximity of his childhood home or a patch of wild grass on a far-away continent, Henrik Simonsen finds the often overlooked and unremarkable fragments of nature and portrays it in all its splendour.” – Henrik Riis, Eyestorm, 2023


Belynda Henry

Harvesting the Valley

Belynda Henry

Belynda Henry was born in New South Wales, Australia, and studied sculpture and painting at Sydney College of the Arts. She first gained recognition as a leading landscape painter in Australia after being named a finalist for the Wynne Prize. Henry is now a multiple finalist of both the Wynne and Archibald Prizes, among other prestigious awards and more than 30 solo exhibitions. Her work has been shown alongside some of Australia’s most prominent and influential artists, including Fred Williams, Arthur Boyd, Jeffrey Smart, and Brett Whiteley. 

Henry lives and works deep within a long, lush valley with wild escarpments north of Sydney. Here, she is embedded in the landscape and exposed to its ways, witnessing the transitions of ever-changing light, texture, and soundscape. She absorbs all of this, along with her infinite fascination with the land, into her paintings. Henry’s works bring forth the internal meditative quality evoked by the landscape, illuminating these impressions in wondrous, imaginative paintings. 

Henry often sequesters herself for an intense period to bring together her rich body of fieldwork. In her paintings, she references the deep structure, shifting shapes and pure colors of the landscape through a meditative state rather than a literal one. Her process isn’t limited to painting – photographing the landscape, recording sounds, making small sketches, and painting on paper with watercolors, gouache and pastels are also part of her daily studio practice. After experiencing the landscape during daylight, she returns to her studio with sketches, notes, and an openness to imagery, allowing the works to form at night. Henry says her process allows her works to “imagine themselves, like a dream sequence,” taking us to the precipice of total abstraction yet masterfully holding the viewer with spare pieces of evidence caught within the work, innately fusing the classic and traditional techniques with the modern colors and textures that are her signature.

Henry’s work has been acquired by private collections in the United States, Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan, New Zealand, Ireland, Hong Kong, Greece, France, and England. Her work appeared in the acclaimed Thames & Hudson tome on Australian art, A Painted Landscape. Findlay Galleries is proud to present the works of contemporary Australian painter Belynda Henry and to welcome her to our stable of contemporary artists.


Exhibition Rooms


Charles Neal

The Spirit of Belvoir

The Spirit of Belvoir

Findlay Galleries is pleased to present The Spirit of Belvoir by contemporary British Impressionist Charles Neal at Findlay Galleries, Palm Beach. This exhibition of commissioned paintings reveals the profound beauty of Belvoir’s gardens and the long history embedded in the Castle’s regal interiors. Charles Neal once again impresses with his ability to synthesize history and nature. 

“Throughout the painting process for this collection, I have applied the appropriate visual language, with the desire to have a contemporary approach whilst simultaneously creating a visual poetry sympathetic to Belvoir’s history and ambience.” – Charles Neal.

Findlay Galleries and Charles Neal also proudly support the American Friends of Belvoir Castle Foundation, a US non-profit organization established by and for Americans with the mission to educate through the conservation, restoration, and management of the Belvoir Estate’s historic buildings, landscapes, and art collections.

“Once again, Neal’s role as an accomplished historical researcher of Great Britain’s major Manors, Palaces, and now Castle proudly places him as one of the most important Impressionist painters of the 20th Century…Charles’ devotion to the honest details of this commission allowed him to uniquely create compositions that are collaborations between actuality and alter-realism.” – James R. Borynack, CEO & Chairman, Findlay Galleries.

 

View the digital catalogue for in-depth accounts of the Castle’s history and studies of Charles Neal’s paintings of Belvoir Castle.

Digital Cataloguewww.findlaygalleries.com/spiritofbelvoir-catalogue

American Friends of Belvoir Castle –  www.americanfriendsofbelvoircastle.com

 

Charles Neal

Charles Neal was born in Surrey in 1951. At 14, he began his formal study of art under the guidance of Malcolm Domingo and Frances Lane-Mason. The following ten years of Neal’s life were spent with these two artists, but at 24, Neal decided to pursue his style and technique.

