WET PAINT

New Gallery Representation; Atlanta, Georgia

2012-02-08T11:21:00.022-05:00

Mason Murer Fine Art is Atlanta’s largest fine art gallery, the AIA award-winning 24,000 square-foot space is unique in its scope and its offerings. The gallery’s focus is a continually evolving selection of high quality contemporary works by regional, national, and international artists.

OK Used Cars
oil on canvas, 2012
30" x 36"

I am proud to be represented by Mason Murer Fine Art in Atlanta and to be part of their upcoming group show, Refresh.

Refresh features a promising group of new artists as well as new works from some old favorites. This exhibition includes several emerging artists with exciting work at attractive price points.
New comers Aaron Artrip, Richard Currier, Manty Dey, Terri Dilling, Bernard Gore, Susan Hall, Dan Strothers, Alexi Torres, Julianne Trew, Tim Yankosky, Allison Shockley, Will Rafuse, Virginia Twinam Smith, and Mark Perlman join gallery stalwarts including Maggie Hasbrouck, Fahamu Pecou, Neil & Karen Hollingsworth, Otto Lange, Jill & Patrick McGannon, Mary Anne Mitchell, Marc Chatov, and Sally Tharp.
Refresh opens with an artist’s reception on February 17, 2012 from 7 to 10 pm. The exhibition will run through March 30, 2012.

NEW Gallery Representation; Greenwich, Connecticut

2012-02-02T11:34:00.016-05:00

I am excited to announce that I am now represented by the prestigious Cavalier Galleries in Greenwich, Connecticut. They will be exhibiting my latest works at 2 art fairs in Florida in February.
Naples Art, Antique & Jewelry Show, February 9 - 13, 2012
Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show, February 17 - 21, 2012.

Froot Loops, SAM
oil on canvas, 2012
36 X 30 inches

Frosted Flakes, TONY
oil on canvas, 2012
36 X 30 inches

Lucky Charms, LUCKY
oil on canvas, 2012
36 X 30 inches

Happy New Year - Let's make 2012 a great year!

2012-01-02T10:56:00.010-05:00

My Web Site has been updated...
www.willrafuse.com

One of my Hero's, a brilliant mind...

2011-10-05T19:48:00.026-04:00

Photo courtesy of Apple

Rest in Paradise

"You've got to find what you love"

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

~

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
-Steve Jobs

New Painting at the Ian Tan Gallery

2011-09-13T11:37:00.006-04:00

Chez Cora
Oil on Canvas, 2011
36" x 36"
Ian Tan Gallery, Vancouver

Lucian Freud | 1922 - 2011

2011-07-25T08:47:00.003-04:00

Lucian Freud

(Centre Pompidou / European Pressphoto Agency)

A self-portrait.

Solo Exhibit @ Arden Gallery, Boston May 2-30

2011-05-09T18:51:00.006-04:00

Thank you to Hope, Zola & Andy for making this possible.

Arden Gallery
129 Newbury Street
Boston, Massachusetts
Reception: Friday, May 6, 5 - 7 pm

Andy Warhol Painting Bought for $1,600. SOLD for $38,442,500. at Christie's Auction!

2011-04-10T10:29:00.018-04:00

Andy Warhol's "Self-Portrait" is pictured in this undated handout photo. The Andy Warhol self-portrait purchased in 1963 for $1,600 on an installment plan is poised to fetch $30 million or more when it hits the auction block at Christie's in May. The four-panel acrylic silkscreen depicting the pop artist wearing a trench coat and sunglasses, is being sold by the family of Detroit collector Florence Barron. REUTERS/Christie's Images Ltd.

By: Chris Michaud

NEW YORK, N.Y (REUTERS).- An Andy Warhol self-portrait purchased in 1963 for $1,600 on an installment plan is poised to fetch $30 million or more when it hits the auction block at Christie's in May.

"Self-Portrait," a four-panel acrylic silkscreen depicting the pop artist wearing a trench coat and sunglasses, is being sold by the family of Detroit collector Florence Barron.

Barron first commissioned Warhol to paint her portrait, but changed her mind and suggested the young artist depict himself, telling him, "Nobody knows me ... They want to see you."

The result was Warhol's first self portrait, four images taken in a coin-operated photo booth rendered in hues of blue.

"My mother didn't look at collecting in terms of 'is this important or not important,'" Guy Barron told Reuters.

"She looked at it from the standpoint of what resonated with her, and of 'I want to live with it.' It was not done as some people do today, as wall power."

The portrait graced the living room wall of the family home in Detroit. It also went on public display, serving as the cover image for catalogs from major Warhol exhibitions and retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain.

Brett Gorvy, Christie's international co-head and deputy chairman for post-war and contemporary art, said the work marked the beginning of Warhol's own stardom.

"With dark sunglasses an oblivious gaze, Warhol was ahead of his time in creating a new archetype of glamour," Gorvy said.

"The painting is remarkable not only for its visual impact and the introduction of the photo booth genre, but for marking a key moment in the history of art, when Warhol takes his place in the pantheon of celebrity alongside Marilyn, Elizabeth and Elvis."

Barron, whose family includes two married sons and several grandchildren, said they were auctioning the work because "dividing is not possible, so selling makes the most sense."

