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Last updated: 10/24/2020
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Spaightwood Galleries was founded in 1980 in Madison, Wisconsin by Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner and moved in 2004 into our beautiful site in Upton Massachusetts (about forty-five minutes west of Boston via the Mass Pike to Exit 11 (I-495). Take the first exit south of the Pike on I-495 to Exit 21-B (Upton); after exiting proceed about 5.5 miles directly to the gallery in the former Upton Unitarian Church on the corner of Highway 140/Main Street and Maple Ave [click for views of our new home and exhibition space]). Now almost thirty-five years later we have an inventory of over 9000 works, most on paper, ranging from the late fifteenth century to the present. In the days to come we will continue to add pages (currently we have over 770) and illustrations (currently over 6250) to this site, but the best way to find out what we have will be to e-mail us (spaightwood@gmail.com or art@spaightwood.com) or call us (1-800-809-3343) for more information. One of the reasons I retired after 35 years at the University of Wisconsin as a Professor of English and, for the last 6 years, an Affiliated Professor of Law was to get caught up; one of the reasons Sonja retired after 28 years at Madison Area Technical College was to make sure I do).
Our side garden, which is visible from Maple Avenue, contains a 10-foot high ceramic sculpture by Joan Gardy Artigas, Sonja's rock river at left (complete with a small family of ceramic ducks), a tribute to her native Texas, and a meditation bench at right for those who need to take a brief break from everydy life.
Some history: Spaightwood Galleries was founded in 1980 in Madison Wisconsin by Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner and moved in 2004 into our current site in Upton Massachusetts (we are about forty-five minutes west of Boston via the Mass Pike to Exit 11 (I-495 South) then exit at Exit 21-B Upton (the first exit south of the Pike); go 5.5 miles directly to the gallery in the former Upton Unitarian Church on the corner of Highway 140 and Maple Ave [click for views of our new home and exhibition space]). We are also about 30 minutes from Worcester MA, 80 minutes from Hartford CT and 3 hours from Manhattan. Now thirty-five years later we have an inventory of over 9000 works (all of which we own), most on paper, ranging from the late fifteenth century to the present. In the days to come we will continue to add pages (currently we have over 770) and images (currently over 6000) to this site, but the best way to find out what we have will be to e-mail us (spaightwood@gmail.com) or call us for more information. By clicking on the link for Recent Exhibitions, you can get a sense of the shows we have put on at the gallery since the end of 2000 when we launched this site. For those who find indexing by show a bit cumbersome to negotiate, we offer a start at a more comprehensive alphabetical listing, divided into artists born before 1800 and those born after. As usual, the presence of a link means you can click through to the image(s) or page(s); the absence of a link indicates that we have not yet photographed the work(s) of that artist in our inventory, but we would be happy to do so on request as time permits. Click for Artists listing. For a profile on Andy and Sonja, the co-owners of Spaightwood Galleries, click here.
Spaightwood usually presents between three to five shows a year. Most of our shows feature works by artists of the late nineteenth, twentieth, and early twenty-first centuries, though we also have about 2000 old master prints and drawings in our inventory. In any given year, about 600 works of art appear on our walls. For some examples, see below. Our recent shows (keep scrolling) give a sense of the variety of what we show.
Watch! See us featured in Arts & Ideas (June 2016, #80) with Sue Swinand on YouTube!
Apocaliptis cum figuris / The Apocalypse with illustrations (Bartsch 60, Strauss 158, Meder 163). Original woodcut, 1511, for the 1511 Latin edition of The Apocalypse, the first to contain this woodcut of St. John's Mystical Vision of the Virgin and Child. Instead of St. Luke portraying the Virgin and Child in a painting or a drawing, Dürer portrays St. John, pen in hand, making a picture in words. As Strauss observes, the "fringe of clouds places the entire scene in the realm of the supernatural–distilled by the artist from the legend, because it is not accounted for in the text" (p. 456). By doing so, Dürer offers his book containing the complete text of the Apocalypse from the Bible and his own woodcuts illustrating that text as a collaboration between the Evangelist and himself. This impression of the titlepage is trimmed just into the text on the verso and the top corners have beeen rounded, but the image itself is complete, sharp, contrasty, and fresh. One of Dürer's masterpieces, here in a superb impression as it first appeared in the 1511 edition of Dürer's Apocalypse (in the 1498 edition, the title page did not include the woodcut of St. John (accompanied by his eagle) portraying the Virgin and her Son. This seems to be a comparatively rare work. Image size: 361x228mm. Price: $30,000.