A few years later, Neal moved to the Cotswolds, where he immersed himself in nature. Thus, the flora and fauna around him would inspire his signature style. Neal is constantly thinking about the effects of time and the ever-changing nature of the world around us. Desiring to capture these specific moments in time, Neal began to paint seascapes and landscapes as a way to record the countryside and coastline before they changed beyond recognition. Seasonal change and the combinations of light and atmospheric effects at various times of the day all intrigued the young painter, challenging him to find innovative ways to portray the impact of time upon nature. The result is a style that blends realism and impressionism, closely focusing on light and shadow while utilizing precise subtleties in color.

As Neal’s confidence in his artistic style grew, so did his recognition in the art world. His work was sought after by collectors worldwide and has now been exhibited in galleries in New York, London, and Palm Beach. In 1994, when the Museum of Garden History hosted a show on Neal’s work, the Prince of Wales came to open the exhibition. Following this, Neal created a series of paintings of the English coastal landscape, displayed in an exhibition organized in conjunction with the National Trust as a part of a campaign to preserve the English coastline.

Following his success as a contemporary Impressionist, Neal was granted access to some of Europe’s finest estates and castles, providing him with the unique opportunity to paint some of the most private and elegant inner sanctums of European history, including the legendary gardens and landscapes surrounding them.


Simeon Braguin

1980 | Essex Harbor Series | 1990

During his long life that spanned every decade of the twentieth century, a Ukrainian immigrant became a photographer, a New York fashion illustrator, an American war hero, and a celebrated abstract painter. Simeon Braguin was possessed by a dual passion for sailing and painting. Quietly and privately, Braguin painted daily and produced a significant body of work in various mediums. Although he regularly exhibited at Yale Art School, he garnered much more critical acclaim posthumously than he did while alive. Today, Simeon Braguin’s works are highly regarded for their clever use of color, softness, and diversity of forms.

 After Braguin’s second solo show at Poindexter Gallery in New York in 1975, he began increasingly working with tinted colors, allowing them to take over his previously white backgrounds. He was reaching a new peak in the maturity of his style. From the early 1980s onwards, Braguin introduced smaller elements and linear patterns that complemented his carefully balanced geometric shapes. 

 This exhibition explores Braguin’s refreshing use of color and the strength of his compositions. He aimed for simplicity in design, allowing color to take center stage. The translucency of his color fields reveals his equal concern for detail and nuance, which he incorporated into the overall picture. He drew his inspiration from a deep personal well of experience and was aided in his pursuit of harmony by the beautiful environs of the Connecticut River near Essex Harbor.


One of a Kind – A Collection of Naïf Art

Group Exhibition

Findlay Galleries is proud to present One of a Kind, an exhibition featuring paintings by Camille Bombois, Orville Bulman, Henri Maïk, Ljubomir Milinkov and Gustavo Novoa at our Palm Beach gallery.

While the first Naïf painters made an appearance in the 1600’s, the work of Henri Rousseau in the late 1800’s strongly influenced a future generation of artists who desired a primitive freshness in their work. The unfettered creativity that came with being self-taught defined the Naïf painter. As modern living reached all continents in the 20th century, the art world developed an affinity for the sophisticated simplicity of Naïf paintings, contrasting the graying and troubled world outside.

Beginning in 1931 with an exhibition at his Chicago gallery, Wally Findlay was the first US art dealer dedicated to developing and representing European Naïf painters. Findlay Galleries’ first selection of works by Rousseau and Bombois eventually expanded to include contemporary artists such as Maïk, Ollivary, and Novoa. This new group used the Naïf style of painting to create art outside traditional realms; objects, landscapes, and creatures exist in an everlasting Eden. While different from their predecessors, they remained true to the craftsmanship, manifest sense of composition, expressive use of color, and solid foundation of design typical of Naïf painters. Findlay Galleries is delighted to share their creativity with you in this exhibition.


Isabelle de Ganay

Environs de Paris

Isabelle de Ganay was born in Rouen, France in 1960. Art and nature very quickly occupied a predominant place in her life. De Ganay discovered the same magic of the Normandy landscape that inspired the great artists of the French Schools of Impressionism, Rouen, and Normandy before her.