"I feel that Andy Warhol himself would appreciate this, because he always talked about everyone in their lifetime having their turn in the spotlight for 15 minutes. Who'd have thought that his self-portrait would play such a role in our lives?"

The record for a Warhol self-portrait is $32.6 million set last May at Sotheby's in New York. The record price for any Warhol sold at auction is "Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I)," which Christie's sold for a whopping $71.7 million in 2007.

© Thomson Reuters 2011. All rights reserved.

Update May 12th 2011

NEW YORK, NY.- The market for important works by Andy Warhol, the reigning king of Pop, continued to reach new heights at Christie's New York tonight, as bidders chased two iconic self-portraits by the artist, setting a new world auction record for a Warhol portrait in the process.

The photo-booth style Self-Portrait, 1963-64 sold for $38,442,500 (£23,449,925/€26,909,750) after an epic 16 minute bidding battle between clients in the room and on the phone. After volleying bids back and forth for what was the longest Evening Sale bidding war in recent memory, Christie’s Brett Gorvy, International Co-Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art, scored the winning bid on behalf of a client on the phone, and the audience erupted in applause. The price with premium surpasses the previous record of $32.5 million set for a Warhol self-portrait last year.

Painted in 1963-1964, Self-Portrait marks the first historic crafting of the artist’s iconic image in a photo booth, a radical concept of picture-making that revolutionized art history. A four-panel masterpiece executed in four distinct variations of blue features shows Warhol for the first time in the guise of the enigmatic superstar, replete with silver hair, wayfarer sunglasses and a blank expression.

Courtesy: www.artdaily.org

George Tooker: 1920-2011

2011-04-01T16:09:00.008-04:00

Government Bureau, 1956
George Tooker (American, born 1920)
Egg tempera on wood; 19 5/8 x 29 5/8 in. (49.8 x 75.2 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York
George A. Hearn Fund, 1956

George Tooker
Social Realism Painter & National Medal of the Arts Winner

New York, NY - One of the most acclaimed painters of his generation, George Tooker (1920-2011) possessed an originality and depth of vision that is unsurpassed in modern American art. For over sixty years, he has been highly regarded for his luminous and often enigmatic work. His themes range from alienation and the dehumanizing aspects of contemporary society to personal meditations on the human condition. Tooker began his career at a time when the prevailing aesthetic was "modernism" and the darlings of the art world were American minimalists. Tooker, however, was clear from the beginning that he had no interest in minimalist art, very much to the contrary, he was instead bent on creating "maximalist" art. He has said that "in one kind of painting I'm trying to say 'this is what we are forced to suffer in life,' while in other paintings I say 'this is what we should be.'" Tooker first came to prominence for imaginative visions that expressed the uncertainty of the Cold War era. Among his best-known paintings is "Subway" (1950, Whitney Museum of American Art), a powerful work that explores the anxiety and isolation of nameless individuals in urban society.

He was very involved with the Civil Rights Movement as well, in one instance marching in Selma, Alabama, with Dr. Martin Luther King in 1965, and frequently addressed issues of race and oppression in his work. In addition to his engagement with social commentary, Tooker also created strikingly beautiful paintings of a more personal nature, many of which are concerned with states of consciousness, mysterious meditative realms between sleep and wakefulness. His good friend Lincoln Kirstein once characterized his work as Magic Realism, which has since been frequently used to describe his paintings. Tooker never cared much for that designation, however, because of the connotations of fantasy and Surrealism. “I am after painting reality impressed on the mind so hard that it returns as a dream, but I am not after painting dreams as such, or fantasy,” he once said. Tooker died at his home in Hartland, Vermont, on Sunday, March 27 at the age of ninety. The cause was kidney failure according to DC Moore Gallery, New York, which represents the artist.

George Claire Tooker, Jr. was born August 5, 1920, in Brooklyn New York. He was the first child of a Cuban-American mother and a father who was a municipal bond broker. Tooker's only sibling, Mary, was born later. Shortly after his birth the Tooker family moved to the more rural Bellport in south-central Long Island, some fifty miles east of New York City. The trajectory of his life began to manifest itself from the age of seven, when he began taking painting lessons from Malcolm Fraser, a family friend whose oeuvre was in the Barbizon tradition. Tooker began high school in Bellport. However, his parents weren't much impressed with the quality of the school, and he spent his last two years at the more rigorously academic Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, north of Boston. George developed an intense dislike of the straight-laced school, with its orientation toward business and finance, and its concern that its students learn to hide their emotions. He gravited instead toward the school's art studio, where he worked at landscape drawing and watercolors. By virtue of its location, Andover did furnish some additional, if unintended education - Tooker became aware of effects of the Depression on the mill towns north of Andover. He was angered by the sharp contrast between the comfortable lifestyle of the children of the economic elite who attended the academy, and the many unemployed.

