Frames and Stretchers is Celebrating our Third Anniversary!
Three years ago Erick and Miguel, two artists with studios in the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center on the Lower East Side, joined forces to create an artist focused framing and canvas stretching business in the building. "We opened our shop with one plan: make quality custom frames and stretchers with the same amount of care and soul that the awesome artist puts into the piece itself".
Erick working with textile artist Orly Cogan (left) and the Art Deliver Van team bringing Victor Rodriguez's painting to Lyle O. Reitzel's gallery on the LES
From this beginning, our client base has grown to include dozens of talented artists, exceptional galleries, and organizations here on the LES, throughout New York City and even internationally. We’ve also expanded to include our delivery and installation service Art Delivery Van, as well as our brand new Frames and Stretchers Factory in the Gowanus / Red Hook area of Brooklyn.
Photographer & environmentalist Shawn Heinrichs reviewing prints (left) and Artist Tscabablala Self in our LES studio
On the occasion of our anniversary here’s a special shout out and thanks to some of our super supportive clients: Ryan McGuinness, Victor Rodriguez, Bookstein Projects, Shawn Heinrichs / Blue Sphere Media, Agnes B Galerie, Colette van den Thillart Design (Toronto), Calicoon Fine Art, Proxyco, Bernarducci Gallery, Orly Cogan, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, Mendes Wood D M, Ken Allen Studios, Lin Felton (QUIK), Lisa LeBofsky, Anastasia Photo, Praxis NY, Thierry Goldberg Gallery, Tschabalala Self, Danielle Richter, Soho Properties, Quint Gallery (San Diego), Ronin Gallery, Clamp Art, Retrospect Galleries (Australia), Grand Street Settlement, ABXY Gallery, Pilar Corrias Gallery (London)...
Erick in the studio with artist Ryan McGinness (left) and team member Stascia floating panels from a Willam Kentridge artwork for Krut Projects
...Turner Duckworth, Williams NY, 1st Dibs, Kezic Gallery (New Orleans), Joanne Artman Gallery, Emmanuel Fremin Gallery, ArtSuite, Ipreciation (Singapore), Art Tuner, Roberto Paradise (San Juan), Frosch & Portmann, Shin Gallery, 1969 Gallery, Eden Gallery, Catinca Tapacaru, Villa del Arte (Barcelona), The Ford Foundation, Tony Hawk Foundation, Cheryl McGinnis Gallery, Luan Gallery (Ireland), Simon Baron Development, Finnish Cultural Institute, Tomorrow Gallery, Loisada Center, Lesley Heller, David Krut Projects, Brian Buckley, Galarie Anne de Villepoix, ArtLabAfrica, Vicki Barranguet, Ariel Shallit, Dor Malka, Antonio Santin, Kenkeleba House, Art D’Aurelle Gallery, Bryant Toth, Wendigo Productions (Rik Rocket), Dorothy Circus Gallery (Rome),Times Square Alliance, Gallery G-77 (Japan), Scherezade Garcia, 212 Arts, Sasha Wolf Pojects, Pinar Du Pre, Lyle O. Reitzel, Manuel Moran, Rodolfo Edwards, Linda Griggs, French Institute Alliance Francaise, Vincent Zambrano, Taittinger Gallery, Jonas Hidalgo, Sussana Coffey, Afro Brazil Arts and Bill Massey among many others.
Thanks to all of you for making it all possible!
- Erick, Miguel and the Frames and Stretchers team
Erick & Miguel with artist Hector Frank at the opening of his latest solo exhibition at Toth Gallery
Presenting the Amazing Pictures Generation Artist Robert Longo!
We’re constantly amazed by the incredible artworks collectors bring to us to frame! We recently had the opportunity to frame an original charcoal triptych by artist Robert Longo. The work, Untitled (Raft at Sea), 2016-2017 is representative of the artist’s recent signature hyper-realistic drawing style. “Raft” is from a collection we work with frequently and is a charcoal study for a large print that was exhibited at Metro Pictures gallery. The drawings were reframed with 99% UV protection and anti-glare Optium Museum Acrylic.
Team member Juan with the framed Robert Longo tryptich
Robert Longo is a Brooklyn native who grew up on Long Island. In 1972 he received a grant to study art history and restoration in Italy, which led him to discover a strong interest in making art. He went on to study at SUNY Buffalo and graduated in 1975. He became lifelong friends with Cindy Sherman and the two of them became important figures of the “Pictures Generation” art movement. Longo is represented by Metro Pictures, a gallery which served as an early venue for exhibiting Pictures Generation artists. He has spent a great deal of time involved in underground culture and has worked across media including music videos. In 1996 he returned to studio practice and began a series of small drawings which formed the basis of his current body of work.
