Galleries form London, Madrid, New York and across the United States will offer more than 3,000 original works of art at The Thirteenth Annual Boston International Fine Art Show (BIFAS), which takes place Thursday – Sunday, November 12-15, 2009 at The Cyclorama at The Boston Center for The Arts (BCA). The show opens with the Gala Preview on Thursday, November 12 from 5:30 to 9:30pm to benefit Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society. The weekend show is Friday 1pm-9pm, Saturday 11am-8pm and Sunday11am-5pm. Tickets are $15 online or at the door. Friday evening November 13 is “New Collector’s Night”, and special guest lectures will take place throughout the weekend. For more information call (617) 363-0405, or visit www.FineArtBoston.com.
The only show of its kind in New England, BIFAS features 40 select galleries, offering both traditional and contemporary fine art: paintings, sculpture, drawings, fine prints, photography and more. More than 3,000 original works of art will be on view and for sale in all price ranges, from fine original prints costing just a few hundred dollars to museum-quality masterpiece paintings priced at more than $1 million. Last year, close to 3,000 people attended the show.
Handel and Haydn Society is the country’s oldest continuously performing arts organization, founded in 1815. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Harry Christophers, the Society is widely known for its concerts at Boston’s Symphony Hall, and especially well-known for its presentations of Handel’s “Messiah”, a Boston holiday tradition. The Society is also known for its tours, concert broadcasts on National Public Radio, and recordings. Winner of a 2002 Grammy Award, its two most recent CDs appeared simultaneously in the top ten on Billboard Magazine’s classical music chart.
Following the success of last year’s show, co-producers Tony Fusco and Robert Four are anticipating yet another outstanding event. Returning to the show this year are a number of prestigious galleries from the United States and Europe including: Vose Galleries, Avery Galleries, Martha Richardson Fine Art, Gladwell & Company of London, Barbizon specialist Heinley Fine Arts, Marine Arts Gallery, McClees Galleries, The Guild of Boston Artists, Arcadia Fine Arts, and others.
The show also welcomes new galleries from Europe including Galeria Quorum of Madrid, showing outstanding contemporary works by Spanish artists, and Ransom Gallery of London, featuring Irish artist Tim Woolcock. U.S. galleries joining the show this year include the prestigious William Vareika Fine Arts (RI), one of the largest galleries in New England featuring 18th, 19th and 20th century American art; Arader Galleries (NY), known for their collections of original Audubon prints; Eckert Fine Art (CT), recently relocated to Connecticut and offering such Modern Masters as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Stella; Fraser Gallery (MD), a leading contemporary gallery in the Washington DC area; Gary Bruder Fine Art (NY), a specialist in the prints and posters of Toulouse-Lautrec, and others.
The Gala Preview, bolstered by the show’s Honorary Committee, has blossomed in to one of Boston’s premier social and art collecting events. The Honorary Committee includes numerous New England museum directors and curators, such as Malcolm Rogers of the MFA Boston, Thomas Lentz of the Harvard Art Museums, James Welu of the Worcester Art Museum and Dennis Kois of the Decordova Museum and Sculpture Park.
The Cyclorama provides the ideal venue: a large circular rotunda and adjacent salons encourage visitors to both linger and wander. The historic structure is located in the heart of the Boston Center for the Arts complex, which boasts four theatres, a gallery, Boston Ballet school, 50 artist studios and other facilities. There are more than a dozen “hot” restaurants and night-spots within a five-minute walk, making it a focal point for cultural life in the city.
