Parrish Art Museum's Midsummer Party Honors Patricia Birch, Paul Taylor and More Tonight, 7/14

The Parrish Art Museum's Midsummer Party, a major highlight of the Hamptons summer season, will take place tonight, July 14.

This year's gala will celebrate the "creative spirit of the East End" by honoring director/choreographer Patricia Birch, visual artist Chuck Close, author/historian Barbara Goldsmith, interior designers Tony Ingrao and Randy Kemper, musician G.E. Smith, and choreographer Paul Taylor. This years Midsummer Party Co-Chairs are Deborah F. Bancroft, Carlo Bronzini Vender, Etta Froio, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Michele Pesner, Douglas Polley, Frederic M. Seegal, Marcia Dunn Sobel, and Alexandra Stanton.

The Midsummer Party begins with cocktails at 6:30 pm and dinner at 7:30 pm in an air-conditioned tent in the Museum's historic arboretum on Jobs Lane in Southampton. The fun continues with dessert, drinks, and dancing from 10 pm to 1 am. The party draws approximately 500 dinner guests and 500 "After Ten" attendees-primarily affluent Hamptons second-homeowners and individuals with sophisticated tastes and interest in the visual arts. Glorious Food is this year's caterer, DJ Tom Finn will provide the music, and Claire Bean, Floral and Event Design, will create the decor. The Corporate Sponsor is Sunrise Jets. Wine and spirits have been generously provided by Niche Import Co. and Glacier Potato Vodka.

This year's attendees will include Deborah Bancroft, Jennifer Bartlett, Ross Bleckner, Mildred Brinn, Liliana Casabal, Gale and Ira Drukier, Arthur and Grethe Elgort, Eric Fischl and April Gornik, Jane Freilicher, Etta Froio, Larry Gagosian, Andrea and Marc Glimcher, David and Elizabeth Granville-Smith, Philip Isles, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Malcolm Morley, Charlene and James M. Nederlander, Norman and Liliane Peck, Lisa Perry, Campion and Tatiana Platt, Toni Ross, Billy Sullivan and Klaus Kertess, David Wassong, and Robert Wilson.

Individual dinner tickets are $1000 for Patrons, $2500 for Benefactors. Tables are priced from $10,000 to $50,000. After-Ten tickets cost $200. Those who purchase tables, Benefactor tickets, or sponsorships, will be treated to a special champagne "hard-hat" tour of the new Parrish with Director Terrie Sultan.

More information and tickets are available from the Special Events Office, 631-283-2118, ext. 42, or from the museum's web site, parrishart.org. the Parrish Art Museum is located at 25 Jobs Lane, Southampton, New York.

Founded in 1897, the Museum celebrates the artistic legacy of Long Island's East End, one of America's most vital creative centers. Since the mid-1950s the Museum has grown from a small village art gallery into an important art museum with a collection of more than 2,600 works of art from the nineteenth century to the present. It includes such contemporary painters and sculptors as John Chamberlain, Chuck Close, Eric Fischl, April Gornik, Elizabeth Peyton, as well as such masters as Dan Flavin, Roy Lichtenstein, Jackson Pollock, Esteban Vicente, Lee Krasner, and Willem De Kooning. The Parrish houses important collections of works by the American Impressionist William Merritt Chase and the post-war American realist Fairfield Porter. A vital cultural resource serving a diverse audience, the Parrish organizes and presents changing exhibitions and offers a dynamic schedule of creative and engaging public programs including lectures, films, performances, concerts, and studio classes for all ages. On July 19, 2010, the Parrish broke ground on a new building designed by internationally acclaimed Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. The 34,500-square-foot facility will triple the Museum's current exhibition space and allow for the simultaneous presentation of loan exhibitions and installations drawn from the Permanent Collection. The new building will open November 10, 2012.

Photo of Paul Taylor by Maxine Hicks.