The full-scale work the study was made for (courtesy Metro Pictures)
In 2016, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, presented a major exhibition of his works alongside those of Francisco Goya and Sergei Eisenstein. The exhibition, titled Proof, traveled to the Brooklyn Museum in 2017. In addition to having been exhibited and collected by numerous international museums, he has been included in Documenta 7 and 8, the 1983 and 2004 Whitney Biennials, and the 47th Venice Biennale. We look forward to future collaborations with any more great collectors and art of this caliber!
Scherezade Garcia's Visual Narratives: Color, Emotion and Commentary
It's always a pleasure when a collector brings us an artwork from one of our favorite artists to frame. We recently got the chance to design the custom framing for a painting by Scherezade Garcia. The painting on deckle-edge paper was floated with mulberry paper hinges and rice paste. The color palette and brush strokes lent themselves perfectly to a softly curved natural maple frame with contrasting walnut splines. We accented the molding with 22K gold leaf rubbed to reveal touches of the red clay base. The art was exquisitely mounted on archival mat board with custom matching mat board spacers to distance the art from the glass. Finally, the project was finished using UV protective and non-reflective Museum glass.
The completed framing project in our studio
Sherezade Garcia is originally from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and currently lives and works in NYC. Her education includes an AAS from Altos de Chavón School of Design, a BFA from Parsons -The New School and an MFA from the City College of New York. She is the recipient of a 2015 Joan Mitchell Foundation grant. Garcia is currently represented by Lyle O Reitzel Gallery (Santo Domingo and New York). She is a faculty member of the Parsons School of Design in New York and is represented in the collections of the Smithsonian and El Museu del Barrio.
Details of the closed corner and gold leaf
This project brought together the aesthetic eye of the collector, the talent of the artist and the skills of our design and production team. It was another successful collaboration with the team at Quattro Frameworks. We were also happy to offer delivery to the collector’s home via our partners at Art Delivery Van.
This Weekend We're Popping the Champagne ~ Join Us!
Three Events This Weekend at The Clemente - 5/19-5/2
Frames and Stretchers Birthday Celebration, The Clemente Open Studios & The Community Talent Showcase featuring the photography of Richard Cabral.
We are popping the champagne! Visit us this Friday and Saturday May 19th - 20th to celebrate our second year at The Clemente in the Lower East Side. We will have refreshments and may even have cake!
Friday 05/19 6-9pm
Saturday 05/20 12-6pm
We’ll be having a draw for a $200 framing gift card for one lucky visitor!
Community Talent Showcase - Spring 2017
Join us as we introduce the evocative portrait photography of Richard Cabral. Cabral’s camera captures introspective moments of personal self-discovery in stylish compositions.
RSVP to our facebook event
The Clemente Open Studios 2017
The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center is hosting its annual Building-Wide Visual & Performing Arts Open Studios Event on Friday, May 19th, from 6-9pm and Saturday, May 20th, from 2-9pm and will feature performance, dance and musical events. All events are FREE and open to the public.
Alfredo Volpi's Art Restored to its Glory Days
Frames and Stretchers recently had a fantastic vintage canvas from Brazilian modernist painter Alfredo Volpi in the studio. It arrived with some small condition issues due to age and we were entrusted with re-stretching and re-framing the delicate work. All original vintage materials were used including stretcher bars, frame and even nails. Stascia did a brilliant job giving fresh new life to the mid-twentieth century work.
Framing the Alfredo Volpi painting with vintage materials
Alfredo Volpi was one of the most significant painters of Brazilian modernism. He was born in Italy, but moved with his family to São Paulo with his family at the age of two. He began painting around the age of twelve and moved from a naturalist style through expressionism and was briefly associated with the concretist movement of the 1930s. He eventually developed his own distinctive style using geometric abstract forms and colors. He also traded oils for the ancient traditional medium of tempera.
Details of the canvas before and after re-stretching
In the 1950s he created works based on the façades of houses, but in the 1960s he developed his signature "bandeirinhas" or “small flags” series. The flags are based on those used in Brazil during the annual Festa Junina, a type of Midsummer celebration. He used the stylized flag forms to create vibrant, colorful abstract works. The small reddish geometric form in the painting we worked on identifies this piece as one of the “bandeirinhas” series.
