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PODCAST: Recreating Gertrude Stein's Paris Salon on the Upper West Side

By Emily Frost | August 28, 2015 10:15am | Updated on August 31, 2015 8:56am
 Annette Benda-Fox seeks out mid-career and emerging artists, whose work may be undervalued. 
Fox Gallery NYC
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UPPER WEST SIDE — The Upper West Side may seem an unlikely place for an art gallery — but that's exactly the point, says local resident Annette Benda-Fox. 

Benda-Fox runs Fox Gallery NYC — which sells contemporary wall art like paintings and collages, as well as sculptures and photographs — out of her apartment on West End Avenue at West 101st Street.

But when people interested in buying art or just learning more stop in for an appointment or attend an opening at her home, they're not just cruising a seemingly endless row of galleries.

"It's a destination," she said. 

Running a "salon" out of her home, which she likens to Gertrude Stein's Paris apartment, allows Brenda-Fox to keep the prices more affordable and showing emerging artists, since she doesn't have to worry about paying rent for an expensive gallery space.

She sat down with DNAinfo reporter Emily Frost to talk about why she lives and works in the neighborhood, how she finds artwork to fill her walls and her advice for young or new artists.

Emily: You used to live in the city, then you went to the suburbs, and then you came back, and now you're on the Upper West Side. How did that move transpire, and why are you back?

Annette: One, because I always wanted to come back. I think we were part of white flight in the mid-to-late 80s. We were on the Upper East Side in my husband's one-bedroom apartment, which was half of the parlor floor of a brownstone in a building that Eleanor Roosevelt owned and lived in on 74th Street. Because we started to have children, that apartment got very small, and we literally couldn't afford to stay in the city, and live in a neighborhood that we felt safe in. Because in the 80s as we know, New York was a pretty terrible place in terms of personal safety.

We left and we lived in Westchester, but it's near the Tappan Zee Bridge. It's Briar Cliff Manor so it's not a bad commute, but it's still a commute. It's still, you're in the suburbs and you're not in the city. When I think about it, I'm shocked to say that we were there 20 years, but we have three sons and we got involved in the school system there. And yet I always wanted to be back. Because once you're not here, you just can't take advantage of everything. You can't be spontaneous. You have to look at that schedule.

We finally came back when our youngest son started college. It wasn't soon enough for me. Honestly, when my first son went off to college, I said, "Can we go back now?" But we couldn't because the boys were so entrenched into the community and what they were doing.

I'm really city people. I was born in the Bronx, I grew up in Queens, lived in Manhattan, so this is definitely home. For me to come back to New York wasn't like, "How am I going to do this?" It was like, "How quickly can I just get settled in and get my life going again?" The reason we chose the Upper West Side is because of this kind of a building. We have a list of priorities and we knew what we were looking for. We looked at 60 apartments before we found this one.

Emily: When was that?

Annette: Sorry, that was 2008, so looking at buildings like this on the Upper West Side was a pleasure. We had a priorities list. It had to be high ceilings, the building had to have character, the walls had to have moldings if possible, it just had to have a sense of graciousness. And, of course we let go of secondary and tertiary things like outdoor space, central air, a balcony, stuff like that. If I never leave this apartment I'll be happy. I love this neighborhood, I love this building. Because I'm an art historian, I'm so much of a snob when it comes to all of these aesthetic choices, and I know that, but it allows me to be very picky, and see things that maybe some people don't think about, or they don't see, or don't care about.

Emily: And this building is from 1913, you said?

Annette: Correct.

Emily: Can you describe it to us?

Annette: It's a 12-story building that originally had maybe 62 apartments. Some of these apartments were nine rooms. There are still a couple that are. Because they were luring people from great houses to come into New York and live in an apartment building. They wanted to give them the amenities. This is a classic six. You've probably heard that term. That classic part refers to having maid's quarters, so there's a so-called maid's bedroom, which is actually her part, or his part of the apartment back then. You can see by the architecture that it's kind of closed off from the public spaces. The maid's room is along the pantry passage that leads to the kitchen, and the dining room, and her own bedroom. The family doesn't have to see the maid, but it's great for our son's, because anyone who crashes here feels that they have a private space.

