Displaying items by tag: four seasons

A masterpiece unfolded on Sunday at the New-York Historical Society, and it wasn’t the Picasso.

In an hourslong operation of practiced precision, “Le Tricorne,” a stage curtain painted by the Spanish master, arrived in its new home, shepherded by a team of art handlers.

It was the end of a tortured ordeal over the fate of the work, which had resided at the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building only to be pushed out in a dispute between the landlord and the New York Landmarks Conservancy.

The New-York Historical Society is to unveil Pablo Picasso's iconic painted theater curtain, commissioned for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Le Tricorne, in 1919. The masterpiece is the largest work by the Spanish born artist in America. It was donated by the Landmarks Conservancy to the New-York Historical Society and after considerable conservation will be on view to the public, later this spring. The Le Tricorne curtain was installed as a tapestry for 55 years at the Four Seasons Restaurant in the Mies van der Rohe designed, modernist, Seagram Building, in New York City.

On Sunday, October 5, three monumental sculptures by Alexander Calder took up residence at the Seagram Building on Park Avenue in New York. The installation is part of a collaboration between Pace Gallery, a leading contemporary art gallery based in New York, and the Alexander Calder Foundation. The presentation will coincide with Storm King Art Center’s annual gala on October 8, which will be held in the Seagram Building’s famed Four Seasons restaurant. The gala will honor the Calder Foundation and its president, Alexander S.C. Rower, the artist’s grandson. Located sixty miles north of New York City, Storm King’s sprawling outdoor sculpture park features a number of works by Calder.

Pace Gallery, which represents Calder’s estate, has installed the three sculptures in front of the Seagram Building.

In the dead of night, a 95-year-old Picasso went under the knife.

“Anything goes wrong, just stop what you’re doing,” the lead technician, Tom Zoufaly, commanded. “I don’t want to hear any screaming, yelling.”

The scene of the operation was the Four Seasons restaurant on Park Avenue, home since 1959 to “Le Tricorne,” a 19-by-20-foot stage curtain painted by Pablo Picasso. The curtain had been caught in a dispute between the New York Landmarks Conservancy, which owns the piece, and Aby J. Rosen, the owner of the landmark Seagram Building, where it resided. Mr. Rosen wanted it taken away.

Justice Matthew F. Cooper ruled in a New York State Supreme Court that RFR Holding, the real estate company that owns the Seagram Building on Park Avenue, cannot remove Pablo Picasso’s ‘Le Tricorne’ from a wall of the Four Seasons Restaurant until the court issues a final ruling on the future of the art. The 19-foot-tall tapestry has hung in the Four Seasons, which is located inside the Seagram Building, for over 55 years.

The work was to be removed so that the wall behind the tapestry could be repaired, but the New York Landmarks Conservancy, which owns the tapestry, feared that the work would be damaged in the process and filed an injunction to halt the undertaking. During the court hearing, Justice Cooper said, “We’re not talking about wallpaper. We’re not talking about a poster. We’re talking about an irreplaceable Picasso...It’s part of New York’s social and cultural fabric.”

Peg Breen, the president of the Landmarks Conservancy, believed that once the tapestry was removed from the Four Seasons, Aby Rosen, an RFR founder, would replace it with a more contemporary work of art. Per Justice Cooper’s ruling, the tapestry cannot be removed from its current location without the Conservancy’s consent.

The Four Seasons Restaurant on Park Avenue in New York City will remove Pablo Picasso’s ‘Le Tricorne’ from its lobby. The 19-foot-tall tapestry has hung in the Seagram Building, home to the Four Seasons, for over 55 years. The work will be removed so that the wall behind the tapestry can be repaired. However, many experts fear that the masterpiece could be severely damaged in the removal process.

While the Seagram Building is owned by RFR Holding, the Picasso tapestry is owned by the New York Landmarks Conservancy. Peg Breen, the president of the Conservancy, believes that once the painting is removed, RFR Holding’s executive, Aby Rosen, will replace it with a more contemporary work of art. The Museum of Modern Art has offered to keep the tapestry in storage if it does not return to the Four Seasons.

‘Le Tricorne’ is slated to be removed on February 9, 2014.

A man was charged in London after scrawling “Vladimir Umanets, A Potential Piece of Yellowism” in black paint on Mark Rothko’s Black on Maroon at the Tate Modern on Sunday.

Wlodzimierz Umaniec, a 26-year-old Polish national who goes by the name “Vladimir Umanets” was arrested in connection with the act and charged with one count of criminal damage in excess of 5,000 pounds (about $8,000).

Created in 1958 for the Four Seasons in New York City, Black on Maroon was part of Rothko’s Seagram mural series. The crime took place during regular museum hours and a witness said that Umaniec sat quietly on a bench in front of the painting before defacing it.