After graduation from Phillips in 1938, Tooker went on to Harvard, where he majored in English literature, that having been the only academic subject of interest to him at Phillips. Yet he spent much of his time at the Fogg Art Museum, and in the towns surrounding Boston, where he made watercolor sketches of the urban and rural landscapes. The Fogg's holdings include early Italian Renaissance, pre-Raphaelite and 19th-century French art. He also took up with some radical political organizations, but soon found them doctrinaire and boring. Nevertheless, it was during this time that he first became interested in the potential of art as a tool for social justice. Especially inspirational was the work of Mexican painters, especially David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jose Clemente Orozco. Graduating from Harvard in 1942, he immediately enlisted in the Marine Corps Officer's Candidate School, but an old stomach ailment turned serious, and he was discharged after a few months there. Now at loose ends, Tooker decided to pursue his long-standing desire to study art. Securing his parent's support, he enrolled in the Art Students League in New York. Here he studied for two years with Reginald Marsh who worked in egg tempera, Kenneth Hayes Miller who also taught Edward Hopper, and Harry Sternberg.

In 1944 Tooker met the painter Paul Cadmus. Cadmus was another painter who worked with egg tempera (using traditional Reanissance techniques), and transmitted this expertise to Tooker, whose use of this medium marks his mature style. A year later, with the financial support of his family, George moved to a flat on the bohemian Bleecker Street in Greewich Village, New York. In 1949 Cadmus and Tooker spent six months travelling in Italy and France; and in the same year George met painter William Christopher, who was to become his life partner until Christopher's death in 1973. In 1950 Tooker and Christopher moved into an illegal loft located at W. 18th St. Here, in order to support themselves, they made custom furniture. However, Tooker was beginning to earn both recognition and income from his art, the Whitney Museum bought his best-known painting, "The Subway", that year, he had a one-man exhibition in New York City in 1951, in 1954 he received a commission to design sets for an opera and in 1955 he held his second one-man show. With greater means as their disposal, the two first bought and renovated a brownstone on State Street in Brooklyn Heights and then, in the late 1950s, he and Christopher built a weekend home near Hartland, Vermont. The one-man shows in New York galleries picked up speed, Tooker having his own exhibitions in 1960, 1962, 1964 and 1967. Christopher died in Spain in 1973, and Tooker spent most of 1974 there, wrapping up disposition of his estate. Also in '73, a major survey exhibition of Tooker's work was organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. That exhibition traveled to Chicago, New York, and Indianapolis. In 1976 Tooker became a Roman Catholic, and attended St. Francis of Assisi Church. After it burned down, he created a major painting for it, The Seven Sacraments. Until his death, Tooker lived and worked in in Harland, Vermont.

George Tooker is represented in museum collections across the country, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and National Museum of American Art. He has had numerous museum exhibitions over the years, such as a retrospective, George Tooker: Paintings, 1947-1973, organized by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, California, in 1974; George Tooker: Paintings and Working Drawings at the Marsh Gallery, University of Richmond, Virginia, in 1989; 50 Years of Painting and Study Drawings at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1994; and George Tooker: A Retrospective at the National Academy Museum, New York, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, in 2008-09. His most recent exhibition was George Tooker: Studies for Paintings at DC Moore Gallery, New York, in 2009. He received the prestigious National Medal of Arts in 2007.

Tooker is survived by a sister, Mary Tooker Graham; her children, Peter and Russell Hume, and Angus and Angela Graham; and family members, Aaron Watkins and Sheila Adams, and Robert and Robin Watkins.

Article courtesy of Art Knowledge News

The Watts Towers, Los Angeles by Simon Rodia

2011-03-04T09:13:00.003-05:00

The Warrior Emperor & China's Terracotta Army at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

2011-02-21T14:54:00.007-05:00

Earthenware, Qin dynasty, 221-206 BC, Excavated in 1999 at K0006 Pit of First Emperor Tomb Complex, Lintong, Shaanxi province, Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology, 001173. © Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau and the Shaanxi Cultural Heritage Promotion Centre, People's Republic of China, 2009.

Terracotta Army at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Article courtesy of Museum Publicity
Featuring the largest collection of artifacts ever displayed in North America related to Qin Shihuangdi, the First Emperor of a unified China, The Warrior Emperor and China’s Terracotta Army on view at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (February 12 – June 26, 2011), is the final stop of an exclusive two-venue Canadian tour.
Beginning 600 years before the birth of Emperor Qin and featuring national treasures and newly discovered artifacts dating as far back as 2,200 years, ‘The Warrior Emperor’ exceeds the size, scope, and content of previous terracotta warrior exhibitions recently organized in the USA and the UK.
Nearly 1/3 of the 240 remarkable objects including funerary figurines; paintings and sculptures; architectural elements; arms and armor; ornaments in jade and gold, and earthenware objects excavated from the largest burial complex in China (the greatest archeological site in the 20th century since King Tut’s tomb) have never been before on public display internationally.
Highlights on view at the MMFA include the following:
Ten of the earliest known, unique, intact, full-sized terracotta sculptures belonging to the First Emperor united for the first time as part of this Canadian tour and among them,
a kneeling archer still bearing traces of pigment never before shown in North America
A spectacular wall painting from the Emperor’s tomb complex, one of the jewels of the exhibition, on display for the first time outside of China as part of this Canadian tour
A life-sized bronze goose, unearthed in 2000 from what is considered the site of the Emperor’s water garden, on display for the first time outside of China as part of this Canadian tour
A helmet and set of armor made of stone plates are some of the most recent discoveries made in the Emperor’s mausoleum, and ranked among China’s national treasures
Life-sized terracotta sculptures comprising generals, warriors, horses and acrobats newly discovered by archeologists working at the still-in-operation dig site in Xi’an
Image: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Solo Exhibition, Arden Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, May 2nd - 30th, 2011

2010-12-18T20:54:00.007-05:00

I am thrilled to have a major solo exhibition of new works at the prestigious Arden Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, May 2nd - 30th, 2011. I will be in attendance for a reception Friday May 6th from 5pm - 7pm.