Emily: Yeah, so it's like living in history.

Annette: It is living in history.

Emily: What do you like about West End Avenue? Were you drawn to West End Avenue when you were in your 60-building search?

Annette: We love the architecture, and the fact that nothing was built after 1927 up to 106th Street.

Emily: Does it give you comfort that West End Avenue is now landmarked, and will remain as sanctuary?

Annette: It does. It really does. Yes, I'm very happy that we have landmark status. Because the personality, the character of this whole corridor will remain, and there are really wonderful buildings on West End Avenue.

Emily: Your apartment is not just where you live, you work here, it's also a salon, and it's filled with beautiful, colorful art on all the walls. Can you describe that to listeners and also why you opened a salon here... and what is a salon?

Annette: A salon is an opportunity to showcase a creative spirit. Whether it's a music salon, a literary salon, poetry salon, or an art salon. When I look back at my own history, I realize it's something that my husband and I together have done for 30 years. We've done this wherever we've lived. When we had his small apartment, we had parties where we invited people to recite poetry, to play their musical instruments, to hang their art, to bring hand-painted scarves or jewelry. It is something in the DNA, because in my side of the family, my great-grandmother used to do this in Budapest. I know that there's something going on, and the idea to create a salon stems from wanting to nurture a creative spirit and talents of people.

I, myself was an artist for awhile, but I shifted into art history when I felt that I couldn't compete with a quarter of a million other kids in New York City. But I also about 13, 14 years ago, met with a woman who was a curator, and we had this discussion about artists who were dropped from the roster of a particular art gallery. We said, "This can't be." They're off the radar now, and they're doing such great work. It became a mission for me, and I've been doing it ever since, which is identify mid-career artists, mainly mid-career artists who very often are emerging artists because they keep experimenting with their materials, keep pushing the envelope, they have a wealth of history and experience. Most of them have day jobs as teachers, educators, or working other jobs. But they're avid painters and they're passionate. They've had representation, they're in collections. They're not blue chip Chelsea- level gallery artists, but they're really solid artists, and I felt that I really had to help them. That's my sense of keeping the art alive. By showcasing their work in this environment, which means we have receptions of the work. Sort of think of Gertrude Stein. She's one of my models. Peggy Guggenheim, but I don't have her deep pockets.

I trust my own eye, I trust my aesthetic sense. I've been in the art world my entire life, and my mother was an artist as well, which made me think I could be an artist too. But anyway, that's another story. But I always felt that I wanted to bring art to other people who hadn't seen it. When we have receptions, I'm showcasing artwork to at least 200 people who've never seen this art, or who may be slightly familiar.

It's a way of creating a community. That's what we've done here. We've been in this apartment almost seven years, and what we've done is we have created this sense of community. Artists bring their friends who are artists, collectors come, friends come, and they talk about the art. They stand in front of the art and they really look at it. They're not looking at their watches, or thinking, "Okay, I have to move on to the next gallery." They're here for a reception, and they're absorbing the whole experience because when you show art in a living space, it reflects the life of the place and the people living in it. It gives people an opportunity to see what it would look like in somebody else's apartment, in an apartment. That's really how artists want the art to be seen.

Emily: Yeah, that's a very good point. You showed me your dining room, and you have a dining room table and it's surrounded by these huge paintings, and people can see how they would fit into daily life.

Annette: Exactly. Art should be integrated into daily life. Art should be taught all the time in schools. It's a whole other conversation, but it means that it is something integral to the quality of our life. I think art is one of the basic tenants of civilization. It's something that connects cultures and people. It has so many positive values.

Emily: You talked about people not looking at their watches, not in the gallery-hopping mood when they come here. That was one of my questions, why the Upper West Side versus Chelsea or Downtown where the art market is really situated, does that have an advantage that you see?

Annette: It does in an interesting way. I feel like I'm in a parallel universe to that market, and I love diving into it myself. But I wanted to do something that I had control of and that I didn't have the ultimate stress of having to sell a certain amount of art per month to pay my rent. That's a reality in Chelsea, or the Lower East Side, or anywhere that you have a storefront gallery.

