Spaightwood Galleries plans Massachusetts move

By Kevin Lynch, The Capital Times, Madison WI
November 8, 2003

Spaightwood Galleries have introduced many Madison residents to the joy of collecting art prints. Now, more than three decades of introductions will give way to goodbyes. The galleries will close in June and relocate to Upton, Mass., the owners said Friday. In recent years, the galleries, operated by Andrew Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, have evolved largely into an online business, with the Internet accounting for 85 percent of sales.

The galleries, at 1150 Spaight St., will open a show of art by Marc Chagall next weekend with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday. The Chagall print show will run to Jan. 18, and will be followed by an exhibit of works by Joan Miró. The final show will be a "Best of Spaightwood" exhibit in the spring.

The announcement coincides with Andrew Weiner's decision to retire as a professor of English at UW-Madison, where he has taught for 35 years. The couple will move to a region where several of their children and family members live. Andrew Weiner said that they had been contemplating closing the Madison gallery but did not anticipate such a quick decision until a recent trip to Upton, where they found a former Unitarian Church for sale. They decided to buy and renovate the church as their new home and art gallery. "If we hadn't seen this building and suddenly fallen in love with it, we would have not moved right away," Weiner said. "We had not thought this would be our last year in Madison." Photographs suggest the 8,000-square-foot building has considerable charm, with bric-a-brac ornamentation around the entrance and steeple and a colorful zig-zag shingle pattern on the roof. "I've been teaching for 35 years, which is really a long time," Weiner said. "I felt it was a good time to start something new. We're still young enough and have the energy to make the most of it."

The move will leave a gap in the Madison art market. Spaightwood has consistently mounted critically acclaimed shows from their evolving collection of more than 9,000 works, which is dominated by modernist art in many printmaking media. Among the numerous artists they specialize in are Chagall, Miró, Antoni Tàpies, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Albrecht Dürer, Käthe Kollwitz, Francisco de Goya and Jim Dine.

"I think they've done a remarkable job over the years," said Paula McCarthy Panczenko, executive director of Tandem Press, a professional printmaking studio affiliated with UW-Madison. "They introduced people to prints, from the old masters right up to contemporary prints," she said. "They were working in an area where very few people were. I think the success of the Madison Print Club and Tandem Press could not have happened without the environment that Andy and Sonja created. "I also think that Andy's academic background helped because he was so knowledgeable about prints and educated so many people and was very encouraging to collectors. That was a remarkable gift to the community. They will be greatly missed."

For all that, Madison has been a hard market, Weiner admitted. "People always said, why are you in Madison?" he said. "Why not in New York or Boston or San Francisco? As we began getting better and more high-priced art, the [limitations of the] market here became clearer and the Internet site took off and we started asking the same question. "I think a lot of people will miss us more in theory than in practice," he added. "This puts us a lot closer to the places we like to visit: New York, Boston, Washington and Europe."

E-mail: klynch@madison.com
Published: 6:04 AM 11/08/03