Two New Paintings of Vancouver Classic's

2010-11-16T13:41:00.021-05:00

The Ovaltine Cafe
Oil on Panel
30" x 40"
2010
Ian Tan Gallery

The Ovaltine Cafe
251 E Hastings, It's like walking into a time machine. Not much has changed since it opened in 1942 and is often used as a set for TV and movie productions including 'Da Vinci's Inquest' starring Nicholas Campbell and 'I Robot' starring Will Smith.The top sign was installed in 1948 and the scripted lettering over the doorway was installed in 1943 by Wallace Neon.The Afton Hotel, a four-storey masonry commercial building designed in the Edwardian Italian Renaissance Revival style, is on East Hastings Street in Vancouver.
The Afton Hotel, a four-storey masonry commercial building designed in the Edwardian Italian Renaissance Revival style, is on East Hastings Street in Vancouver.
Heritage Value
The value of the Afton Hotel lies in its position in the streetscape of this block of East Hastings Street. Although the seven buildings on the north side of this block - built between 1901 and 1913 - range in height from one to eight storeys, were designed by seven different architects, and constructed of different materials, they share several features. Together they illustrate the changing use of this area of East Hastings Street from residential to business use and place the district as a shopping and commercial centre for the emerging city of Vancouver in the early twentieth century. The architectural styles speak to the changing public taste from the ornate decoration of the late Victorian era to the more refined ornamentation of the Edwardian age.
Built in 1912 to a design by architect Arthur Julius Bird for owner R. B. Hamilton, the structure was designed as an apartment building. The symmetry and masonry construction exemplify the Edwardian styling, although the curved pediments at the top of two rows of windows are an unusual feature. It was altered in 1914 when it housed Burlington Tailors on the main floor with government offices, including Vancouver postal substation B on the street level, and a variety of Canadian government offices located on the upper floors. Since 1925, the upper floors have been used as a rooming house, and more recently as the Afton Hotel.
After 1917, the postal substation relocated and the ground floor was utilized by a series of retail outlets, tailor shops, and restaurants, including the Ovaltine Café in 1942. The exuberant Ovaltine Café neon signage with its distinctive arrow-shaped projecting sign, made by Wallace Neon in 1942, evokes the 1940s and 1950s, Vancouver’s 'golden age' of neon, when there was reportedly more neon in Vancouver than anywhere in the world, except for Shanghai, China. The interior of the café has survived intact, and includes a coffee counter, booths, mirrors and varnished woodwork.
Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

The Cecil Hotel
Oil on Canvas
30" x 45"
2010
Ian Tan Gallery

Goodbye to great Vancouver nights at the Cecil Hotel
By Janet Mackie
I heard the other day that the Cecil Hotel is soon to be demolished and the news brought back memories. The Cecil Hotel was for many years in the 70’s a great place to be on a Friday night. The Cecil, at that time, did not look that much different from the Yale Hotel next door (which also had popular subterranean steambaths) or the Blackstone farther down the street or the Austin across the road, or, indeed, many other Vancouver hotel bars. But for a long time the customers on Friday nights were an interesting bunch of people.
Poets and writers and potters and artists and musicians and bar-room philosophers and existentialist cab-drivers and Malcolm Lowry fans and alcohol-impaired Ph.D.s and fine-arts majors turned carpenters would all congregate on Friday night and drink and talk until closing time and then often go around the corner to the old Arts Club on Seymour Street where you could drink and dance (maybe catch Doug and the Slugs Band) until early morning.
(excerpt of original article published May 28, 2008 by Janet Mackie in The Georgia Straight.)

NEW Gallery Representation

2010-08-25T09:40:00.007-04:00

I am excited to announce that in May 2011 I will be having a major solo exhibition of new works at the prestigious Arden Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts.

Woof! Art of the Dog

2010-08-19T14:01:00.008-04:00

Original paintings by Will RAFUSE
Bilbo (left)
30" x 36"
oil on canvas 2010

Winston (right)
30" x 36"
oil on canvas 2010

Museum of Arts & Sciences, Daytona Beach Florida
September 3, 2010 - January 9, 2011

Gary R. Libby Entry Court

Ever seen a dog smile, admire the seemingly-simplistic artistry of a photograph of dogs at play or of dog behavior that is close to human? For these fun and fascinating facts of life, come to our latest exhibit. Contemporary portraits of dogs of all sizes, shapes and breeds celebrated through paintings by such craftsmen and artists as George Rodrigue, Ron Burns, Will Rafuse, William Wegman and others. These pieces will enliven the Museum’s Entry Court in this family friendly exhibit.

Neon Signs, recent paintings by Will RAFUSE

2010-08-02T11:01:00.022-04:00

Vintage neon signs, popular in the 50s and 60s, today are all but vanished landmarks of an era that elicits nostalgia. With his current interest in strong color and cultural icons, neon signs are an attractive new subject.