I also wanted a certain amount of freedom in my life because I do other things as well, to be able to control who's coming in and who's looking at what, so we're by appointment. Because it is a salon. what the salon does, it helps me feed the other part of my business, which we didn't talk about ever, but it's deaccessioning art and high quality artwork, furniture, decorations, estates for people who are downsizing or dealing with an estate.

I have the whole background of shepherding people through the auction world, and that's my other business really. I need to have the freedom to go out and do that as well as this. The fact that this is by appointment, and it's a residential building, it's fine. If we sell art, I'm thrilled and the artist is thrilled, but unlike a gallery who's main focus is hard selling the art and getting their artists out there, and selling as much as possible, it's a byproduct of the salon. What I'm trying to do is interest people, open their eyes, and if eventually they — I have sold some things — if they buy it, great. The artists are thrilled, and I would be too.

Emily: And so people are coming to the Upper West Side as a destination?

Annette: It's a destination. And frankly we're sort of the stepchild of the art world, but there are other galleries here, and we're just not on everybody's radar. But there are a number of us, and there are a lot of private dealers up here as well as collectors.

Emily: Yeah, so if you came to your gallery, where would you go next on the Upper West Side? Is it just salons by appointment or would you go to other galleries?

Annette: Basically, there's salons by appointment. I have a colleague and friend Susan Eley, who's on 90th Street in Columbus. Hers is more of a public gallery. She has open hours three days a week. She and I are friends, we share an aesthetic, I'm always promoting her, and she helps me with mine, Facebook or whatever. There's a private dealer on Central Park West and 101st, Peggy Austin. There are a number of us, and we know each other mainly because we belong to arts organizations and they are arts organizations focused on private dealers, women, and we create our community out of that, and we try to help each other. It's a very collaborative world, the world of private dealing. It's very rewarding that way.

Emily: Do you think most Upper West Side residents know that there's a salon here, or that there are art galleries?

Annette: I don't think that many people know. I don't know what percentage of the Upper West Side population is interested in that. I'm sure it's more than I'm assuming. I think people are interested in coming to salons and seeing art, and I would say I'm fairly low-key about my PR and advertising. It's an organic process of adding people to my mailing list.

Emily: Is it word of mouth?

Annette: It's very often word of mouth. I have a mailing list, and I send out a monthly newsletter to that list. What I do is I not only announce what's going to happen, I track every artist who I've ever shown, and list where they are next, and their openings.

Emily: You make a real investment in the artists that you select.

Annette: I do. In that respect, I'm constantly promoting them. I create catalogs for every artist who I show, and talk about them all the time. Even when I have dinner parties with my friends.

Emily: You started the salon in 2007?

Annette: 2009.

Emily: Sorry, 2009. You started the salon in 2009, and how did you first get it off the ground and get to a point where 200 people are coming to an opening?

Annette: It can grow rather quickly because if you encourage artists to bring other artists to see it, and other friends, which we did. We have friends from very different backgrounds as well based on living in New York, living in the suburbs, being involved in the arts, and television, and theater. My other big hat that I wear is as an actor, so I'm part of that world in a real way. But it just kind of grew gradually. That's how I want it to be. I'm not looking for fame. I'm looking for, what I'm looking to do is to keep nurturing the artists and exposing them to more and more people who might not be aware of their artwork. It's not even educational. I hate to pigeon hole it that way, but it's an awareness, and the pleasure also of being surrounded by art is a big part of this.

Emily: Yeah, I'm jealous. How do you select the artist? You mentioned that mid-career was one criteria, but you're also interested in emerging artists as well, right?

Annette: I feel like I'm interested in emerging artists who have an old soul. I'll be honest with you, I'm a snob, and I know I'm a snob. I've been trained in art history since I was in college, and I've seen so much art, and I've absorbed the lessons of art history. Whatever it is, whether it's abstract expressionism, or representation, or realism, it has to be something fresh for me, and it has to really appeal to my own personal aesthetic, which I stand by. I have begun to trust my own eye after all these years. I don't feel like I'm a novice. I think I understand what makes a good piece of art.

It's not that derivative art doesn't have it's place, but for somebody like me, if you're going to access an older style, or subject matter, materials, show me something new with it. Turn it into something fresh and new. I see so much that's derivative and not new and fresh, and exciting, and I can control that. This is my apartment. This is where I show the art so at this point I don't even have to look for the artists.

