The Jersey City Independent "

In the late 1960s, two up-and-coming SoHo art dealers named Louis K. and Susan P. Meisel (seen at right) began a concerted effort to study, collect and interpret Photorealism. Forty years later, Louis and Susan have amassed one of the greatest collections of Photorealism in the world, and some of it will soon be on display in Jersey City, thanks to the Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation and Mana Contemporary, the huge new art center near Journal Square.

Photorealism emerged in the late 1960s as a generation of artists rejected art world tradition by unashamedly using photography to create large-scale realist paintings and sculptures. Many of the best Photorealist paintings do indeed look like photographs, until you get close up and realize that they are not.

The exhibition, which opens Sunday, September 18, will feature the work of 38 artists, including founding members of the movement like Richard Estes, Ralph Goings, Chuck Close, Charles Bell, Audrey Flack, Don Eddy, Robert Bechtle, as well as some of their contemporary counterparts, such as Roberto Bernardi, sculptor John DeAndrea, Raphaella Spence, Bertrand Meniel and Yigal Ozeri.

But the exhibition will feature more than just the Meisel’s stunning Photorealism collection. It will also feature key works from the their collection of mid-70s Abstract Illusionism, as well as 20th century Pin-up illustrators such as Gil Elvgren, George Petty and Alberto Vargas and pop art paintings by Mel Ramos, whose work serves as the bridge between the Pin-up movement and modern-day Photorealism.

We recently caught up with Louis and Susan to discuss the show, Photorealism, and the philosophy behind their collection.

SELECTIONS FROM THE EXHIBITION:

---

What do you hope the viewer takes away from this exhibition?

We have never followed the herd, so to speak in our collecting. We identify categories that interest us, have not been focused on and collected by many others, unlike most of the so-called “art” collectors of the past 30 years or so.

We then amass what we feel is the best collection, research and learn as much as possible and then try to publish what we’ve learned. We have 20 books between us and have contributed to dozens of other writers’ efforts.

So! The viewers to this exhibition will see highly curated and assembled works not to be encountered easily anywhere else besides our home.

What was the first Photorealist painting Susan and you collected?

The first major work still in the collection is Charles Bell’s Gumball #2. We still have many early works by Close, Goings, Estes, Flack, Blackwell, Bell and others from the very early 70s and before.

If you had to choose one painting from your Photorealist collection to live with, and only one, which would it be and why?

It would be Sixteen Candles, a major marbles painting by Charles Bell. It has never left our walls. It is very large and very important to us. We lend hundreds of paintings to museums all the time — but not this one.

Susan and you have collected artwork since the late 1960s — that’s more than 40 years. How has your collection evolved over this time? Are you guys better at collecting now than you were at the beginning? How did you hone your craft?

Eyes and attitudes develop. As time goes on one selects for what he perceives as quality and may add at the top and let go of the bottom.

The name of the exhibition is Our Own Direction. What is the title in reference to?

We do not follow what the “critics, writers, dealers and the herd” are doing. We find our own way and interests. When you look at the art magazines “top” 10 or 100 collectors in contemporary are you see the same artists coinciding on many of not most. That is not collection; it is accumulating along with the crowd of what is “hot” or “prestigious.”

THE DETAILS

Our Own Directions: Four Decades of Photorealism from the Louis K. and Susan P. Meisel Collection; opens Sunday, September 18 from 1 to 5 pm; at Mana Contemporary, 888 Newark Avenue. For more information, click here.

Like what you've read here? Please consider making a donation or becoming a sustaining member. As a grassroots news organization, we rely on community support -- as well as paid advertising -- to survive.