Mia Johnson

Elephant Super Car Wash (Seattle, Washington) 40" x 36"

Ovaltine Cafe (Vancouver, British Columbia) 48" x 30" SOLD

Felix Chevrolet (Los Angeles, California) 36" x 36"

Mom's Motel (Tulare, California) 36" x 36"

Boots by Dayton (Vancouver, British Columbia) 36" x 30" SOLD

The Sidelines Cocktails (Arcata, California) 36" x 40"

5 Spot (Seattle, Washington) 40" x 36"

Greyhound Bus (Beaumont, Texas) 48" x 30"

Best Motel (Hot Spring, Arkansas) 30" x 36"

Lum's Chop Suey (Fresno, California) 24" x 30"

Oasis Bar & Lounge (Sturgis, South Dakota) 30" x 36"

Rudy's Bar & Grill (New York, New York) 24" x 30"

Society Cleaners (Las Vegas, Nevada) 30" x 36"

(all paintings are oil on canvas, 2010)

Ian Tan Gallery, Vancouver July 10th - 29th

2010-07-15T14:24:00.004-04:00

July 10th, 2010
Myself, Ian Tan & Tim Fraser

Exhibition @ Ian Tan Gallery

2010-06-23T10:17:00.013-04:00

TIM FRASER & WILL RAFUSE
July 10 - 29, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 10th from 2 - 4pm
Artists in attendance
Ian Tan Gallery, Vancouver
Contact Gallery for preview....
info@iantangallery.com

Tim Fraser
"Lagoon Entrance" 2010
Oil on canvas 30" x 60"

Will Rafuse
"Pink Motel" 2010
Cherokee, North Carolina
Oil on Canvas 36" x 36"

Preview: The Gallery Guide, Summer Edition

2010-06-12T09:22:00.005-04:00

Preview :
The Gallery Guide, in print and on-line, lists current art exhibitions in Canadian and American art galleries and museums in major cities and towns: Calgary, Edmonton, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria – and throughout Alberta, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. Search for artists, galleries, museums, media: painting, sculpture, print, photograph, installation, performance, etc.
Cover photo: "Elephant Super Car Wash" (Seattle)
Original oil on canvas, 40" x 36" by Artist Will RAFUSE
Ian Tan Gallery; Vancouver , July 10th - 29th 2010

Jean-Michel Basquiat Retrospective @ Fondation Beyeler

2010-06-09T13:16:00.004-04:00

Interview with Sam Keller

On the occasion of his 50th birthday, the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen near Basel / Switzerland, is devoting the first large exhibition ever held in Europe to the American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988).

In this conversation with Ute Thon (Art – Das Kunstmagazin), Sam Keller (Fondation Beyeler’s director and the co-curator of this exhibition with art historian Dieter Buchhart) talks about the genesis and importance of the exhibition, why it was so challenging to put the show together, the charateristics of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s oeuvre, and his favorite pieces in the exhibition.

The artist star died of a drug overdose at the age of 27. In the space of just eight years he had succeeded in creating an extensive oeuvre and introducing new figurative and expressive elements into contemporary art.

The Basquiat retrospective at the Fondation Beyeler traces Jean-Michel Basquiat’s unique artistic development and reflects his place in art history. The show also enables a rediscovery and re-evaluation of one of the most fascinating personalities in the history of recent art.

The Basquiat retrospective at Fondation Beyeler comprises over 100 works. It runs until September 5, 2010. The show is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue that was designed by Marie Lusa and contains essays by Dieter Buchhart, Glenn O’Brien, and Robert Storr, an interview with Basquiat by Becky Johnston and Tamra Davis, previously published only as a video film (1985), and short texts by Michiko Kono and a chronology by M. Franklin Sirmans.

Courtesy: vernissage.tv

Louise Bourgeois

2010-05-31T20:44:00.008-04:00

Maman
1999, cast 2003
bronze, stainless steel, and marble
927 x 891 x 1024 cm
National Gallery of Canada

Louise Bourgeois
Born in Paris, France, 25 December 1911
Died in Manhattan, NYC, 31 May 2010
The extraordinary career of Louise Bourgeois has spanned close to eight decades and been associated with many major movements of the twentieth century, including Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and Feminism. Bourgeois' singular, and often autobiographical artistic vision transcends the personal to portray archetypal themes relating to the human condition. Inspired by the artist's own mother, a tapestry restorer, "Maman", the giant egg-carrying spider, is a nurturing and protective symbol of fertility and motherhood, shelter and the home. With its monumental and terrifying scale, however, "Maman" also betrays this maternal trust to incite a mixture of fear and curiosity.
When asked how she wanted to remembered in art history books, she responded: "I'm not that interested in art history. I was married to an art historian and had enough of it. Art history is one thing and being an artist is another. I know I'm part of history, just a tiny stone in a very big wall."

Giuseppe Panza, Collector of Postwar American Art, Dies at 87

2010-05-02T11:00:00.001-04:00

“I collect art because I love beauty, not to make money,” Count Panza told Sculpture magazine in 2008. “This relationship to art is a necessity for me because everybody wants to be happy, and I found the best way to be happy.”

Group Show at The Ian Tan Gallery, Vancouver

2010-02-14T13:24:00.011-05:00

~Breakfast of Champions~
24" X 30"
Oil on Canvas, 2010

~BIG Mac~
24" X 24"
Oil on Canvas, 2010

I am honored to be exhibiting my new works in a Group Show at the Ian Tan Gallery in Vancouver from February 20 - March 11, 2010.