The betrayal of Christ (B. 7, S. 149, M., H. 116). Original woodcut, 1510 for the Large Woodcut Passion. Ours is a very good impression from the first published edition of 1511 with the Latin text on the verso (the 1511 edition is the only edition with the Latin text printed on the reverse). Strauss notes that Wölfflin considered this print the best solution to the problems posed by the subject. Wölfflin categorizes the printing of the 1511 edition as uneven (very dark on the right side, lighter on the left), as is ours. In the background left center, the young man Mark mention who avoided capture by running away without his clothes is visible; lower right, Peter is about to slice of the ear of the high priest's servant, which Jesus will then immediately restore. Signed in the block with the monogram and dated in the block top left. Borders showing on all sides. A few minor nicks and tears and a small missing area by Jesus' foot all expertly repaired. Image size: 395x277mm. Price: $25,000.
Christ Bearing the Cross (Bartsch 12, Strauss 64, Meder 12 iib). Original engraving, 1512. An early impression of this work for the Engraved Passion before the scratches on the guard's back. Signed with the monogram and dated 1512 upper right. Trimmed to the border; slight paper loss at left margin. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell how the Roman authorities drafted Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross, as opposed to John 19:17, who specifies that Jesus carried the cross by himself, but only Luke 23: 27-31 contains Jesus' address to the women of Jerusalem: "A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, 'Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, "Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed." Then they will begin to say to the mountains, "Fall on us’; and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” The kneeling woman, whom Jesus seems to be blessings, is St. Veronica, who can be seen holding the cloth that will receive the impression of Jesus's face (also seen in the Small Woodcut Passion [1509], the Large Woodcut Passion [c. 1498-99] and in two compositions where it is held by one or two angels for our consideration; click here to see them). Panofsky notes that "the rendering of this scene as a 'nocturne' is almost unprecedented" (Strauss, Engravings, p. 180). A very strong impression of one of Durer's most original compositions. Image size: 116x74mm. Price: $13,500.
The photograph is slightly out of plane; the piece is a rectangle.
The Annunciation (Bartsch 83, Strauss 97, Meder 195). Original woodcut, c. 1503. Executed for The Life of the Virgin, this impression appears to be an extremely good example of Meder's state e with the Fish Bladder with IM watermark (M. 309). c. 1580. Some of the details have been much commented upon: Talbot et al (National Gallery of Art, 1971) suggest that the architecture elevates the private meeting between Mary and Gabriel to the level of a majestic reception (Strauss, p. 260). Panofsky suggests that the "The Dove, representing the Holy Spirit, illuminates her face, while God the Father hovers in the distant clouds. The lilies in the vase symbolize purity, whereas Judith with the head of Holofernes, in the timpanum, calls to mind Mary's victory over the devil." Panofsky additionally notes the "The evil one, with the head of a badger, can be discerned underneath the stairs, chained to the wall on the far left. The badger stands for sloth and laziness, which is 'the mother of all sin' " (Panofsky, Dürer, 1943, Vol. 2, Handlist, n. 303). Our impression is bright and clear with the gaps in the border all present as described by Meder, but the gaps at the top border are barely visible. Two small discolorations are visible, one to the left of the lilies at bottom and one in the block to the left of the headstone of the arch. One of Durer's most frequently illustrated woodcuts. Image size: 296x212mm. Price: $15,000.
