Art Review City speaks with New York dealer Howard Shapiro about opening his gallery, some of his success stories, and his unique approach to the business of art.

“My dream was always to open an art gallery. No other business would allow me to be surrounded by beauty and help artists get the recognition that they deserve.”
– Howard Shapiro, owner of Lawrence Fine Arts in East Hampton, NY

Howard Shapiro spent over two decades as a consumer finance expert on Wall Street at firms including Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, so his friends and family were surprised when he decided in 2009 to pivot his career by opening an art gallery. But it turned out to be a winning combination: he brought with him an acute understanding of business and finance, and quickly evolved from art startup to standout.

Howard Shapiro in front of Harriette Joffe, “Untitled”, 40 x 50 in | 102 x 127 cm, c. 1980. Photo courtesy of Lawrence Fine Art.

Art was always his passion, but he took a circuitous route to get there. After earning his bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature and Art History at Yale in 1983, Shapiro was accepted into Yale’s PhD program in Art History, but his parents insisted that he choose a “real” career instead. Art was something nice to look at—and buy when he could afford it—but it wouldn’t support a family. Looking back, he acknowledges that his parents had a point. The art world would have to wait.

The Wall Street life was hectic, so when Shapiro and his wife Esther could afford to start buying for themselves, they originally sought artwork that was calm and soothing and began collecting American Impressionist works. The first work they purchased—and still own today—from a small outdoor craft fair was a … Click here to read more

Artist Q&A with Michael Netter

For more than 40 years, Michael Netter has been religiously creating video art, paintings and assemblages. A self-taught artist, he became a protégé of Andy Warhol, fully immersed in the dynamic art world of New York in the early 1970s. He is represented by ACA Galleries in New York.

“Three Wise Men”, mixed media on canvas, 62 x 66 in | 157 x 168 cm, 1995

How did you become a professional artist?

I was always an artist in a sense; always loved art and saw it as a calling. I guess that’s kind of a standard answer, but I’m mostly self-taught.  As I reflect more on the question, I would say it was to put my creative self to work.  That I want to manifest my ideas in a lasting form of communication in a more conceptual and less literal manner than through words. 

When is a piece finished for you?

It’s magical – a piece feels unfinished until, with that one stroke, it’s all of a sudden finished. That can take 2 days or 10 years. I feel all work has the possibility of being good, you just must keep working at it.  In fact, sometimes I have felt like gessoing over a painting that I can’t see any potential in only to finally discover a path that works much later on. This might happen in the last 5% of effort on a work. 

Michael Netter, self portrait.

What are the influences and inspirations in your work?

I try to resist being influenced by other artists although I might see some dimension of their art that gives me an idea.  Some art influences/inspirations are – early Italian Renaissance painters like Cimabue, Fra Angelico, etc. because they are about icons and are relatively primitive; Paul Klee because much of … Click here to read more

Artist Q&A with Lenora Rosenfield

Lenora was born in Porto Alegre, Brazil and in the last 20 years she is painting in a new fresco procedure, she created made of synthetic materials for building constructions, one of her researches.

“DNA”, synthetic fresco on non woven fabric, 38 x 57 in | 98 x 146 cm, 2020

How did you become a professional artist?

I think art chose me, because I never thought of something else seriously. Everything I thought since I was a little child was related to art.

When is a piece finished for you?

There is something in my body that tells me to stop. I have a feeling of being full, like after I had a big and great meal. 

What are the influences and inspirations in your work?

As a teenager I was first influence by Hieronymus Bosch, after by the expressionist like Goya that I conceder one of the first expressionist, and later Van Gogh. In Brazil I was very influenced by Ibere Camargo, by his brush strokes freedom to paint). American artists I was very inspired by Eva Hesse, the way she thought about art, and Robert Morris’ wool felt. Since I started to work with maps, I realized how I was also inspired by my travels and my grandparents that came from four different countries: Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Turkey. I met them all and the first one died when I was 20 years old. I was always very curious about them, how they got to Brazil and how was their lives before. I am very influence by that. I love to know my own and the human being origins, about the cave man and all the layers, what came first, and that research never ends. It is difficult to tell about my inspirations … Click here to read more

Artist Q&A with Richard Metz

“The Mythic Moth Menagerie the Orchard”, egg and natural pigments on tree, 120 x 55 in | 305 x 140 cm, 2018 (Park Hill Orchard, East Hampton, MA)

Why did you become an artist?