2010...Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T08:47:00.018-05:00

"One tequila, two tequila,
three tequila, floor."
~George Carlin

I wish you all a healthy, happy and prosperous 2010!
Moderation is always in good taste.

~Martini~
John Register
50" x 35"
oil on canvas, 1994

New Paintings @ The Ian Tan Gallery

2009-10-14T17:23:00.012-04:00

These two images are the latest in my series of vintage neon sign paintings.

~Barber Shop~
24" x 30"
oil on canvas, 2009
(Seattle, Washington)

~Annabelle's~
30" x 36"
oil on canvas, 2009
(San Francisco, California)

John W. Waterhouse @ Montreal Museum

2009-10-06T09:28:00.028-04:00

John William Waterhouse, Rome 1849 - London 1917
The Lady of Shalott, 1888, Oil on canvas, Gift of Sir Henry Tate, 1894
The Tate Gallery, London

John William Waterhouse
"Garden of Enchantment"
From October 2, 2009, to February 7, 2010
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

For the first time ever, all of Waterhouse’s paintings of the Lady of Shalott are exhibited together. This propitious gathering provides a unique opportunity to contemplate the artist’s exploration over a thirty-year period of the celebrated poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The Tate’s Lady of Shalott is the best known of all Waterhouse’s works, a highly sophisticated piece of painting that evokes a magical world of dream-like romance. But the picture and its subject touch on a range of serious and troubling issues, including female sexuality, gender politics, the relationship of the artist to society, as well as a ferocious contemporary aesthetic debate around naturalism and narrative. Waterhouse closely followed Tennyson’s poem, which enjoyed enormous popularity through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. His verse treatments of the legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table were probably admired most of all. First published in 1832 and revised in 1842, Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott” was one of his earliest excursions into Arthurian myth. It was inspired not by Thomas Malory’s fifteenth-century Morte d’Arthur, but by Donna di Scallotta, an Italian fourteenth-century story.

In “The Lady of Shalott,” a fairy woman is confined to a tower on an island up-river from Camelot. How she got there, or the nature of the curse which holds her prisoner, is never revealed. This curse forbids her to see the world other than reflected in a mirror, and she weaves “the mirror’s magic sights.” It is not until Lancelot rides by that, stricken with love and lust, the Lady turns, unleashing the curse. She embarks on a voyage down the river, and dies, the curse fulfilled. The taste for Arthurian subject-matter in the 1880s and 1890s can be related to social and political shifts in Victorian society, and Waterhouse was not alone in finding the Lady of Shalott’s story attractive. This is now seen as connected with the shifting position of women in British society, and in particular, male concern about the growing economic and social independence of the “New Woman.” The sexual and social dynamics of the story of The Lady of Shalott should not be underestimated.

The story is an allegory of longing, repression, fear and punishment, and Tennyson’s lyrical text adopts an erotic rhythm. The poem’s image of the Lady in a tower was a traditional symbol of chastity and containment. Its appearance in Tennyson’s poem can be seen as a metaphor for the constraints of nineteenth-century home life. The poem seems to warn of the consequences of acting on physical compulsion, while also recognizing the inevitability of giving in to such temptation.

Happy 100th Birthday Nick Sopoff...

2009-08-19T18:49:00.002-04:00

Wish you were here...

Summer Group Show @ The Ian Tan Gallery

2009-08-04T08:57:00.005-04:00

~Dairy Queen~
36" X 30"
Oil on Canvas, 2009

I am honored to be exhibiting my new works in The Summer Group Show at the Ian Tan Gallery in Vancouver from August 8th - 27th, 2009.

This painted neon sign is from an original Dairy Queen that still operates and sells only dairy products at corner of rue de Bellechasse & Avenue Christophe Colomb, Montreal.

The Only Seafood Cafe

2009-08-04T08:52:00.008-04:00

~The Only~
36" X 30"
Oil on Canvas, 2009

Two Survivors: A Seafood Place and Old Neon
(Reprinted with permission.)
By Robert Boyd
The Only Café is Vancouver’s longest surviving restaurant in the same location. It has changed very little over the years. It has never been a fancy place. There is no maitre d’, and definitely no valet parking. It is rather plain looking both inside and out. It has an ornamental tin ceiling which is still the original, as well as a full-length wall mirror. There are seventeen chrome button swivel chair-stools on a horseshoe-and-a-half counter and two booths at the back, making for a maximum capacity of twenty-five. Its specialty is seafood, which is where the name was derived from. When this establishment was first opened, it was the only restaurant in all of Vancouver that served seafood, hence its name. It retains an old-fashioned sense in the fact that payment terms are still cash only. No credit cards or Interac. For all patrons, the rules are very simple: no undesirables allowed, and service is refused to anyone who is too drunk to sit up and eat. But to gain a better perspective of how the Only has stood the test of time, let’s turn back the clock.

