Press Release For Immediate Release Bruce Museum honors Art World Visionaries at Seventh Annual Icon Awards in the Arts Wednesday, April 20, 2016 Icon Awards. Photo by Elaine Ubiña GREENWICH, CT. March 31, 2016 – The Bruce Museum will recognize the accomplishments and contributions of nine distinguished figures in the art world at the Museum’s seventh annual Icon Awards in the Arts benefit on Wednesday, April 20. The honorees include accomplished individuals in six categories: Artists, Museum Professionals, Art Historians, Patrons of the Arts, Art Collectors, and Leaders of the Art Trade. This year’s honorees include internationally acclaimed artist Neil Jenney. Represented by Gagosian Galleries, his work can be found in collections and major museum exhibitions around the world. The renowned museum professional Richard Armstrong, who has led the Guggenheim to new levels of excellence, is also amongst the honorees. Lucy Freeman Sandler, a medievalist and Irving Sandler, an art critic and historian, both professors whose numerous publications are seen as references in their fields, will be honored as art historians. In addition, awards will go to Bruce Museum patron Alice Pack Melly of Greenwich, passionate collectors Sherry and Joel Mallin, as well as highly regarded art dealers Lucy Mitchell-Innes and David Nash. “We are delighted to recognize these thought-leaders from the art world who help to enrich all of our cultural lives,” says Peter C. Sutton, The Susan E.Lynch Executive Director of the Bruce Museum. Page 1 of 5 Press Release Proceeds from the Bruce Museum Icon Awards 2016 benefit exhibitions and educational programs at the Bruce Museum of Greenwich, Connecticut. Co-chaired by Pam and Bob Goergen, the gala event will be hosted at an elegant Greenwich home. Cocktails will be served at 5:30 pm followed by the Awards presentation at 6:30 pm. For additional information, including ticket information, email or call Becky Conelias at (203)413-6745 or [email protected]. For a direct link to ticket information, go to https://iconawards2014.eventbrite.com. The Icon Awards in the Arts are generously underwritten by: For more information, please contact Sandra van Boetzelaer, Director of Marketing and Communications, [email protected] or 203 413 67 35 # # # Additional Background on Bruce Museum Icon Awards Honorees Artist, Neil Jenney Neil Jenney. Photographer Marcus Tullis Neil Jenney began selling his Abstract Expressionist paintings in Boston in 1965. He moved to New York in 1966 after Boston galleries refused to exhibit his sculpture. In 1967 dealer Richard Bellamy showed Jenney’s “linear sculptures” in a group exhibition with Jean Arp, Richard Artschwager, Walter De Maria, Bruce Nauman, and Richard Serra. In 1968 Jenney created a series of sculptures made with found materials. These “theatrical” or “environmental” works morphed into a structure of “these things and those things relating.” Later that year, Jenney discovered an art scene soaked in Photorealism. Feeling that this was a second- generation Pop art solution that was “a bad idea done pretty,” he decided to paint “good ideas done badly.” His “Bad Paintings”, which involved “the relationship of things to things,” occupied his career from 1969 to 1970. In late 1970 Jenney decided that a more interesting challenge was “Good Painting”, which he has since produced. Jenney believes that there are two ancient and coexistent art styles, realism and abstraction. As a realist, he theorizes that today’s realist movement has two parts: those who insist that line be intuitively generated, like the Greeks, and that color be atmospheric, like the Impressionists; and those who prefer the line and color of cameras and computers. Born in 1945 in Torrington, CT, and raised in Westfield, MA, Jenney’s work is in major collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Modern Art; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Exhibitions include an international traveling retrospective that originated at Berkeley Art Museum (1981); Whitney Biennial (1969, 1973, 1981, 1987); New Image Painting, Whitney Museum Page 2 of 5 Press Release of American Art, (1978); and Bad Painting, New Museum of Contemporary Art (1978). Jenney was part of the group exhibition, Representations of America (1977–78) organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco for the Pushkin Museum, the Hermitage, and The Palace of Art, Minsk. At the time, he was the youngest American artist to have shown in post-war Soviet Union. Museum Professional, Richard Armstrong Richard Armstrong has served as Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation since November 2008. In addition to overseeing the New York museum and its collection he also provides leadership and management for the other institutions in the global Guggenheim network, including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and the proposed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. Prior to his