Louis-Dreyfus exhibit at Naples Art: Modern greats including Claes Oldenberg, Red Grooms (2024)

An impressionist-style portrait ofWilliam Louis-Dreyfus welcomes visitors to a Naples Art exhibition from his collectiontitled "The Artist's Hand."

No one will see it.

The adjacent introductorywork, Jean-Baptiste Sécheret's79-by-101 inch"L'ombre sur Central Park," hijacks the visual horizonand sends you soaring over midtown Manhattan. Its dusky, late autumn trees and patchwork of brick and stone, spread with a layerof October sunshine, createa breathtaking vista. It's a welcome sign that says this exhibition opening Saturday, Aug. 6,will not at all be modern/contemporary art as you expected it.

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So at some point, stop in the hall and take in the introduction and the impressionist environmental piece showing Louis-Dreyfus in his backyard, relaxed incontemplation. His keen analytical skills made him a billionaire, and his own eye for artcreated the collection these pieces come from.

And what piecesthey are:90for a 70-work exhibitioncurated by Frank Verpoorten, who met Dreyfus years ago when he was assembling a show of works by George Beroojy. That artist's "Heath Hen," itsneck air sacs inflated in brilliant tangerinefor the mating season dance, is in the exhibition.

Louis-Dreyfus was a keen collector

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"This is a combination of a fascination with this collection since I was first introduced to it— and to the man who amassed it," said Verpoorten,executive director and chief curator for Naples Art. "It's a focus on the collection and a focus on the enigmatic man himself, because this was his vision."

Louis-Dreyfusloved the collection, more than the investment.

He remembers Louis-Dreyfus walkinghim through his collection with a delight in all of it.

"He'd stop ata work and say 'Isn't that a knockout? A knockout!'" Verpoorten said, chuckling.

Louis-Dreyfus collected out of sheer love forart that immersed the artist: "hand-work art," that required careful painting or welding or molding, rather computer-assisted, according to Verpoorten.

For example, the sculpture"stump, braid and counting" (2010), by John Newman, picks apart copper wiring bands to individually fuse dozens of them to twisted branches.

In Robert Sholties' "Nothing's Perfect" (2002), there's an urban Henri Rousseau vibe in the characters posing en verdance. A couple in raingear clutchesa newspaper; a central character readies the trajectory of a wicker swing, acouple and hula dancer pose, all under the nonplussed gaze of a bulldog— wait, is that daisy sticking its tongue out at us?

Among the most subtly arresting are the embroidered miniatures, tiny slices in the lifeof Connecticut native Raymond Materson. He began creating his finely detailed 4-inch art pieces in prison, working with bed sheet scrapsand threads he unraveled fromsocks.

Works came from around the world

Louis-Dreyfus exhibit at Naples Art: Modern greats including Claes Oldenberg, Red Grooms (4)

There's no strong theme, style, or even a nationality, such as American, in these works. Greek, Austrian, Indian and Hungarian art are in the exhibition, and the expression takes shape in everything from masters-influenced works to full abstracts.

To one "Untitled" extreme, there's"Untitled (Atelier)," Tibor Csernus'still life of disassembled flying machine parts and equipment bathedin an early evening patina, a post-modernRubens. On the other is YuYeon Kim's "Untitled" (2006) collage of floral shapes, tanglingwith forms that intrigue but defy description, created invarious mediums.

It's an intense visual experience. In fact, a82-by-82-by-27-inch Red Grooms tour de force, "Francis Bacon," is an experience all by itself. Walk around it to catch the colors, the lines, the funky detritus of artlife, down toa sink full of dishes, dirty brushes, notebooks. And one G ear on the character. After you leave, you're kicking yourself that you didn't check to see whether the other ear is an R.

There's a work from the recently departed Claes Oldenburg. Neapolitans will love the work of Graham Nickson, dean of the New York Studio School, who came to Naples several times to offer art intensives and critiques.There are alsofantastic machinery drawingsof cult artistL.C. Spooner, one of a number of self-taught artists whose works are in this exhibition.

Several will look familiar. Louis-Dreyfus, who preferred to get to know the artists whose works he bought, was a supporter of "outsiders," self-taught artists such as Bill Traylor ("Blue Dog," circa 1939-1942). Anumber of those names appeared in an exhibition on that theme at The Baker Museum several years ago.

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Verpoorten agrees it's one easily worth multiple visits.Naples Art has created a catalog and narrative with the William Louis-Dreyfus Foundationfor the show, and he is providing an evening of education for Collier County public and private school art instructors as well as the staff at Naples Art.

There will be opportunities for docent tours, and perhaps an evening with Verpoorten in the gallery. Details will be on the website, naplesart.org.

"The visits he made to get to know the artists and works he commissioned from artists—that went beyond," he said. "It's one thing for, say, a gallery to commission an artist for a body of work because the next show needs to open by that time and they need to sell some works.

"He commissioned art in the true sense of art patronage. He'd say 'I love what you're doing but I'm going to fund your work.'" Artists could focus on their own development.

In the rolling video, in which his daughter, actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus of "Seinfeld" fame, talks with artists her father supported, stories come out that move her. (The video is about 60 minutes in length, and art lovers may prefer to watch it at home on Vimeo.WilliamLouis-Dreyfus, a strong believer in philanthropy, had also earmarked sales of part of the collectionto benefit an ambitious cradle-to-degree program, The Harlem Children's Zone, also explained on the video.

Fewer people know that Louis-Dreyfus, who died in 2016 at age 84, was also an accomplished poet who at one time served as president of the Poetry Society of America. Verpoorten has made his book, "Poems Written But Not Sent," availablein the gift shop.

"He really was avant-garde," Verpoorten said. He remembers how far ahead Louis-Dreyfus was of the art world in his collecting. Museum curatorswould come to his space and recognize a work by a newly in-demand artist. "And they'd say, 'Oh, wow!

"When actually,he had 70 works by this artist."

Harriet Howard Heithaus covers arts and entertainment for the Naples Daily News/naplesnews.com. Reach her at 239-213-6091.

What: Naples Art exhibition of works from the William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation

Where: Naples Art, 501 Park St., Naples

When: Saturday, Aug. 6 through Oct. 30; through Oct. 9 from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays,11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sundays; after Oct. 9,10 a.m.-6 p.m.Mondays-Saturdays, until 9 p.m. Thursdays, and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sundays

Admission:$15, members: $10, and students (with valid I.D.), $10; 18 and younger free

Bringing schools into a major show

When Frank Verpoorten, executive director and chief curator for Naples Art, began planning for the hanging of "The Artist's Hand," he decided to give 16-year old Crystal Cruz, astudent from the Immokalee Foundation, some true hands-on experience in it.

Instead of designing it on the computer, the two built a maquette, a small scale replica of the space in the center's major gallery. Maquettes were the standard for exhibition planning until computer assisted design took over.

During herinternship in Gallery Services at Naples Art, Crystal helped create the rudimentary one-tenthscale model andscaledreplicas of the art that the two moved around the walls for an optimal viewer experience.

"It helped a lot with our focus to make the exhibition action-packed, but not overwhelming, not dysfunctional," he said.

Louis-Dreyfus exhibit at Naples Art: Modern greats including Claes Oldenberg, Red Grooms (2024)
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