Calabi Gallery 10 Year Anniversary Celebration - Nov 9
By Dennis Calabi
Time does fly, and we have somehow managed to survive 10 years, showing our eclectic array of decidedly non-trendy art. It has been a labor of love, completely unrewarded by financial compensation, yet oddly satisfying. We live the same way as our artists, living and dead, eking out a bare living while basking in the glow of achieving something special and unique in an increasingly soulless world. The arts are ever more important to maintaining sanity and a sense of meaning in a shrinking and despoiled planet.
We opened 10 years ago on the Day of the Dead in honor of my 3 major mentors who led me down this path. My father, Paul Calabi, instilled in me a love of the arts and a general attitude about the importance of aesthetics. When I turned 19 we were both jobless and searching for work. He suggested we open an art gallery together, and my studies in preparation for that led me in another direction. I entered an apprenticeship to become a restorer and conservator of art. My teacher, Giovanni Castano, had a gallery in Boston, and aside from learning restoration from him, he taught me so much about art history. He gave me an incredible sense of connection to a long past world. His art was personally critiqued by Winslow Homer when he was 12 years old, and many years later he was chosen by the Homer family to handle his estate. In the early 1940’s he held an exhibit of Leonardo Da Vinci drawings, mostly borrowed from museums. That could never happen today! The third person responsible for me opening a gallery was the painter Robert McChesney. We became very close friends soon after meeting and he kept asking me to represent him. For many years I tried to find an appropriate gallery to show his work, and he made it clear that he wanted me in charge of his art after his passing. Well, he passed away, and having failed to find him representation, I decided I better open a gallery.
The 10th Anniversary Exhibition will be a showcase for the diversity of styles, periods, and media for which we have become known. Regular visitors will find many old favorites as well as a number of exciting works we have never shown before. These include a major work by Irving Norman, three exciting pieces by Bella Feldman, and remarkable paintings by Peter Holbrook, Frank Lobdell, Carol Peek, Michael Ramos, and Horst Trave.
https://www.facebook.com/events/386634525547274/) .
Saturday, November 9, 2019 at 4 PM – 8 PM at 56 Tenth Street in Santa Rosa, CA 95401. The exhibition will run thru January 11th, 2020.
For further information, please contact Camille Palmer at 707-781-7070, email info@calabigallery.com or visit http://www.calabigallery.com
CALABI GALLERY
456 Tenth Street
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