Detail of the painting showing the "bandeirinha" and artist's signature on back
During his career he participated in the second São Paulo Art Biennial and won the Grand Prix for Brazilian painting. More recent twenty first century exhibitions have shown that although he was self-taught he was influenced to some degree by other great modernist painters like Josef Albers. His use of tempera also shows that he had knowledge of historical painting techniques and materials. With works at auction realizing upwards of half a million dollars, Volpi is clearly positioned in history as one of the most important Brazilian painters of his generation and it was an honor to work with his art.
Stascia with the finished framed painting
Warhol Meets Punk and Gets Rock Star Treatment
A recent project at Frames and Stretchers involved the intersection of Andy Warhol’s Factory and the 70s downtown punk scene. We had the opportunity to frame an original Jon Pellicoro, “Andy Warhol” hand grenade. The unique and edgy graphic work was given a high-end treatment befitting a museum quality piece. We built a beautiful closed corner maple frame gilded with 22K gold. The grenade was hinged using Japanese paper and rice paste and mounted behind Optium museum acrylic.
Jon Pellicoro's Andy Warhol inspired hand grenade
Pellicoro was the drummer for the short-lived band the Handgrenades who hailed from Long Island and played Bowery circuit venues like Max’s and CBGB’s. He and band mate Bob Kern have been described as “mordant provocateurs, and good ones at that”. * It was Pellicoro who produced the grenades.
Doing conservation work on the grenade print
Details of the closed corner frame and 22K gold leaf
As a professional graphic artist who worked for the East Village Eye and was a partner in the design firm Grafix Multimedia, Pellicoro had the skills to experiment with unusual advertising gimmicks to promote the band. After a trip to the Factory he got the idea to produce a number of Warhol “inspired” hand grenades to pitch the band's 1979 single Demo to London. These grenade cutouts bore the name of the band and song as well as a “replica” Andy Warhol signature. Many storeowners thought the artworks were authentic Warhols and some were stolen. Some found the grenades to be a clever gimmick, while others were less than amused. Kern says they even tried to provoke Andy himself, “We also put one in Warhol's elevator, we posted them in the elevator of the Factory, and we sent them up to the third floor and walked off.”* Apparently Warhol verbally threatened to sue them, but nothing ever came of it.
The former promotional material in it's beautiful new frame
Now the grenades are a piece of urban folklore and it seems appropriate to have the opportunity to help preserve such a great piece of NYC history here at our LES location!
* http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2012/01/demo-to-london-the-handgrenades-sponsors-story.html
The Hyper-real Tech Inspired Art of Edie Nadelhaft
Edie Nadelhaft's work is fun, deep and ultimately the type of art that you take your time consuming. The Manhattan based contemporary artist is known for her oil paintings as well as her sculpture. We framed a few pieces from her "Better Living Thru Chemistry" sculpture series. The frame was built using our signature black maple, floated over museum board using rice paste and Japanese paper and finished off with museum glass for clarity. They were purchased for the Ford Foundation collection.
A Piece from Edie Nadelhaft's "Better Thru Chemistry" series framed at Frames and Stretchers in the Lower East Side.
Better Thru Chemistry is a series that humorously points out correlations between social media and direct to consumer marketed pharmaceuticals . In Edie's press statement she says, "the work pokes fun at the alternately amusing and depressing correlations between the two phenomena as both are enlisted to over - simplify the human condition and expedite contentment with a familiar recipe of instant gratification and seductive packaging." Better Thru Chemistry is just one series in which Edie explores the physical world and the human experience. In her series, "Flesh" she paints extremely detailed close ups based off of digital pictures taken of her hands, palms, and lips. She focuses on how the development of technology allows us to view details that are naked to the eye through a simple cell phone. In this way, our physical humanity is both more visible and also quickly fading in favor of a more digital imprint.
A piece from Edie Nadelhaft's "Better Thru Chemistry" series framed at Frames and Stretchers in the Lower East Side.
Edie has shown her work all over the United States at many art fairs and galleries. Her most recent show was at the Lyons Weir Gallery in New York. A few others are Postcards From The Edge-William Scott Gallery, Surface Tensions - Lyons Weir Gallery Art Miami, The New York Affordable Art Fair - Art Star, and Summer Salon with Sikkema Jenkins. To find out more about Edie's work and upcoming exhibitions, check out her website. As always, you can see all of our completed projects on our Instagram and read more in depth on the blog.
A piece from Edie Nadelhaft's Flesh series.