Vancouver, 1912. Vancouver is a bustling city. Hastings Street is at the heart of the downtown core. It is the place to “see and be seen”. The city’s most popular theatres, restaurants, dance halls, and hotels are all located in the first three blocks of East Hastings Street. In that year, Antonio Demetry establishes a restaurant in the brand-new Craftsman’s Building at 20 East Hastings and names it the Vancouver Oyster Saloon. At the same time, Nick Thodos is working as a cook in the English Kitchen, five doors down at 30 East Hastings. The two Greek men eventually become the most popular cooks in all of Vancouver. In 1916, Nick’s brother Gustave joins him at the English Kitchen, and later that year, they purchase controlling interest in the Vancouver Oyster Saloon. They immediately renamed the establishment the Only Café.

(Click here for the entire article on "The Only," by Robert Boyd.)

Spring Group Show @ The Ian Tan Gallery

2009-06-10T13:12:00.007-04:00

~Magee Grocery~
30" X 30"
Oil on Canvas, 2009
(Vancouver, British Columbia)

I am honored to be exhibiting my new works in The Spring Group Show at the Ian Tan Gallery in Vancouver from June 13th until June 26th, 2009.

"Chucky's Recurring Delusional Dream"

2009-05-08T19:31:00.037-04:00

"Chucky's Recurring Delusional Dream"
30" x 36"
Oil on Canvas, 2009

My surrealist portrait of Chucky the cat with his nemesis' the Lord of the Rings gang - Frodo, Bilbo, and Strider...is in honor of, one of the twentieth centuries most amazing Artists, Salvador Dali.

The Persistence of Memory
Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1989)
Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York
1931. Oil on canvas, 9 1/2 x 13" (24.1 x 33 cm). Given anonymously. © 2009 Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Time is the theme here, from the melting watches to the decay implied by the swarming ants. The monstrous fleshy creature draped across the paintings center is an approximation of Dalís own face in profile. Mastering what he called "the usual paralyzing tricks of eye-fooling," Dalí painted this work with "the most imperialist fury of precision," but only, he said, "to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality." There is, however, a nod to the real: The distant golden cliffs are those on the coast of Catalonia, Dalís home.

Salvador Dali the Master of Surrealism
Dali embraced all the science of painting as a way to study the psyche through subconscious images. He called this process the Paranoiac Critical Method. As any paranoiac, the artist should allow these images to reach the conscience, and then do what the paranoiac cannot do: Freeze them on canvas to give consciousness the opportunity to comprehend their meaning. Later on, he expanded the process into the Oniric-Critical Method, in which the artist pays attention to his dreams, freezing them through art, and analyzing them as well. As Freud said, "A dream that is not interpreted is like a letter that is not opened."

Dali Atomicus/ Philippe Halsman/Gelatin silver print, 1947
Halsman Family Collection
Image Copyright the Estate of Philippe Halsman

Surrealism
In Paris, Halsman studied the work of other artists and photographers, especially the surrealists, from whom he learned to make images that surprised his viewers. By including homely, and ultimately disturbing, details, he gave his subjects memorable tension. Through subtle lighting, sharp focus, and close cropping, he turned formal fashion shots into serious investigations of character. When Halsman posed NBC comedians against bare white paper, eliminating all defining context, their isolation made them look both frail and funny. Salvidor Dali Most important of all, from the surrealists' exploration of the erotic unconscious, Halsman learned how to combine glamour, sex, and wholesome energy in one portrait. This unusual ability made him Life's favorite photographer for sensual stars like Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot. Halsman's sympathy for surrealism also led to his long, productive friendship with Salvador Dali. Halsman met Dali on assignment in 1941, and over the next three decades they became partners on many projects, including a series of playful tableaux that had all the disturbing irrationality of dreams or a painting by Dali. Their most notable production was "Dali Atomicus", in which the artist, his canvas, furniture, cats, and water all appear suspended in air.

A Retrospective of Philippe Halsman's work was exhibited at National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian in Washington.

Group Show @ The Ian Tan Gallery

2008-11-16T08:47:00.018-05:00

~Le Petit Bistro~
30" X 36"
Oil on Canvas, 2008

I am honored to be exhibiting my new works in a group show at the Ian Tan Gallery in Vancouver from November 29th until December 18th, 2008.

Antoine's & Quality Café

2008-04-22T14:26:00.003-04:00

My latest painting, a diptych, titled “Antoines” & “Quality Café” are from a series I am working on inspired by one of my favorite American Artists, Edward Hopper.

"Early Sunday Morning" 1930 by Edward Hopper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Edward Hopper was born on July 22, 1882, to a prosperous dry-goods merchant in Nyack, New York, a small town on the Hudson about twenty-five miles north of New York City. He enrolled in the Correspondence School of Illustrating in New York in 1900; he transferred to the New York School of Art the next year, and it was here that he studied with legendary teachers William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, and Kenneth Hayes Miller.

Hopper visited Europe three times between 1906 and 1910, and while he was a life-long Francophile, he never went abroad again. In 1913 he moved to Greenwich Village, renting the top floor apartment at 3 Washington Square North. This would be his home for the rest of his life.

Until the age of 40, Hopper’s career was marked by disappointment. He only sold one painting, and was rarely able to get into gallery shows. He supported himself through commercial illustration—which he loathed—and printmaking, which won him critical recognition.

