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| This past Saturday the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton held its annual Midsummer Party hosted by the museum’s director Terrie Sultan, board of trustee co-chairs Douglas Polley and Carlo Bronzini Vender. The event’s co-chairs were Debbie Bancroft and Dorothy Lichtenstein. They honored collector/curator Beth DeWoody and artist Ross Bleckner for their “remarkable contributions to cultural and humanitarian causes throughout the world,” and the event was sold-out with more than a thousand guests (500 for dinner with an additional 550 for the after party with Tom Finn DJ-ing the dance music that had the entire crowd on their feet), raising $700,000 for the museum which will be building a new facility in neighboring Watermill. Anne Pasternak, President and Artistic Director of Creative Time feted Mrs. DeWoody with a playful tribute in the form of a multiple choice pop quiz about her. Ross Bleckner was feted by artist Eric Fishl who has been a friend since the 1970s when they were both studying art at CalArts. |
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Mary Gayle Parr, Whitney Fairchild, Meghan Boody, Marcia Mishaan, and Fiona Rudin |
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| Of the honorees, I’ve met Mr. Bleckner many times over the years but Mrs. DeWoody and I have been close friends since the early 1970s. Two of her most prominent qualities/characteristics are her gift of friendship and her intense interest in the arts – be they theatrical, musical or visual. In those early days, she was already purchasing art although she had a fondness for rare books, sheet music and memorabilia of all sorts. In the mid-1970s she married artist Jim DeWoody (with whom she has two children – son Carlton and daughter Kyle) and her interest in the visual arts expanded substantially. Today that interest has grown literally into an international force, and all of her houses – in Southampton, Palm Beach and New York – are repositories of her ever burgeoning collection of contemporary art (as well as the aforementioned materials). Along with these interests, the ubiquitous and indefatigable collector is also a deeply committed philanthropist and a big champion of the Parrish. She’s served as a trustee of the Whitney, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and New Yorkers for Children, of which she is a founding member. |
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Rose Dergan, Will Cotton, Cecilia Alemani, Carlo Bronzini, and Elizabeth Dee |
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James Nederlander Sr., Charlene Nederlander, Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, and friends |
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| Her collecting is enhanced by the aforementioned “gift of friendship” which she shares very generously with scores of friends. To know Beth is to have an automatic networker in your life. It is not a question of her “introducing” one to another but more the collector’s eye and mind for potential combinations and shared interests. And so it is that all over the world, literally, there are friends and friends of Beth DeWoody. Ross Bleckner has had major exhibitions at museums all over the world. He was the youngest artist ever to have a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim and his paintings are in collections throughout the world. He also serves proactively on the board of ACRIA and is the only artist ever to be named as a United Nations Ambassador for Goodwill for his work with children in Uganda. |
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Matt Fink, Ophelia Rudin, Bill Rudin, Michael Rudin, and Michelle Adams |
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Lisa Anastos, Michelle Paige Paterson, Alexandra Stanton, Doug Polley, and Jean Shafiroff |
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| Attendees included attorney and investment banker Charles N. Atkins, New York First District Congressman Tim Bishop, Olivia Chantecaille, arts patron and philanthropist Christophe DeMenil, Parrish Trustee Ira Drukier and Gale Drukier, Tiffany Dubin, journalist Maurice DuBois, Dallas Ernst, Whitney and James Fairchild, Jonathan and Somers Farkas, attorney H. Peter Haveles, Jr. and Elizabeth Haveles, Jane Holzer, President of the Robert Lehman Foundation and Parrish Trustee Philip Isles, Jocelyn Javits, Donna Karan, Phillip Lim, Jay McInerney, Nicole Miller, Isaac Mizrahi, Sonja Morgan, investment banker Alex Navab and Mary Kathryn Navab, James and Charlene Nederlander, New York's First Lady Michelle Paige Paterson, Peter Jay Sharp Foundation President Norman Peck and Liliane Peck, Stephen Perlbinder and documentary filmmaker Sandy Perlbinder, Tatiana and Campion Platt, Douglas and Stacy Bash-Polley, Beth DeWoody’s family members Eric and Fiona Rudin, Bill Rudin and Ophelia Rudin, Carlton DeWoody, Kyle DeWoody, Adam Sender and Lenore Sender, Ramona Singer and Mario Singer, former Ambassador Carl Spielvogel and Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, Alexandra Stanton and Sam Natapoff, producer and screenwriter Darren Star, Steven B. Tanger, Carlo Bronzini Vender and Tanya Traykovski, Rufus Wainwright and Parrish Trustee David Wassong. Artists that attended included: Chuck Close, Michael Combs, Will Cotton, Eric Fischl and April Gornik, Michele Oka Donner, Mary Heilmann, Dennis Oppenheim, Alexis Rockman, David Salle, Keith Sonnier, Billy Sullivan, who created a special portrait of the honorees for the invitation, Robert Wilson and Rob Wynne. |
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| Photographs by PatrickMcMullan.com [1] | Click here [2] for NYSD Contents
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