A naturally gifted painter, de Ganay was accepted into the famous l’École des Beaux-Arts de Rouen at the age of fifteen. This was a rare honor bestowed on someone so young, and she was quickly noticed by Albert Malet, the last impressionist painter of Rouen. A leader of the l’École de Rouen, Malet had been a student of Robert Antoine Pinchon and would become Isabelle’s mentor.

After graduating first in her class at the Académie Julian and l’École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, de Ganay returned to Rouen and began exhibiting throughout France. She was subsequently discovered by Wally Findlay Galleries, which began exhibiting her work in Chicago, New York, Palm Beach, East Hampton, and Beverly Hills.

The year 1986 was a turning point in the young career of de Ganay as well as in the leadership of the traditional l’École de Rouen. Albert Malet, who had always been aware of her gifts as a painter, designated de Ganay as his successor. Upon his death that year, she assumed his position and became Maître de l’École de Rouen, a position never held by a female artist.

L’École de Rouen was suddenly a school ahead of its time. From this point forward, a woman artist was now responsible for passing on the knowledge, technique, and practice of one of the oldest French schools of art. Thus, she followed the trailblazing steps of other female Impressionist artists like Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Marie Bracquemond, and Paule Gobillard.

“What I wish, above all, is to continue progressing. To be ever closer to nature and to better translate it onto canvas. One doesn’t impose oneself on a subject. It is futile to take up the brushes if you haven’t felt the emotional impact, which leads to creation. As for me, it is in nature that is born the irresistible desire to paint.” – Isabelle de Ganay

Like the previous masters, Isabelle de Ganay is a passionate disciple of plein air painting. The plein air practice created and championed by the Schools of Rouen and Normandy allows her to fully sense the changes in atmosphere and light, translating onto canvas the ephemeral moments of the changing landscape. Today, de Ganay continues to promote the Rouen tradition. The artist is often found alone or with her students, traveling the French countryside looking for the light to illuminate her canvases.

De Ganay has had numerous successful exhibitions worldwide. Her position as a member of the Société des Artistes Français and the presence of her works in prestigious collections across France and the rest of the world is affirmation of her continually expanding reputation as one of the most accomplished contemporary impressionists.

Findlay Galleries is honored to have represented Isabelle de Ganay exclusively for the past 27 years. We are proud to present a new collection of works by the uniquely talented and highly praised French artist.


Nicola Simbari

The Italian Palette Knife Master

In the United States Nicola Simbari’s work has become widely known through the frequent exhibitions presented by Wally Findlay Galleries.

He was born in San Lucido, a fishing village in Calabria, but when he was three years old his father moved the family to Rome, where he was employed as an architect and builder in the Vatican museums, and by the time he was seven he knew and loved the Michelangelo frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine frescoes are a monumental blend of architecture and painting, and during the fours years Simbari spent at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Rome, he studied both painting and architecture, excelling in the latter to such degree that he was made a member of the Accademia’s faculty in architecture. But painting was his real interest and soon he relinquished the post in order to concentrate on painting.

Simbari’s first one-man show of paintings was in Rome in 1953, and in that same year he won an award for best stage design for a musical, “Tarantella Napoletana,” produced in Rome. In 1954 the Italian State awarded him a gold medal for a poster entered in a national competition. Three years later, he had his first one-man show in London and in 1958 he won the coveted honor of being commissioned to paint the murals for the Italian Pavilion at the World’s Fair in Brussels.

Simbari gradually developed the style now recognized as Simbaresco, it is his own, and so is his technique in painting. He is meticulous and exacting in the choice of materials: he accepts only the finest canvas and prepares it with care; he has his colors ground by a family in northern Italy who have been engaged in this work for three hundred years; he mixes his own pigment. He is continuously developing new graduations of color or new colors and exults when he has succeeded in adding a more brilliant one to the range of his palette.  When he uses a brush, it is only to create the background of the painting, which is then completed with palette knives of which he has about twenty-five sizes ranging from very tiny ones to huge ones. There are no superfluities in his paintings. Nothing could be removed from what he calls “the explosion” or “the action” without destroying the total impact of the painting. Light; dramatic quality; brilliant color — the three combine to produce the style called Simbaresco. He defines himself as a figurative artist who went through Abstract Expressionism, Geometric Abstraction, and a number of other styles of painting, but who has always been and still is a figurative painter because his greatest interest is in people.