Hopper’s breakthrough came in 1923 when the Brooklyn Museum bought his watercolor The Mansard Roof for $100. The following year he married fellow painter Josephine Nivison and began showing his work with prominent New York art dealer Frank Rehn. Solo shows made Hopper’s reputation: his oils and watercolors sold well, and critics applauded his quiet realism, use of light, and above all, his ability to reveal beauty in the most mundane subjects.

In 1933, the Museum of Modern Art gave Hopper his first retrospective exhibition. The exhibition included many of his signature subjects: Victorian houses, New York restaurants, automats, drugstores, and bridges, as well as views into quiet, middle-class apartments. Also in the exhibition were paintings from his summer travels to Gloucester, Maine and after 1930, from Truro on Cape Cod. In 1934, he and his wife Jo built a house in Truro where they spent almost every summer.

Although Hopper continued to travel, his best-known works came from his solitary wanderings in New York City. These include Early Sunday Morning, which shows Greenwich Village shop fronts before people filled the streets, and Nighthawks, an image of a diner late at night.

Hopper died on May 15, 1967 at the age 84, and during his long career saw the rise of many different avant-garde moments, including Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art. Despite the popularity of these styles, he remained esteemed by critics and the public. In 1950, the Whitney Museum gave him a major retrospective and he was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1956. In 1967, the year of his death, he represented the United States in the prestigious Sao Paolo Biennial.

In 1971, his wife bequeathed more than 3,000 of his works to the Whitney Museum, which has since staged many important and critically acclaimed exhibitions of his work.

To Bee or Not to Bee...

2008-03-24T20:45:00.001-04:00

I created and painted this piece for the Queens Botanical Garden in New York to raise funds for awareness to the disappearing Bees.

Gardening Day
Sunday April 27, 2008

“If the bee disappeared off the face of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

Often ascribed to Albert Einstein, the above quote is serious in its focus. The Queens Botanical Garden will be addressing this important issue at Gardening Day on Sunday, April 27, 2008.

Each spring up to 4,000 participants come to the Queens Botanical Garden (QBG) to celebrate Gardening Day and the myriad relationships people have with plants. Gardening Day is a free event, which was conceived as a day to inspire home gardeners to get their gardens growing in the spring. This year’s theme To Bee or Not to Bee reflects our mission of environmentalism and sustainability and is designed to encourage Queens’ residents to learn new gardening techniques that encourage responsible ecological, sustainable choices, especially as they affect the dwindling bee population.

Recognizing that our audience desires practical advice on home gardening and is looking for entertaining family programming, QBG will offer a variety of workshops and programs including environmentally friendly gardening techniques and other horticultural basics. Special presentations within the day’s theme, such as exhibits on cooking/baking with honey, medicinal uses of honey, making bee’s wax candles and beekeeping basics, round out an afternoon that people of all ages can enjoy.

A Snapshot of QBG

The Queens Botanical Garden, a living museum serving the most ethnically diverse county in the United States, is committed to presenting collections, education and research initiatives and programs that demonstrate environmental stewardship, promote sustainability and celebrate the rich cultural connections between people and plants. (Mission, adopted December 18, 2001)

The Queens Botanical Garden (QBG), located at the northeast corner of Flushing Meadows Corona, is a private, nonprofit cultural institution that evolved from the 5-acre "Gardens on Parade" exhibit showcased at the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair. Officially opening as the Queens Botanical Garden in 1948, QBG is now one of the City's 34 Cultural Institutions Group (CIG) members, featuring 39 acres of City land under its care.

QBG serves one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the United States. Nearly 300,000 people, speaking any of the more than 140 languages or dialects heard throughout the borough of Queens, visit the Garden annually. QBG is the primary source of botanical education for children and adults in the borough, fostering healthy connections between people and nature.

The Visitor & Administration Building, opened in September 2007, was designed to achieve the highest (platinum) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) rating. It includes three working roofs: one with solar panels to capture and use the sun’s energy, another to collect rain for water uses, and a green, planted roof that is accessible to the public. It also makes exemplary use of natural ventilation and daylight, and includes a geothermal heating exchange system, composting toilets and other environmentally green technologies. The landscape portion of this ambitious project includes a cleansing biotope and constructed wetlands, as well as woodland, prairie and aquatic plant communities native to the New York region. The building is one of three green museums written of in Metropolitan Home magazine (Jan/Feb08), and The New York Times has highlighted the new structure as “something special” (January 20, 2008).

QBG continues to be a community facility while working to become a national leader among botanic gardens in cross-cultural programs and sustainable practices. As New York City has the lowest ratio of green space per capita of any major city in the United States, this project gives New Yorkers the opportunity to participate in a green demonstration project that reveals the connections between global conservation and local sustainability, deepening the visitor experience as we seek to teach, inform, and inspire

QBG is continually developing programs and exhibits that utilize the enormous educational potential of the green technologies that are utilized in the Garden’s facilities and landscapes. Public education programs are accessible to all Queens residents as well as families in the other boroughs of New York and beyond. Crafts, hands-on activities, tours, story telling, music and dance movements contribute greatly to making the lessons of environmental sustainability and cultural connections relevant and dynamic. In addition to our well-reputed workshops and tours, QBG offers children and adults a rich array of programs in horticulture, environmental education and cultural arts that promote the Garden’s dual vision of environmental sustainability and cultural expression, including Arbor Day, HSBC’s Children’s Garden and the popular Gardening Day.

http://www.queensbotanical.org