Lucas van Leyden (Dutch, 1494-1533), Golgotha (B. 74, L. 99, New Holl. 74ii/vi), Original etching with later hand coloring, 1517. One of Lucas' largest prints, here in a very rare and beautiful exemplar. The reversed date of the first state (lower right) has been corrected (second state), but none of the signs of the third to sixth states appear to be present, although the hand-coloring makes it difficult to be certain: the shadows on the shoulder of the cripple do not appear to have been reemphasized and there is no visible cross hatching on the shoulder (added in the third state); the clouds top right appear to be all present, though partially obscured by the hand-coloring. Printed on laid paper with chain marks every 1-1/8 inches with no visible watermark. Lucas is considered the finest Netherlandish printmaker of the first half of the 16th century both by his contemporaries and by modern art historians. It is possible that many prints were sold and then handcolored by local artists for people who could not afford a painting. As in W. H. Auden's poem, "Musée de Beaux Arts," Lucas van Leyden, like Pieter Bruegel after him, understood "That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course / Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot / Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse / Scratches its innocent behind on a tree." So in this masterpiece, the Crucifixion takes place in the upper left, while in the lower left, two people are fighting and one is about to stab another over a piece of cloth (probably an allusion to the soldier's gambling over Jesus' clothing, but here vulgarized. Above them, two peple, ignoring the Crucifixion, are chatting as they walk. Bottom center, a boy plays with his dog, above them four well-dressed men are chatting, and although one is pointing in the direction of the crosses, seen more carefully, he is pointing at the two people walking away from the Crucifixion and in thier general direction. Further right, a mother holds her baby, apparently oblivious to the action going on top left like the two men racing their horses top right and the group of travellers, behind and below the hill of Golgotha are passing through the scene to go about their business elsewhere. Image size: 276x403mm. Price: $12,500.
We have large collections of works by the Italian printmakers of the Renaissance (see works by Marcantonio Raimondi and the Netherlandish printmakers (especially Hendrik Goltzius). We also have a number of works by Goltzius' greatest assistant, Jan Saenredam, an important Mannerist printmaker. Also in our inventory are a number of works by Aegidius Sadeler, Imperial Printmaker to the Emperor Rudolf II. We have a good selection of 16th-century drawings by, among others, Giulio Romano, the only artist Shakespeare ever mentions by name, Perino del Vaga (another of Raphael's important assistants), Andrea Schiavone, Veronese, Taddeo Zuccaro (attrib.), his brother Federico Zuccaro (who spent some time in England and made the acquaintenance of Sir Philip Sidney who himself introduced a kind of verbal Mannerism into Elizabethan poetry and prose. Also in our collection is a drawing by Ludovico Carracci, the founder of the Bolognese school in the late 16th century, whose nephews, especialy Annibale, spread the style, strongly influencing 17th masters who worked for him on his frescoes in Rome, especially Domenichino and Francesco Albani. We have an interesting selection of other drawings by 17th-century Italian artists; for more information, please click here. Several years ago we acquired a wonderful group of 18th-century drawings by Jean-François de Neufforge. Many of them were snapped up very quickly; but a number of very nice pieces still remain. We also have a wonderful drawing by one of Rembrandt's pupils, Nicolaes Maes and several others that clearly reflect Rembrandt's style
Moving to the later 18th century in Spain, while wee do not have any of Goya's drawings, we do have a complete set of his Disasters of War and most of his mixed-media etchings for the Caprichos. We also have a small group of Wiliam Blake's posthumous impressions from the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience. Click here to see them.
We recently showed 100 works by Antoni Tàpies (Spanish, 1923-2012), another giant in the line of Picasso and Miró of anti-fascist, Catalonian patriots who helped transform art in the 20th century. The winner of the 1958 Carnegie Prize, Tàpies has had major shows at The Museum of Modern Art (NY), The Guggenheim Museum (1962, 1995), The Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), the Musée d’Art Moderne (Paris), the new Jeu de Pomme (1994, Paris; 304-page catalog published Paris: Reunion des Musees Nationaux, 1994), the Hayward Gallery (London), the Louisiana Museum (Copenhagen), the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo), the Nationalgalerie (Berlin), and many others. Sir Roland Penrose’s Tàpies concludes by noting that "the ultimate purpose . . . [of Tàpies’ art] is transcendental" and that his "deepest hope is of the transformation of mankind" through his art, which unveils "a cosmogony in which nothing whatsoever is mean." As Tàpies has written himself, he seeks "to remind man of what in reality he is, to give him a theme for reflection, to shock him in order to rescue him from the madness of inauthenticity and to lead him to self-discovery." In a New York Times review of Tàpies’ 1995 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, Alan Riding suggests that Tàpies works show an attempt to "reach ultimate reality through introspection . . . to achieve ‘the ultimate mysterious unity’ that links the entire universe."
