The House Black Caucus introduced legistation to commission a Rosa Parks statue for the US Capitol. It was signed into law by then President George W. Bush. It was the first statue for the U.S. Capitol commissioned by Congress since the 1870s. (Statues are commissioned by states which pay for them).

As there was no “modern” precedent for selecting the artist, the late Senator Ted Stevens, who oversaw the work of the Architect of the Capitol, asked then National Endowment for the Arts Chairman, Dana Gioia, whether the National Endowment for the Arts would help. As Congress prohibits the National Endowment for the Arts from giving grants to artists, they announced a design competition for the statue — in partnership with the Joint Committee on the Library and the Office of the Architect of the Capitol –to select the top artists and then let Congress make the final selection and handle contract with the artist and payment. The Chrysler Foundation provided $100,000 to support the administration in the competition. The statue was unveiled last month in Washington D.C. — a fitting tribute to a courageous woman, made possible by good people working together.

Rosa Parks statue at the U.S. Capitol — Credit: Getty Images

Read at HuffingtonPost.com

Barbara is delighted to have her work chosen for display in the opening exhibit at the George W. Bush Library and Museum. She is a Presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts, the advisory board for the National Endowment of the Arts.

Waterlilies by Barbara Ernst Prey. Watercolor,  28″ x 40″. Getty Museum. Photo courtesy of the artist.

It’s summertime, which means more sunshine, more beach time, and more time to enjoy the arts. In anticipation of today’s convening of the National Council on the Arts (which we hope you’ll join us for via webcast), we asked our Council members about their “artful” summer plans. Whether experiencing music and theater in France, or preparing for exhibitions of their own work, our Council members have quite a summer ahead!

Barbara Ernst Prey, Visual Artist

For the past 30 years I have had an annual exhibition in Maine. I am currently preparing for this year’s exhibit Barbara Ernst Prey: Forty Years of Painting at Blue Water Fine Arts Gallery in Port Clyde, Maine. There will be 40 paintings—very large watercolors as I like to stretch both the size and the medium. My invitation image is a painting inspired by the Getty Museum waterlilies, a nice juxtaposition of museum and art. I have an annual exhibit of limited edition prints at Blue Water Fine Arts, this year opening July 3-15. I’m showing a series of 20 large-scale prints of my paintings and NASA commissions. Every July before the summer exhibits I host an Open Studio in New York to share with collectors and followers my new work before they go to the Maine exhibit. Although the preparation takes so much work it is always exciting to see the exhibit hung.

Over the years I have supported many organizations through my artwork and this year’s Open Studio will partner with a local conservation group as a benefit to help raise funds for the organization. As a landscape painter the environment plays an important role in my artwork.

Last summer I was part of the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum. CBS Evening News came to my studio to film a segment about this time last year. I have learned to be flexible with exhibit timelines as one never knows what happens in-between.

I am often invited to lecture and will give a talk in August on 40 years of  painting.

While in Maine, after the show is hung, I grab my paints and head out to paint. I’ll fly by mail plane, use my kayak, or hitch a ride with a lobsterman to an outlying island. I like to get as close to the authentic nature of the area as possible. To be honest, I sometimes forget to eat because I am so engrossed in my work.

I paint out east on Long Island as well as in the Berkshires. Both places also provide summer inspiration and wonderful culture. As I live in New York, I am fortunate to have so many choices of cultural offerings. As an art blogger for the Huffington Post I try and keep tabs on exhibits and always stop by if I am in the area. I am looking forward to revisiting Durer and Beyond at the Metropolitan Museum, seeing the summer museum exhibits on my way from New York to Maine, and returning to Tanglewood.

That first visit 10 years ago was a private tour through Nelahozeves Castle located 35 km north of Prague, high above the Vltava River. I recall the impressive Renaissance architecture as well as waiting in the Grand Drawing Room with important paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder, Rubens, Veronese and Panini, along with exquisite pieces of pietra dura furniture. Situated below the Castle is the birthplace of the Antonín Dvořák. The house, owned by the Lobkowicz family and operated by the National Museum, is known as the Antonín Dvořák Memorial with an exhibit that focuses mainly on the composer’s childhood and youth.