I do artist studio visits. I love doing that because to me that is the birthplace of the art, and the energy in an artist's studio, for me personally, is very exciting. You kind of can see the process. You see things that are in process, you see things that are done, you see how the artist works and where they're working, and how all that influences them, the light of the space, the temperature of the room, the odors, it's just a whole universe in and of itself. I can't say that every artist visit turns into an artist whose work I want to show, but I'm always willing to be surprised, and delighted, and to find something new.

Emily: Where are most of the artists working when you go to their spaces?

Annette: They're really spread out. Their always from anywhere from Hoboken, to Bushwick, to Long Island City, to upstate New York. They're really all over, because it's so expensive for artists to have studio space. They use it wherever they can find it.

Emily: You haven't found any artists who can afford to paint or work here on the Upper West Side?

Annette: It's very interesting. If they do, it's because they've sacrificed a bedroom, or a small space, and I've seen that. It's not as easy, and usually those people have another space outside of the city that they can expand, but it's very difficult to do that. If you're working on a very small scale, you can do that in a small space in an apartment. But if you look around this apartment, people painting at this level, with this scale, really need a larger studio space.

Emily: Can you describe a little bit of the art that you have up now, and give us a sense of how many paintings or pieces of art you would show at a typical time.

Annette: Other than this sort of permanent group of paintings, I basically show about 40 pieces of art for any reception. That depends partially on the size of the paintings or the artwork. Because it's an apartment, I show very little sculpture. I love sculpture, I'm very tactile, I love sculpture. Basically it's flat work, I would call it. It's things that can be on the walls. A lot of it has been abstract expression is to art most of the time that I have been here. There's an endless variety of painting styles and materials being used from collage or assemblage, to oil, to photography, to digital images embedded into oil paint and acrylic paint. Now in the past year, I've discovered some representation and realist painters who I've liked. One of them I'll have a solo show for next spring. I'm very excited about his work.

Emily: Sometimes you said you get attached to the art. How often is the art on your walls changing? How often do you have to say goodbye?

Annette: We have two main receptions a year, and that is the spring and the fall because I really feel that people are looking at art seriously at those times. I think the middle of the summer in New York City on the Upper West Side, people aren't even here. In the middle of the winter, or around Christmas, it's not really what people are looking at. We end up having the art on our walls for four months to five months.

Emily: For Upper West Siders who might want to stop by and make an appointment, can you give us a sense of the price range, and what we're talking about here? Is affordability part of it?

Annette: Yes it is, because one of the reasons I don't have a street front gallery is that I couldn't afford it because what I'm selling is anywhere from $500 to $20,000. That's the highest price. If you crunch numbers, you can see that I'd have to sell an awful lot of art to be able to afford rent in any space that would have street traffic. There is an affordability, and I think all of these artists are undervalued presently. That's my prejudice. I think they will be considered much more valuable later on, but the point is to get it out there. Artists just want people to see it, they want people to experience it, they want people to buy it. This is very well-priced art.

Emily: Was that part of your mission when you first started? Do you talk to artists about that, that they need to price so people can afford?

Annette: Yes, they're very sensitive to that. They're very well aware of it. I would say that there is a secondary movement by a lot of artists to create smaller works of art that have all of the elements of a larger painting, but they're just working smaller. Because if people don't know their art and they want to own a piece of it, they're more apt to spend a few hundred dollars, or $500, or $1,000, than $10,000. They can always move up and buy a larger piece and invest more money. I think that is a serious process too. I think people will actually do that.

Emily: What's your relationship with the neighborhood? Do you have a daily patter of places that you go, or spots that you love here?

Annette: Because I'm a water person, I love being near Riverside Park at the Hudson River. I'm there almost every day if I can. To me it's a very calming meditative space. What I find about the Upper West Side, in this neighborhood, is that it's very much a sanctuary for the senses. I as I mentioned earlier, don't mind throwing myself into the manic energy of the city, being in the subway any number of hours a day, or hopefully not that long, but being in communities where there's a lot of people and energy, and a lot of life going on. When I come home, I want to be able to shed that and just decompress. I think that's the luxury, and privilege, and light of living here as well.