Acclaimed by Robert Motherwell as the greatest living European artist shortly before Motherwell died, Tàpies made printmaking one of his central activities and his prints have always been recognized as a major part of his oeuvre; they were celebrated in a large retrospective organized by The Museum of Modern Art in 1991 that circulated to a number of museums in the US, Central and South America from 1991 to 1993. In connection with their show, the Museum of Modern Art published Tàpies in Print (a retrospective of his prints and illustrated books, showing about 100 works), probably the best introduction in English to his graphic works. In addition to our featured work, Llibertat/Liberty, a large, beautiful original color lithograph at a very special price, Spaightwood Galleries will have over 100 works (selected from the more than 200 works in our inventory, more of which will be appearing soon on our web site) on display. You can begin to browse the 12 pages devoted to Tápies at http://www.spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Tapies.html but seeing them in the flesh is far more satisfying. We are open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. We are also available by appointment most weekdays (call locaally at 508-529-2511 or from out of state at 800-809-3343 if you are planning a trip to visit.
P.S. The print on illustrated above is Taches et chiffres / Spots and figures (Galfetti 330), an original color lithograph, etching and aquatint with carborundum made in 1972 and published in an edition of 75 signed and numbered impressions (of which ours is n. 16/75) by Maeght Editeur in Paris, Tàpies' long-term dealer, and illustrating his love of surfaces. Image size: 750x1050mm. Mat size: 36x48 inches. Price: $15,000.
P.P.S. When Tàpies died, BlouenArt Info posted a picture-essay on the web containing 12 illustrations, one a recent photograph of the artist, and the other 11 came from the first page of our 12 Tàpies web-pages our website (see above for the link).
At the moment, we have 12 web-pages on our website dedicated to showing some of the works of Antoni Tàpies. You can explore them by clicking here.
After our Tàpies show, we will present one-person shows dedicated to the works of Gérard Titus-Carmel (November 2015-January 2016)andClaude Garache (February- April 2016)
Immediately prior to our Tàpies show, we presented exhibitions of works by Joan Miró (about 130 works from 1929 to 1978), which followed shows dedicated to Marc Chagall (about 140 works), Contemprary American Women Artists and Contemporary Male artists (2 shows with a common core: we had too many large works to fit them into one show), and Pierre Alechinsky.
Top center: L'ouvrage du vent (M. 342, 1962), 2nd row: L'arbre des voyagers (M. 2-M. 5; but actually Miró's first 4 original lithographs since M. 1 is dated 1930, M. 2 is the bon à tirer proof signed in blue ink by Miro and dated March 1929 and M. 5 is dated 3-29 in the stone), and Personnages devant la mer (D. 13, 1934); 3rd row: Cahier d'art I and II (D. 14-15, 1934), Aidez l'Espagne! (D. 17, 1937), Femme pour XXe Siecle (D. 40, 1938), and L'Antitête II (D. 59, 1947—proof before hand-coloring), as well as 4 larger lithographs leaning against the wall below.
Marc Chagall (1887-1985), Nuit d'été / Summer Night (M. 696). Original color lithograph, 1973. 50 signed and numbered impressions on Arches (of which ours is 24/50) plus 12 impressions of only the black stone on Japon Imperial. Image size: 555x375mm on Arches paper measuring 685x500mm. Price: $25,000.
Chagall frequently chose his subjects from literary texts including Gogol's Dead Souls, The Fables of La Fontaine, The Bible, The Arabian Nights, Daphnis and Chloe, and The Odyssey. In 1976, he did a series of 50 black-and-white lithographs on Shakespeare's The Tempest. In view of his interest in literary texts, I would like to suggest that this is not simply any summer night, but a depiction of Titania, the Queen of the Fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, being wooed by Nick Bottom the Weaver after his transformation by Puck into a "translated" version of himself, with the ass-head making immediately clear that Bottom is an ass whatever the visible form his head takes on. As someone who taught Shakespere regularly at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for 35 years and whose first publication ws an article on A Midsumer Night's Dream (subsequently cited as one of the most significant articles on the play in a 10-year survey of criticism on the play, this work is especially delightful for me).
P.S. The colors above are far more accurate than the ones in volume 5 of the catalogue raisonné of Chagall's lithographs, where the woman's pink hair is shown as bright red and the cock flying upper left is outlined in bright orange, a color also prominent in the reproduction of the bush lower left.
Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928-2011), Cleveland Orchestra (Harrison 70, Williams College 68, Tyler 193). Original 8-color screenprint, 1978. 150 signed and numbered impressions (of which ours is n. 42/150) plus xxv signed and numbered artist's proofs on white Arches cover paper printed at Tyler Graphics in Bedford Village NY. This print was created as a fund-raiser for the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, whose logo is printed underneath Frankenthaler's signature. "To achieve the brushstroke marks that give the print its painterly quality, the artist drew directly on the screens with liquid tusche. This method of screenmaking allowed her the gestural freedom that is not available in either the hand-cut film process or the photo-stencil methods" (from the first catalogue raisonné of her prints published by Williams College, p. 134). One of Frankenthaler'smost painterly prints. Image size: 560x760mm. Price: $6500.
Beneath the signature and the reddish area, the logo of the Cleveland Museum can been. We have matted over the logo since Frankenthaler seemed to suggest that as a possibility by signing it to permit the option, but it is still presnet and could be rematted to show the four edges of the work. For more works by Frankenthaler, plese click here.
Joan Mitchell (1926-1992), Composition Vert / Noir: Fields. Original color lithograph, 1990. 125 signed and numbered impressions on Arches published by La Difference, Paris. Image size: 762x562mm. Price: $4250.
Louise Nevelson (American, 1899-1988), Untitled Composition. Original color intaglio and torn-paper collage with gold leaf and silver foil, 1976. 75 signed and numbered impressions. A Very beautiful and mysterious print. Image size: 173x183mm. Price: $3750.
Each of the bays on the two long walls of the gallery are about 106 inches wide and have a usable height from the top of the bookshelf to the moulding in the center of each wall of about 100 inches: tall enbough for 3 rows of 28-1/4 inch frames, but not for four; just as the walls are not wide enough for 3 36-1/4x28-1/4 inch frames, just two (however three 36x28 inch frames fit nicely).
Pierre Alechinsky, was one of the founding members of the COBRA group (the name comes from the cities where the artists involved originally works: COpenhagen, BRussels, and Amsterdam) in 1948, the first winner of the Andrew W. Mellon Prize in 1977 (the Nobel Prize for artists, so to speak), and the Grand Prix National for Painting from the nation of France, his adopted home (Alechinsky represented Belgium at the Venice Biennale in 1960 and France at the Sao Paolo Biennale a few years later). Alechinsky has been recognized in recent years as one of the most significant living the artists. The art market has long noticed his stature: one of his paintings sold at auction about 25 years ago for over $2,000,000 back when a two-million dollar painting was a thing at which to marvel. Alechinsky was just barely out of his teens when he burst onto the art scene as one of the original members of the COBRA group, and over the years he has emerged as one of the most imaginative and witty artists of our times. Alechinsky devotees are everywhere. John Russell, who in 1986-87 devoted three separate columns in The New York Times to Alechinsky, saw him as "a man of strange blameless passions. Decorated invoices, worthless stock certificates, obsolete air-force navigational charts and ancient hand-written archival materials spark his imagination. . . . He has a taste for nature’s upheavals." Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican novelist for whom "the garden is the center of the world," described Alechinsky as a man who "paints gardens. . . . He knows that the history of gardens is the history of all of us. . . . Alechinsky . . . chooses any of the forked paths of the manicured gardens at Blois or Hampton Court and then transforms them, ferociously, into the savage gardens of the primitive mind, the original unity of dream and awareness, reason and imagination, desire and reality." Indeed, it may be that it is his dream of recovering that lost unity that makes him, as The New York Times called him, "a poet of entanglement, [who] resolutely turns the emphasis away from himself, preferring to act rather as historian and referee than as autobiographer. . . . His touch is light, his thought rapid, his view of the world as sharp as it is benign. There is no better companion, and not many who keep us so consistently amused and are so generous with their findings." Alechinsky has had major retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art and The Guggenheim Museum in NY, The Museum of Arts, Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh (in 1977, the Year of the Snake), The Palais des Beaux-Arts and the Musées Royeaux des Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Vile de Paris and the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Boymans-von-Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Louisiana Museum in Humlebaek, Denmark, and museums in Aalborg, Brême, Copenhagen, Darmstadt, Des Moines, Düsseldorf, Gordes, Hanover, Marseille, Metz, Mexico City, Munich, St. Paul de Vence, Toronto, and Zurich.
Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (1-508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to spaightwood@gmail.com.
We accept AmericanExpress, DiscoverCard, MasterCard, and Visa.
We also accept wire transfers and paypal.
For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.
All works are sold with an unconditional guarantee of authenticity (as described in our website listing).
Visiting hours: Saturday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and Sunday noon to 6:00 pm and other times by arrangement. Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.
