Initially centred entirely around works on paper, it has since broadened out to include paintings and sculpture spanning the 14th-21st centuries.
Like all events on the ‘gallery trail’ format, the participants are a mix of resident dealers and those from overseas who rent space in the area. This year’s MDNY, from January 26-February 2, has 30 participants, one third of them out of towners including seven from the UK.
Twelve of this year’s exhibitors are doing MDNY for the first time. They include the Paris dealership Galerie Kugel, Thomas Deprez Fine Art from Belgium, Jeroen Jurjens from Amsterdam and Ambrose Naumann Fine Art from New York.
Alongside the dealers’ shows, which range right across the fields of painting works on paper and sculpture in terms of medium and date, are three associated events.
A loan exhibition of figural drawings from the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University is staged at Carlton Hobbs Gallery on East 93rd Street from January 25-February 2.
On Friday, January 25, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be hosting The Met Lecture Event featuring various speakers and on Tuesday, January 29, at the Albertine – Cultural Services of the French Embassy, there is a symposium titled Master Drawings – The Next Generation.
Dealer highlights
The UK dealership in early works of art Tomasso Brothers Fine Art has held an annual exhibition in New York in January since 2008 – for the past two years as part of MDNY.
Scultura IV will be on show at Carlton Hobbs’ gallery on East 93rd Street and features a range of works spanning the late Gothic to the Neoclassical period in a price range of $10,000-2m.
A 14th century marble bust of Christ attributed to the late gothic sculptor Tino di Camaino, offered by Tomasso Brothers Fine Art at its MDNY exhibition.
The highlight will be a newly discovered 13¾in (35cm) high early 14th century marble bust of Christ that is attributed to the late gothic sculptor Tino di Camaino (c1285-1337).
Two leading Tino di Camaino scholars have slightly differing theories on the bust’s original location and context. Prof Dr Gert Kreytenberg dates the bust to di Camaino’s Tuscan period and suggests that it was originally located above the north portal of the baptistry in Florence. Dr Damian Dombrowski dates the bust earlier, to the sculptor’s time in Pisa, c.1315, and suggests it may have crowned the tomb of Henry VII of Luxembourg in Pisa Cathedral.