Since his first one-man show in Rome in 1953, many important private collectors both in Europe and America have acquired Simbari’s paintings. They form part of the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Liberty Company in London, and the Christian Dior Collection in France.


New York

Raoul Dufy & Jean Dufy

Works on Paper Exhibition

Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) and Jean Dufy (1888-1964) were French brothers who both made significant contributions to the world of art, each developing a distinctive style within the broader context of modern art movements.

The works selected for this exhibition include subjects ranging from bustling harbor and seaside views, to country scenes, still life works and interior compositions.  While the brothers ultimately had diverging styles, they shared a particular fondness for depicting the joyous aspects of life, and his works often exude a sense of celebration and light-heartedness.

Included in the exhibition is a complete set of Raoul (and an uncredited Jean) Dufy’s 10 panel lithograph based on their monumental La Fee Electricité executed for the 1937 World Exposition.  The work is a tribute to at least 100 of the great historical scientists and thinkers that ultimately led to the technological advancements of the early 20th Century.

Viewers will enjoy seeing the many aspects of the Dufy brothers’ careers and inspirations.  At Electricité, viewers will relish in their recognition of famed thinkers like Archimedes or Nikola Tesla and find joy in the discovery of people they’ve scarcely heard of.

La Fee Electricité

Works on Paper Series

Completed in 1937 and spanning a massive wall at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, Raoul Dufy’s “La Fée Electricité” is a monumental masterpiece depicting the history of electricity and a celebration of technological progress and modernity.

The sheer scale of “La Fée Electricité” is awe-inspiring, measuring over 600 square meters. Dufy collaborated with his brother Jean Dufy and a team of assistants to bring this ambitious vision to life. The mural’s exuberance captures the spirit of the era, embodying the optimism and excitement surrounding technological advancements in the early 20th century.  The mural unfolds like a visual narrative, featuring iconic figures such as scientists, inventors, and workers, all contributing to the harnessing of electric power. The juxtaposition of historical events with futuristic elements reflects Dufy’s optimism for the future and his fascination with the possibilities of electricity.

Today, “La Fée Electricité” stands as a testament to the Dufy’s artistic prowess and ability to translate complex themes into a visually stunning and accessible form. It remains a landmark in the history of public art, inviting viewers to contemplate the interplay between art, technology, and human progress.

In 1953 Mourlot published a set of 10 lithographs, reproducing just part of the monumental original, in an edition of 350.  Each print is 25” x 41”, and together, they stitch together an homage to over 100 notable figures in the history of science, spanning thousands of years.

Get in Touch

Contact your gallery to enquire about a work of art, for more information on the exhibition, or to schedule an appointment.


Tadashi Asoma

Solo Exhibition

Tadashi Asoma (1923–2017) was a distinguished Japanese-American artist renowned for serene compositions that are both Eastern and Western in design and palette. Born in Tokyo, Asoma’s early exposure to Japanese calligraphy and traditional painting techniques laid the foundation for his later exploration of Western abstract art.

In 1958, Asoma moved to Paris to study art at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Soon thereafter, he moved to New York and studied at the Art Students League.

Asoma’s oeuvre is characterized by a dynamic fusion of Eastern and Western artistic sensibilities. His paintings exhibit a masterful interplay of form and color, revealing a deeply emotive and spiritual dimension. His use of bold brushstrokes and vivid hues transcends mere abstraction, inviting viewers to engage with the visceral and intuitive aspects of his creations.

Asoma’s early and mid-career work reflects his interest in figurative compositions, while his later work focuses more on landscape. Living in Garrison, a small town outside New York City, Asoma was impressed by the area’s fall foliage when the trees turned vivid reds, oranges, and yellows. These striking Hudson River landscapes appear in some of Asoma’s most well-recognized paintings and attest to his skill as a master colorist.