Being a visual artist grew in me slowly over time, but it was always the only path forward in my life. The process of making visual art is so satisfying and so all encompassing to me, that of course I wanted to keep doing it.

I also have a strong environmentalist side, and to some extent these have merged over the past 20 years. Being an artist now is how I explore nature and merge with the natural world. It is how I want to encourage others to explore and protect the public natural areas near them.

I have subtle visions of images, sometimes touching on a feeling from my past experiences that move me very much, and I feel so strongly that I want to portray them in my work. I have also been very moved by expressionist artists who have come before me including Chaïm Soutine, Jean Dubuffet, Phillip Guston, Susan Rothenberg, and Pierre Bonnard. Native American, African, and Polynesian art have also been influential to my work, as well as Illustrators Theodore Geisel, Franz Masreel, Lyn Ward, and Art Spiegelman.

How is your work different than everything else out there?

Some of my work is in more traditional formats, and some has struck some new ground. The tree paintings seem to be an original format that I came upon late in grad school. They are different in several ways; they are ephemeral

The works decay as life is born, lives, and dies. So much art work battles with nature, to be preserved for ever, and adds to … Click here to read more

Artist Q&A with Frodo Mikkelsen

The last ride, acrylic on canvas, 80×70 cm,  2020

Why did you become an artist?

My father was an artist, and when i was 8 years old, I told him that I wanted to be an artist. He gave me all the support I needed and told me that i had to choose a path. That path started in 1984 when I started painting graffiti at just 10 years old.

Frodo Mikkelsen, photo by Nikolaj Palmskov

How is your work different than everything else out there?

I have heard many times that my work is unique, even though I use symbols like the skull a lot. Other artists use them, but mine is just still mine, being clean and crisp.

What’s different about your current body of work?

My early work was very crowded, and I tried everything. I still do a lot of different things, but I don’t mix it anymore like I used to. I’m working on getting my art more clean and graphic; it’s shaping up!

Totem dreams, painted oakwood, 100x100x50 cm

What’s coming up for you?

Right now I am showing in a gallery in Brooklyn called Java Project Brooklyn, in a show that me and Paul Brainard curated with American and Danish artists. I am also showing at The HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Frederikshavn Kunstmuseum, and Vestjyllands Art Museum, all here in Denmark. There are also group shows in Kode, Bergen Art Museum, and in Mocak-Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow. Next year I will be showing at Vrå Art Museum, and a gallery in Hamburg and Berlin in Germany.

What advice would you give to an artist just starting out today?

A lot of people thinks that being an artist is easy, but it is hard work 24/7, so think big, have fun, and … Click here to read more

The Elixir of Ataraxy in a Sea of Trouble

For nine long months the United States has been facing severe distress from the coronavirus forcing the closing of galleries, museums and art centers in New York City. But WhiteBox Harlem continues to independently operate as a community engaged nonprofit venue, a beacon for art lovers for 22 years despite facing numerous crises over the years. Over two decades, it has nurtured many outstanding artists in New York City and abroad, continuing its mission as an experimental center for experiencing new art with social èlan. 

“Exodus V: Aesthetics in the Political” is an exhibition curated by New York-based Kyoko Sato. This remarkable curatorial creates new metrics putting under scrutiny a diverse, singular group of 17 contemporary expat Japanese women artists aged 31 to 84 who chose to emigrate to New York to continue and expand their careers in a less constrained atmosphere than back home. Due to the increasing number of practicing female artists in the art scene in the past 30 years, art museums in Western countries have begun to have many feminist inspired exhibitions awakening the public’s attention to this voluminous subject. Most exhibitions tend to emphasize the inequality between men and women, or talk about women’s sexuality openly such as women’s awareness of the autonomy of their bodies. Time and again, some of these thematic shows unfortunately become cliché. In the spirit of finding a differential, I was quite curious to see how “Exodus V” may be different from many of these other women’s exhibitions I have witnessed.

