The iconic New York skyscraper was once home to a series of Art Deco-style works of art done by Winold Reiss in 1938 for a Longchamps restaurant. Remarkably, these paintings have been recovered and are for sale.
The impressive remnants of the Empire State Building's tropical décor, thought to have been lost for decades, returned to public view May 12 at the TEFAF art fair booth at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan. Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts Gallery will offer two oval murals depicting maidens surrounded by rainbows of flowers and foliage, painted by German-born artist Winold Reiss in 1938 for the Longchamps restaurant located at the base of the Empire State Building, which It is currently a Starbucks.
Art and architecture historian C. Ford Peatross was in awe when he saw the murals, which are nearly eight feet tall, at New York's Goldberg Gallery last month. Peatross, who has been researching Reiss's work since the 1980s, had seen only black-and-white photographs and sketches of Longchamps' works. It is an important discovery, commented the historian.
Renata Reiss, widow of Winold Reiss's son Tjark, who is in charge of organizing and preserving the extensive family archives, has confirmed the authenticity of the unsigned paintings based on archival photographs and sketches, as well as decades of familiarity with the work of the artist. "It's unbelievable," she said, viewing the paintings at Goldberg Gallery, adding that she had assumed "everything had been destroyed" when the Empire State space was renovated in the 1960s.
The murals
One of the maidens in the ovals meets an energetic leopard, while the other seems unfazed by a yellow snake. These murals were part of a set of eight that Reiss created for an underground dining room, known as the Salle Abstraite ("abstract room" in French). The whereabouts of the other six murals are unknown. Reiss gave them enigmatic titles Temptation, Contemplation, Liberation, Anticipation, Animation, Fascination, Adoration, and Exultation. Bernard Goldberg, founder of the gallery, believes that the mural with the serpent was originally called Temptation, and the one with the leopard was Animation. In old photographs, only one of the ovals (whose current whereabouts are a mystery) bears a label: Contemplation, with a maiden resting on a leaf and staring dreamily into space.
The artist
In 1913, at the age of 27, Winold Reiss settled in New York, where he tirelessly devoted five decades of his life to his career. His hectic work rate has perplexed many, including Renata Reiss, who wondered when he found time to sleep. During his career, Reiss produced a wide variety of works, including portraits, candy boxes, lettering, interiors, illustrations, advertising, murals, and furniture design. In addition, he founded art schools. Tjark, his son and his architect, revealed in an interview in 1978, 25 years after his father's death, the diversity and extent of his artistic legacy.
Among Reiss's portraits were prominent figures such as Native Americans and Harlem Renaissance leaders such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. He also captured the essence of prominent family and friends, such as the artist Isamu Noguchi. The Reiss family archives hold detailed documentation of the achievements of his wife Henriette, who was an artist, designer and writer, as well as his lifelong lover, Erika Lohmann, a modern artist and dancer. Information is also preserved about his brother Hans, a sculptor, and his son Tjark.
David Peatross, an expert on Reiss's work, estimates that, in the mid-20th century, more than 100,000 people in New York participated daily in activities such as dining, drinking, shopping or being entertained in spaces designed or embellished by Reiss. In particular, Reiss provided a unique atmosphere for a dozen branches of the Longchamps restaurant chain, which transported diners to places like the South Seas, 17th-century New Amsterdam and futuristic rows of gilded skyscrapers.
Although some furniture from the Reiss-designed interiors remains, Goldberg's offering at the TEFAF art fair will include a pair of jagged wooden chairs, priced at $120,000, from a Reiss-designed medieval-style room in a hotel. of manhattan. However, there are few architectural elements of Reiss that have survived to this day. The only major public art commissions that can still be admired are the mosaics with pictures of workers and historical figures, created in the 1930s for a railroad terminal in Cincinnati.
Where were the murals?
It is not known how the building's Longchamps Empire State ovals were originally recovered, which Goldberg valued at a seven digit for the pair. In the 1960s, the rooms were converted into a Mississippi riverboat-themed restaurant inspired by the writings of Mark Twain. A winding staircase designed by Reiss for the restaurant remained standing until a few years ago, when the space was gutted to make way for a Starbucks.
About three decades ago, the two Salle Abstraite murals were auctioned at Sotheby's in New York without any attribution, simply described as "Large Oval Abstract Paintings." They reappeared in 2020, labeled "Oversized Art Deco Style" at New York's Showplace auction house (the leopard mural sold for $2,250 and the snake mural for $2,750).
A few months ago, Goldberg gallery director Ken Sims, 38, spotted the artworks for sale on 1stdibs.com, labeled "Art Deco Monumental Paintings of Stylized Women." He recognized that they were relics from Longchamps and consulted with his 90-year-old boss: "Is this what I think?" Goldberg replied, "Most certainly, yes." A 1stdibs dealer in Buffalo, New York sold the two murals to the Goldberg Gallery for a five-figure price. A recent appraisal report by art expert Betty Krulik describes them as "of great importance."
In recent years, Reiss has been the subject of retrospectives at New York's Hirschl & Adler Gallery and the New York Historical Society, as well as a collection of essays titled "The Multicultural Modernism of Winold Reiss." His work is scheduled to appear next year in group shows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Dorsky Museum at SUNY New Paltz. Renate Reiss commented that "things we didn't know had survived" often turn up surprisingly.
Goldberg expressed hope that the six missing ovals will turn up again, perhaps in the TEFAF display at the Armory, and that someone can identify another unsigned panel hidden somewhere. When the Longchamps room was dismantled, Goldberg stated, "I just can't understand why everything has been thrown away."