Tadashi Asoma’s work is in prestigious private collections and museums worldwide, including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA; and Tokyo Central Museum, Tokyo, Japan.

Tadashi Asoma was represented by the Findlay Family of galleries for decades throughout his life, and we are pleased to continue to support his legacy.


Henrik Simonsen

Recent Works | New York Exhibition

Findlay Galleries presents an exhibition of new works from the Danish contemporary artist Henrik Simonsen. In this new body of work, Simonsen continues his exploration of time, memory, and the human experience as understood through his unique lens and remarkable talent conveyed through his exploration of highly detailed and often vividly colored plants and trees.

For Simonsen the visible process of creating is of great importance. He explains:

“What is very import to me when I work is the history of the piece. This is why I rarely attempt to erase anything completely on a canvas. I prefer to keep the drawing that I later abandoned, changed or worked over as a part of the finished piece. I feel this gives the painting a feel of having occupied a period in time because the layers allow the history of creation to be visible rather than reducing the piece to just an impenetrable surface.” – Henrik Simonsen

Henrik’s work is executed completely free hand.  Although his work sometimes gives the appearance of stenciling, this is merely the result of a master draftsman who is as talented with a brush as with a pencil.  Stencils would be stifling and deadening.  For Simonsen, each work is an organic creation, a mystery unfolding, the end result a revelation even to the artist himself.


Robert Natkin

New York Exhibition

Findlay Galleries is pleased to present a comprehensive exhibition of Robert Natkin paintings featuring important paintings from the artist’s most desirable periods.

Natkin created some of the most innovative color abstractions of the late 20th century. Populated by various formal elements including stripes, dots, grids, and free-floating forms, his light-filled canvases are sensuous, playful, and visually complex. Natkin was the subject of a major monograph written by British art critic Peter Fuller, who aptly described his paintings as a “veil on the infinite.”

Born in 1930, Natkin studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he found inspiration in the color and patterns of Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse and drew a lifelong interest in emotional content from Paul Klee’s oeuvre. Natkin moved to New York where his reputation was enhanced with his inclusion in Americans Under 35 at the Whitney Museum in 1960, the first of several museum exhibitions during his career. He enjoyed critical and commercial success for several decades and lived in Redding, Connecticut, with his wife and fellow artist, Judith Dolnick, until his death in 2010.

Over the course of his long career, Natkin was widely recognized for successfully achieving his stated goal of “making paintings that are more interesting tomorrow than they are today.” His paintings are in the collections of several prominent museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Guggenheim Museum (New York), and the Centre Pompidou (Paris).


Hard-edge & Dunbar

Hard-edge Paintings & Michael Dunbar Sculptures

Findlay Galleries is pleased to present an exhibition of Michael Dunbar sculptures and hard-edge paintings on view from September 5 to October 3. Dunbar’s small-scale bronze and steel sculptures, which reference clocks, compasses, and sextants, share an interest in mathematical relationships with hard-edge painters such as Ilya Bolotowsky, John Ferren, and Ward Jackson. 

Though backgrounds and philosophies may differ, craftsmanship, clean lines, geometry, and scale are the primary concerns of all artists in the exhibition. Ferren’s work from the 1960s reveal an interest in the concept of dynamic symmetry. This concern led him to explore the mathematical construction of space as it relates to squares and rectangles and concepts such as the catenary, a parabolic curve evidenced in works such as Royal Choice, 1969. 

Ward Jackson, by contrast, was inspired to move away from gestural painting by the work of Piet Mondrian and Josef Albers. Volume II, c. 1973 evinces the austere, hard-edge style Jackson began in the early 1960s and developed into his signature style. Like Jackson, Ilya Bolotowsky also looked hard at Mondrian’s neo-plastic paintings, initiating a purification of form and color evident in works such as Rhomb, Pale Yellow, Blue and White, 1976. In such works, the composition’s right angles and primary colors have no association with the natural world, exorcising all suggestions of illusionistic space and emphasizing the overall flat tension of the painting. 

Findlay Galleries invites you to explore the relationships and connections among this select group of artists at our New York Location.


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