appointment at the Guggenheim, Armstrong served at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, as Curator of Contemporary Art and Henry J. Heinz II Director (1996–2008). From 1981 to 1992, Armstrong was a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he helped to organize four Whitney Biennials, as well as important exhibitions on subjects such as the work of Richard Artschwager and The New Sculpture 1965–75. Richard Armstrong Photo: David M. Heald © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 2012 Art Historians, Lucy Freeman Sandler and Irving Sandler A medievalist, Lucy Freeman Sandler is credited by her peers with aiding the transformation of illuminated manuscript research from a niche discipline into a lively and capacious area of study. Professor Sandler has authored numerous books, essays and articles on medieval art and Gothic manuscript illumination. Articles have appeared in such global publications as Burlington Magazine, The Art Bulletin, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, and Gesta, the journal of the International Center of Medieval Art. Institutions such as the National Endowment for the Humanities, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation have honored her with fellowships and awards Dr. Irving Sandler, art critic and historian, is Professor Emeritus of Art History at State University of New York. He is a contributing editor of Art in America. Dr. Sandler is the author of numerous publications including four surveys of art since World War II: The Triumph of American Painting: A History of Abstract Expressionism (1970), The New York School: Painters and Sculptors of the 1950s (1978), American Art of the 1960s (1988), and Art of the Postmodern Era: From the late 1960s to the Early 1990s (1996) as well as monographs on Alex Katz, Al Held, Mark di Suvero and Deborah Kass, among others. He is a former president and current board member of the American Section of the International Association of Art Critics. In 2008, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Art Criticism from the International Association of Art Critics. Page 3 of 5 Press Release Patron of the Arts, Alice Pack Melly A member of the Vassar College class of 1956, she went on to the Harvard Radcliffe Graduate Program in Business Administration. Apart from raising four children, participation in the nonprofit world of social services and local government has been her career. Following the interest of generations of her family in natural resources and conservation, she served on the board of the Greenwich Audubon Society. This led to years of service on the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Agency. She began her Junior League involvement in New York City in 1952 and ultimately served as President of the Greenwich League. She then moved on to the Greenwich Library and became president of its board. Alice has been very active in Town government as a member of the Representative Town Meeting and served for ten years on the Board of Estimate and Taxation, four years as its Chairman. Since 1998, she has served on the Bruce Museum board in various terms. Art Collectors, Sherry and Joel Mallin Sherry and Joel are avid collectors. They soon had completely covered all their walls with paintings, photographs and prints. While lack of space never troubles a true collector (they started using the ceiling for large paintings) the “eureka” moment occurred one day as they searched for space: one of them looked out the window and announced, “We have lot of outdoor space – why not collect sculpture?” Thus began their 35-year journey in collecting and placing sculpture in the landscape. They now have over 70 outdoor sculptural installations. In 2000, they opened one of the first “art barns” in the area, a 10,000-square foot exhibition space now entirely filled with art. Sherry and Joel Mallin. Photographer Louis David of David Photos Leaders in the Art Trade, Lucy Mitchell-Innes and David Nash Lucy Mitchell-Innes co-founded Mitchell-Innes & Nash in 1996 with her husband, David Nash, with a gallery on Madison Avenue. In 2005, Mitchell-Innes & Nash opened a second space in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. From acclaimed surveys of 20th century masters, such as Jean Arp, Anthony Caro, Jay DeFeo, Willem de Kooning, Martha Rosler, and Jessica Stockholder, Mitchell-Innes & Nash has proven expertise in both advancing the careers of emerging artists and maintaining the superior standard set by established artists. Prior to opening the gallery, Lucy Mitchell-Innes worked from 1981 to 1994 at Sotheby’s, where she served as head of the Contemporary Art Department in Europe, then in New York as worldwide director of the Contemporary Art, Latin American Art and Contemporary and Modern Print departments. Ms. Mitchell-Innes served as President of the Art Dealers Association of America from 2009 until 2012. She is currently a member of the selection committee of Art Basel.