The Lobkowicz family has had the Lobkowicz Palace, part of the castle compound in Prague, returned to them which now houses their incredible collection as a museum. The museum is not to be missed for a number of reasons. This extraordinary collection offers visitors the opportunity to explore the history of Europe through the unique perspective of the Lobkowicz family.

I walked through the 22 well presented galleries visiting masterpieces by Canaletto and Velázquez; an impressive display of family and royal portraits; fine porcelain, ceramics and rare decorative arts dating from the 16th to 20th centuries; as well as an extensive collection of military and sporting rifles from the 16th to 18th centuries. It was, however, the music room where I had to catch my breath. The Lobkowicz family were patrons of Beethoven and Mozart and on exhibit were original scores and manuscripts by both, including Beethoven’s 4th and 5th symphonies and Mozart’s re-orchestration of Handel’s Messiah. Beethoven dedicated his Eroica Symphony to Prince Lobkowicz as well as two of my other favorite symphonies, the 4th and 5th. For me it was exciting to think that the same family who were patrons and commissioned artworks of Beethoven and Mozart also commissioned a painting of mine thirty years ago.The audio guide (which is free) is unique to this collection. The current Prince Lobkowicz and his family narrate and talk about the collection and the 600-year history of the Lobkowiczes, including the dramatic story of how the family lost everything twice and got it back — twice. In 1939, the invading Nazi forces confiscated the Palace along with all other Lobkowicz family properties. The Palace was returned in 1945, only to be seized again after the Communist takeover in 1948. For the next forty years, the Palace was used for a variety of purposes, including State offices and as a museum of Czech history. After the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the subsequent fall of the Communist government, President Václav Havel enacted a series of laws that allowed for the restitution of confiscated properties. Following a 12-year process, the Lobkowicz family once again became the rightful owner of its palace in 2002. It is by far one of the most unique and engaging audio guides I’ve come upon.

At 1:00 p.m. every afternoon there is a classical music concert performed in the beautifully decorated 17th century baroque concert hall with a varied program of solo and ensembles presenting works by Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, and 19th century Czech composers, Dvořák and Smetana. Concert tickets may be purchased online at www.matinee.cz.

There is a great view from the Lobkowicz Palace Café terrace of Prague and the café is also a good place to take a break. I enjoyed a visit with Prince William Lobkowicz over a cup of peppermint tea. There is a nice selection of foods, homemade desserts and a fine array of award-winning Lobkowicz wine and beer. The Lobkowicz Palace website highlights the various museums, history and other helpful information.

Barbara Prey (center) at the reception in her honor at the U.S. Embassy Residence Prague where she lectured about her artwork and 9/11 painting series. Left: Geraldine Mucha, daughter in law of Alphonse Mucha

Read at HuffingtonPost.com

With the upcoming (Jan. 11) release of the all-star-cast film Gangster Squad, I spoke with author Paul Lieberman about the movie and his true-life book that inspired it. Paul had shared the stories and his research a couple of years ago when they first appeared in The Los Angeles Times, where he then was its New York-based culture writer. Paul also wrote the introduction to my book, Reflections.

Q: Before I talk about the book version of Gangster Squad can you share with us some inside information from the set especially the Ryan Gosling-Emma Stone story?

A: Can Sean Penn be part of it?

Q: Of course, he plays Mickey Cohen, the showboating mobster who was a headline machine in Los Angeles from WWII through the 1950s.

A: Exactly. For the film, Warner Bros. recreated Slapsy Maxie’s, one of Mickey’s hangouts, for a scene in which Gosling, playing a cop, meets Emma’s character, the movie’s femme fatal…

Q: Is that the scene in the trailer in which we see Emma in an alluring red dress at the bar asking Ryan if he intends to take her away from the evil life and his deadpan answer indicates other intentions?