Image courtesy of WhiteBox Harlem

At the opening reception I went through the entire exhibition and interviewed several of the exhibiting artists. I must confess my experience and exchanges observing the whole affair felt like an awakening stream of fresh … Click here to read more

Artist Q&A with Paul Brainard

“Lexicon Leader”, oil on linen, 40 x 55 in | 102 x 140 cm, oil on linen, 2020

Why did you become an artist?

I really don’t think that I had a choice. Making art is something that i do every single day; it is in my blood.

Paul Brainard, self portrait with child

How is your work different than everything else out there?

II think that it is an interesting blend of the absurdity of existence, modernist formalism and vulnerable self effacement. 

What’s different about your current body of work?

I am simultaneously trying to combine elements of the personal and the formal in a way that makes a very diverse visual language.

“Moron at the Genius Bar”, oil on linen, 18 x 17 in | 45 x 42 cm, 2020

What’s coming up for you?

I just did two shows back-to-back at the Java Project Brooklyn. The first one “Covid Kids Club” was work that was made during the Covid – 19 lockdown in NYC. March and April were especially difficult in Queens with constant sirens and death all around you. I was a few miles from the epicenter of the epicenter of Covid -19 in the first wave, so it was comforting to stay home and make art. The second show at the Jave Project is “The boring Gaze” a group show of NYC and Danish Artists co-rated by myself and Frodo Mikkelsen. It was very difficult to install 15 artists in such a confined space but i am very happy with the result . The gallery is open by appointment from November 7th to December 7th, 2020.

What advice would you give to an artist just starting out today?

Listen to your own inner voice because this is the thing that makes you a … Click here to read more

Artist Q&A with Lin Evola

“Peace Sign”, watercolor, ink, and decommissioned nuclear stainless steel, 32 x 24 in | 81 x 61 cm, 2015

Why did you become an artist?

I learned to walk and talk at the same time that I began to draw, and I continued to make art as I grew up.  At 10 years old my mother took a group of us children to The Art Institute of Chicago. I remember very distinctly how I felt when I looked up and witnessed huge paintings by Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell – which became known as Abstract Expressionism – hanging on all the walls around us. I felt like my skin was turned inside out. I knew who I was.

How is your work different than everything else out there?

Every artist discovers their own visual language that is based on how we see, how we hold our tools, and what tools we choose to make art. My art is produced partially or completely from metal from weapons. I use a lot of reflective surfaces to engage the viewer in reaching a conceptual interaction with the art itself.

Lin Evola, portrait by Udo Spreitzenbarth 

What’s different about your current body of work?

Visually my art adds information and layers of meanings, staying tight to the basic empowerment for humanity to build peace.  Implementing physics, numbers, and writing, I use a tempo bringing the viewer from a microcosm to a macrocosm in vision. Are you looking at a microscopic image? Is it pulsating? Are you looking at outer space?  The layouts of the Peace Signs take about a month. I mix my own paints from pigment, and often include the weapons metal in the ink.

What’s coming up for you?

The Peace Angels Project is working on the 12 … Click here to read more

The Duality of Ned Martin

Ned Martin created a dual style presentation that features both sides of his personality in “Spirits Through Time,” his second solo exhibition with Robert Berry Gallery, and challenges the viewer to contemplate the notion of time, the balance of humanity, and to reflect on the state of the world in these 15 new works mostly painted in the past few months during his unexpected quarantine in South America. 

There are two parts to the show: the abstracted landscapes that Martin has been working on over the last few years, and the new portrait paintings combining elements of abstraction and figuration. To anyone who has been following the artist over the last four decades, you’ll know that he was classically trained at the Schuler School of Fine Art, and to this day still mixes his own colors and always builds his own painting surfaces to ensure that he has full control over every element that goes into his work. 

Image courtesy of Robert Berry Gallery

For the last few years, he has used reclaimed aluminum printing plates on which to create his landscape works. The metal plates were originally used to print tabloid stories and advertising, which tend to be disposed after a few uses since there are remnants of images and text. The artists states that, “All of that imagery, paired with the landscape work, creates a sense of beauty mixed with commercial messages.” It’s the juxtaposition of the natural beauty of the landscape imagery that is combined with consumerism which is the driving force behind a lot of Americans that creates such a powerful dynamic. Martin also discusses his background of living in rural Pennsylvania on a farm, and his recent passion for camping, which has changed how he relates to nature compared to … Click here to read more