Emily: What are the things that you do in the community in terms of community outreach and partnerships?

Annette: Because I'm a member of Art Table, and WAD, which is the Association of Women Art Dealers, I find ways to collaborate with other private art dealers, or other members of these organizations when they want to do outreach to the community. Most recently, Art Table, which has something called Visual Arts Day, that runs throughout the year, they asked gallerists to open up their galleries to art students, and hopefully have one of the artists that they're showing talk to the students about the process, their life, the art world.

We just had that here in April for the Women's Leadership School, and about a dozen girls were here. They all are hoping to become artists. I actually went to their school to see their art exhibit, and Susan Eley was part of this as well, so we went together. She opened up her gallery to them in the morning, and this was open in the afternoon. We talked to them about the art world, and about the various kinds of professions in the art world, while emphasizing that they hold onto their passion for creating art. It's a way of nurturing the next generation by giving them a dose of tough love and the reality that's really out here. Because people are seduced by the media, and the upper crust of the blue chip successes, but there's a lot of serious working artists out here who are doing many other things. They're curators, they're writers, they're teachers, they're cabinet makers. There's a host of other things that will support your passion for doing your art. Which is what I've told my own sons.

Emily: So that you don't just give it up because you didn't get starred immediately.

Annette: Absolutely right.

Emily: You keep working.

Annette: If it's something that you feel in your soul, you have to continue it. You find a way of doing it.

Emily: Otherwise something inside you dies.

Annette: That's right.

Emily: What's your advice to an emerging artist and an emerging business person? Somebody who hears about your salon and thinks, "Oh, I should do that."

Annette: Starting with emerging artist, I think that it behooves an emerging artist to try to get exposure any way he or she can. I'm not saying that just as throwing things online. I'm saying getting into group shows, finding out where all the venues are that encourage that kind of exposure. Because that's what you have to do. You have to get the work out there. I find that online is great for the secondary art market, but by that I mean known artists. But if you're an emerging artist and people don't know your work, you have to get it out by even showing it. Young people in Bushwick are using their studios as their art galleries as well. You can create your own co-op.

There are lots of ways for emerging artists to get their work out there for sure. Don't be shy about calling on people. Don't expect that you're going to be accepted. I get calls, not so much calls, but LinkedIn messages, and Facebook messages, and if the art's not for me, I don't respond, but I think that's valid. Everybody wants representation. I would say that I don't represent artists, I don't have a stable of artists. That's a whole different world as well.

Diverging to your question about if you want to start an art salon, start with your friends. Just do it. You have to be willing to sacrifice your time, sacrifice your walls, you have to have a personality that allows you to have strangers or near strangers in your house, or apartment rather, and you have to like being a hostess.

Emily: It seems like those things come naturally to you. Is that just how you are?

Annette: I delight in them. I'm a real people person. I love to have the interaction of people here, to meet new people, to have conversations. Whether it's about art, or anything in the creative arts. You even end up talking about politics. Very often when the reception's over, there's always a few people who are left, and we end up having a meal together. It's a true salon in that respect, an exchange of ideas, and we just want to keep doing it.

Emily: For people that want to meet you and see this beautiful apartment and art, they should just stay tuned to your website, or get on your mailing list for the next opening?

Annette: Exactly. They can always reach me at the website, which would be info at foxgallerynyc.com. My phone number for the gallery, (646)-726-4008. I'm happy to make appointments. I love meeting new people. Especially if they're Upper West Side neighbors. I just had a reception here, which is where I had met you that afternoon for City Arts. Which is a non profit, and they're dedicated to painting and restoring murals, giving children a chance to get involved. There's so many ways to be in the art world in New York, so I'd rather give them the full picture and not just say, "Yes, be an artist. Go out there and just do art." It's very difficult, but if it's your passion, which is the other part, if you follow your passion, and if you want to open an art salon or your own business, you have to follow your passion, do your research, do your homework, understand the demographic, understand what your goal is, and take the risk.

Emily: Absolutely. Thank you for talking with me. I really appreciate it. It's very interesting.

Annette: It's my pleasure. You're very welcome.

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