A: …That’s the one. Well, one of the security guards on the set was an old fireman who had been around in the glory days of the real Slapsy Maxie’s when the real Mickey would frequent the club with his entourage. During a break Ryan asked him for his most vivid memory of the real Mickey. The guy pointed and said, “He was right at that table. He was telling these lame jokes but everybody was laughing.” Just then Emma Stone came out of Sean Penn’s trailer, where several of the stars had been kibitzing while waiting for the shoot to resume. Ryan asked her, “How’s it going?” And she said, “Oh, Sean’s telling all these lame jokes and everyone’s laughing.”

Q: Art imitating life.

A: It always pays to laugh at the big guy’s jokes.

Q: Judging by the trailer, the film seems to be a blend of the old Warner Bros. gangster epics and a modern action movie, meaning the hero (Ryan) gets the girl and the good guys prevail. But your book, which tells the real story of the secretive LAPD squad that battled the mob, is darker. It’s classic Noir, a chilling tale from the era that still defines L.A.

A: As I put it in the book, that was a time when truth wasn’t found in the sunshine, and justice not found in a marble courthouse. These cops meted out justice at night up on Mulholland Drive, where Sgt. Jack O’Mara would put a gun to the hoodlums’ ears. Then on Sunday, he was head usher at his church. He’s played by Josh Brolin in the film.

Q: You suggest that Mickey Cohen was a perfect match for Los Angeles as a mobster. Why?

A: Both were obsessed with image. City fathers were determined that their sun-washed paradise not go the way of the cesspool cities back east, like New York and Chicago, where the mob was so powerful. That was the impetus for the LAPD to form the Gangster Squad in 1946. One crime report actually had a section headlined, “The Invasion of Undesirables.” Mickey meanwhile was obsessed with building his image as a big-time gangster. He posed at home for “Life” magazine, showing off his shoe closet and the bed custom made for his dog “Tuffy.” Today Mickey would have his own reality TV show, no question.

Q. The film says it was “inspired by” the true story. Is that an acknowledgement that a lot is fictionalized?

A: Short answer, yes. The real O’Mara slept with a Tommy gun under his bed and Mickey Cohen complained that the cop played by Gosling, Sgt. Jerry Wooters, was trying to kill him. But those real cops didn’t have wild shootouts with Mickey’s crew. That’s the stuff of a Hollywood gangster films. This one is set in 1949, the year Warner Bros. released one of the classics, White Heat, which was loosely inspired by the real Ma Barker gang. Its famous ending has Jimmy Cagney atop an exploding oil refinery shouting “Made it, ma! Top of the world!” Of course, no gangster blew up like that in real life. That’s cinematic invention.

Q. Which also explains the boy-meets-girl storyline, which brings us back to Mr. Gosling, Hollywood’s current heartthrob. Was the character he plays really a ladies’ man?

A: He was. The real Jerry Wooters was shot down over the Pacific during WWII and kept all these photos of himself making time with lovely nurses. Later he married a stewardess and had two sons, both of whom came to the set. They were taken aback when Ryan, playing their dad, ordered a Nehi soda in one scene. The character had started out drinking hard stuff but Ryan wanted to show him becoming more committed to the squad’s mission. The real sons laughed at the touch, though. “The old man never drank soda pop in his life,” one said. Indeed, the real Wooters boasted in old age that he used every penny of his police pension on booze. He had a house on the beach in Newport and spent his last years drinking with his buddies on the back patio while watching the California babes pass in their bikinis.

Q: Speaking of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, we also see a cute bulldog in the film’s trailer, frolicking with the glamorous couple. Is there a back story behind the dog?

A: That’s Mickey Cohen’s beloved bulldog,” Mickey Jr.” He came after the fluffy terrier “Tuffy” and went everywhere with the human Mickey. He even got kidnapped once — alas, the dog-napping is an episode in the book version of “Gangster Squad” that never made the film.

“This year’s artistic honoree is Barbara Ernst Prey, one of America’s most gifted watercolorists whose works are rooted in the grand traditions of American landscape painting.

Barbara’s exquisite paintings are created with a consummate skill that belies the difficulty of her medium.

Indeed, if you have ever attempted, as I have, to paint in watercolor, you will quickly find that it is an extremely difficult and unforgiving medium.  Barbara’s flawless technique, however, ranks her among the most important artists who ever painted in the medium.

