Preview Held For Celebration of Modernism And Art20 At Park Avenue Armory 11/11

The opening night benefit preview of Modernism + Art20, an exposition devoted to both decorative and fine arts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will take place Thursday, November 11, 2010, from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street in Manhattan.

Proceeds from the preview, which features a full cocktail reception, benefit the Brooklyn Museum's renowned Decorative Arts collection and Planned Parenthood. Collectors, connoisseurs, and celebrities will be among the first to consider the offerings of more than fifty leading international dealers specializing in such twentieth-century design movements as Arts and Crafts, Art Deco, Scandinavian, Wiener Werkstätte, and Postmodern.
The preview of Modernism + Art20 will begin at 5 p.m., followed by an awards ceremony at 5:30 p.m. honoring Barbara Jakobson, who will be presented with the Brooklyn Museum/Modernism Distinguished Collector Award; Georg Jensen, who will presented with the Brooklyn Museum/Modernism Design and Commerce Award; and Jason Miller, who will receive the Brooklyn Museum/Modernism Young Designer Award. Brooklyn Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman will present the awards. Objects designed by Jason Miller and Georg Jensen will be on view during Modernism + Art20.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Barbara Jakobson lived across the street from the Brooklyn Museum, where she would make frequent visits during her youth. She first developed an interest in the decorative arts through her appreciation of the historic interiors of the Brooklyn Museum's period rooms. She began collecting in the 1950s, when she met dealers such as Sydney Janis and Leo Castelli. In 1970, Jakobson became the head of the Junior Council of the Museum of Modern Art, where she helped organize several pivotal exhibitions, such as an important penthouse show of architectural drawings by Peter Eisenman, Gaetano Pesce, and others. She also curated two exhibitions for the Castelli gallery: Houses for Sale and Follies: Architecture for the Late Twentieth-Century Landscape. Her collections have focused on decorative and fine arts from the 1940s and 1950s, but she now commissions contemporary art and design from living artists.
Georg Jensen is a Scandinavian luxury brand best known for their sterling silver jewelry and table wares. Founded in Copenhagen by Georg Arthur Jensen in 1904, Georg Jensen has continued to produce superior quality silver, jewelry, watches, and gift articles for more than a hundred years. Georg Arthur Jensen, an artist and designer, combined his training as a metAl Smith with his education in the fine arts to revive the tradition of the artist craftsman. He imbued his firm with his ideals, and Georg Jensen has continued to create products with a unique design sensibility and excellent craftsmanship.

After starting his first company, Jason Miller Studio in 2001, Jason Miller quickly gained recognition as one of the stars of the emerging Brooklyn design scene. He recently started a new company, Roll & Hill that produces work by some of the best known contemporary designers. Miller's most famous work is the ubiquitous Superordinate Antler Lamp, which has been widely credited with helping to start the back-to-nature movement. Miller's designs often draw on everyday aspects of contemporary American culture to create objects that are sometimes as much conceptual art as they are contemporary design. His work has been exhibited throughout the world, including solo shows in Tokyo, Milan, Istanbul, and New York, and was featured in Design Life Now: The National Design Triennial at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in 2006.

Tickets to the preview range from $150 to $10,000 and are available through the Museum's Special Events Office. To purchase tickets call (718) 501-6423, e-mail special.events@brooklynmuseum.org, or visit www.brooklynmuseum.org. Tickets may be purchased online through Monday, November 8. Tickets at the $250 level and up include admission to the awards ceremony. Sanford L. Smith's Modernism + Art20 will be open to the public November 12 through 15.

Modernism + Art20 co-chairs include Shelley Fox Aarons, Thérèse Bernbach, Elissa and Edgar Cullman, Jr., Beth Rudin DeWoody, Vladimir Kagan, Lella and Massimo Vignelli, Thea Westreich and Ethan Wagner. Sanford L. Smith & Associates' Modernism: Centuries of Style and Design will be celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary and Art20 will be celebrating its ninth anniversary this November.