Coupled with her creative prowess is her advocacy for the arts.  In this realm, her list of accomplishments is, frankly, astonishing.   She serves, for instance, on the National Council on the Arts, the advisory body of the National Endowment for the Arts, she is an artistic ambassador for the State Department’s Arts in Embassies program, has executed commissioned work for NASA on four separate occasions, and was selected by President and Mrs. Bush to paint the official White House Christmas card.

Barbara is the recipient of a host of honors and awards, including the New York State Senate “Women of Distinction Award.”  She lectures on American art, both in the U.S. and abroad, and is a spokesperson for the National Endowment for the Arts.  Her work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art, The White House, New-York Historical Society, Farnsworth Art Museum, Williams College Museum of Art, and The Henry Luce Foundation, to name but a few.

Barbara’s artistic achievements and her advocacy for the arts are truly inspirational and by virtue of her significant contributions to the cultural life of Long Island the Heckscher Museum is honored to present her with the 2011 Celebrate Achievement Award.”

  Heckscher Museum Director

]]> http://www.barbaraprey.com/news/view-heckscher-museum-celebrate-achievement-award-presentation/feed/ 0 http://www.barbaraprey.com/blog/surviving-sandy-when-art-lifts-spirits-and-serves-the-community/ http://www.barbaraprey.com/blog/surviving-sandy-when-art-lifts-spirits-and-serves-the-community/#comments Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:56:40 +0000 Barbara http://www.barbaraprey.com/?p=1836 Continue reading →]]> Huffington Post Arts

Three weeks ago, I went to the IFPDA/Print Fair in New York City, the largest international art fair focusing on printmaking. This was right after Sandy, and I had no electricity, heat, phone or Internet, but I knew the electricity north of 34th Street was working so I set out. I navigated my way through downed tree and wires. The subway was running uptown, although it was eerie to see so many entry ways cordoned off. When I emerged from the 68th and Lexington station, it felt as though I was entering a time warp. The sun was shining, people were out and the city was humming along at its usual pace — at least north of 34th Street.

The IFPDA/Print Fair attracts print dealers from the United States and Europe. As a painter and watercolorist, I also produce a series of prints and have worked with one of the finest print dealers to produce my prints so this fair was of particular interest. The discussion this day though was what had happened following the storm. There was talk of the difficulties faced in doing business and troubles with cell phone coverage; but mostly about the damage the storm had done to “art.” Some booths had nothing on the walls. Other booths had just a couple of items gathered together on tables. One dealer apologized for not having any cards to offer (they had been lost to the rising waters in her gallery downtown). Another described the damage done to a neighboring gallery, while another spoke of whole archives being lost. Helpful information was being shared (MoMA has guidelines on their web site for addressing water damage to works of art, which is helpful for both institutions and individuals). I was left with the sense that it was incredible they were able to open at all, and encouraged by the spirit I found there but also that this was just the tip of the iceberg for the damage. We’ve since seen and heard about the damage to many Chelsea galleries — water chest high, gallery storages flooded and records erased.

I was fortunate to find a cab to get down to Penn Station. We talked about the storm, driving downtown with no lights and the difficulty in finding gas. Back home we heard on the radio about the more than 8,000 utility workers coming from out of state and Canada. Given the vast extent of storm damage — hotels without power and those with power filled to overflowing with displaced families — these crews had no lodging. They slept in their trucks, or found a bed in unheated barracks-style tractor trailers provided by LIPA. We were able to take in a crew from Canada. We gathered extra mattresses, found towels, supplied DVDs to watch at night (I don’t know if our loan of the ten-DVD set of the Pittsburgh Penguins Greatest Games qualified as the Canadians favorite team, but most did play ice hockey), the fire house helped with showers, the community baked brownies — we all came together to make the best of a difficult situation. Every night I went to bed with a big Canadian flag lit up on the Canadian utility truck which I could see from my window and every morning they woke me up as they left for work before sunrise. As a friend from an outlying area of New York City told me, when the utility workers drove into his town with their caravan of trucks from South Carolina, it was like seeing the GI’s return from overseas — everyone was so happy to see them.

In spite of the long hours they worked, we got to know them a bit — whose child played basketball, where their daughters went to college, the places they had been to for storm recovery assistance. They invited us out to dinner their last night as a thank you. As time went on (two weeks they helped get our community back to normal), we heard of more crews staying in more places around us — the Boys and Girls Club, some schools, another fire house. In many regards, this is the untold story of how people helped people who came to help people. As with my trip to the IFPDA/Print Fair, I was encouraged by the spirit that came to surface in response to difficult times.

Read at HuffingtonPost.com

As an art history major at Williams College, I worked closely with Lane Faison (one of the three legendary professors of the Williams Art Mafia) and took courses in the Art History Graduate Program at the Clark Art Institute. I had the advantage of studying the artwork not only from an academic standpoint but also as a painter myself. I could connect with what the artists were trying to accomplish or the challenges posed, see their mistakes and share the energy of the brush going across the canvas particularly in the paintings done on site.

I have spent the past several months painting outdoors. When I was young, my mother, who was head of the design department at Pratt Institute in New York would take me out to paint with her. I still use her paints and paint box. There is no substitute for being outside and having firsthand interaction with the subject. Painting outside, however, poses a whole different set of problems as compared with painting in a controlled environment like a studio. Painting outside has its challenges but it offers the ability to look and see things you wouldn’t normally notice.

The challenges of the outdoors are often found in obstacles and distractions that come your way. Yesterday I was out painting in Teton National Park and right next to me a black bear crossed the road and then climbed a small tree eating whatever berries were on the tree, totally oblivious that I was there. I realized I was not in the safest spot.

This fall I was also in Europe revisiting three of my paintings in quite extraordinary collections. One family that had commissioned an early painting of mine was the Prince Lobkowicz family, they were the patrons of Beethoven and Mozart. Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony and his fifth and sixth symphonies were dedicated to Prince Lobkowicz (a nice circle as I enjoy listening to Beethoven’s symphonies when I paint). Another collection was in Munich, and the quality of the artwork was equal to a museum. My painting was across from a Feininger, next to a Grosz and surrounded by exquisite objects of art from the Bronze age onward. I can’t, however, look at that painting without thinking of mosquitoes.

While in Prague, where I would go out early to paint to catch the light, I made a tactical error having an apple strudel before setting off to paint the Old Town. When I sat down to paint, bees appeared and were buzzing around and landing on me, attracted to the apple strudel remnants on my hands and clothes. I was just beginning to focus but the bees won out. I moved to another part of the old town square, set up my paints, drew a detailed Gothic town hall only to have the street cleaners’ truck block the bottom section I was about to paint. Another time when I was painting on Lake Starnberg outside of Munich (a collector had flown me over to paint a painting) the summer had been so damp that the mosquito population had burgeoned. I was covered with mosquitoes; I felt like a beekeeper as they flew around my head the entire painting time.

The sun and wind are always problematic but recently when I was out painting at the beach early in the morning my finished oil painting fell into the sand from the wind, creating damage to the painting. That same week I was out painting at low tide and after I had set up and begun painting I noticed that I was being bitten all over from sand flies. Perhaps the most memorable experience I had was when I was living in Asia, awarded a grant from The Henry Luce Foundation where I was a visiting professor of Western art. I would take a taxi with my big watercolor paper and supplies and go to the temples or parks — the only open spaces in a very congested city. There were few Westerners and no one painted outside. The Chinese tradition was to paint from the mind not from the outside. I wore a big banana leaf hat for protection from the sun. Two boys came and stood next to me as I sat painting a Confucius Temple. One ducked down and looked at my face, he said to his friend (not knowing that I could speak a little bit of Chinese), “Her nose is very big” (a reference to my being a foreigner). Imagine their faces when I replied, “I am an American” in Chinese.

The rewards of painting outside clearly outweigh the distractions and frustrations. There is a unique bond with nature and a closer view of life — I get to see the clammers at 7 a.m. going to work in the bay, the herons, osprey and migrating warblers. I hear the sounds of life that participate around me and those experiences bring unique perspectives incorporated into my painting.

Read at HuffingtonPost.com