Partners John Stringer and Caesar Mistretta of the J.M. Stringer Gallery are so copacetic in their views on the art of collecting that each man can continue the other’s thoughts – as they did recently concerning a collection of ancient sculpture and pottery they are offering on behalf of a downsizing collector.
“We have nine pieces at the moment,” says Stringer.
“Great provenance,” adds Mistretta.
“The woman who owns these was one of the major dealers in the United States and did all the top shows,” Stringer explains.
“She’s not in the business anymore,” says Mistretta, “and she has chosen us to – ”
“Right,” says Stringer. “It fits with what we do.”
“Another element of beauty,” says Mistretta.
“Of course,” agrees Stringer.
Although its first home was in New Jersey, today J.M. Stringer Gallery is situated exclusively in Vero Beach. Its Ocean Drive location is well-placed to tempt collectors of the finer things in life, including antique paintings and sculptures from England, Continental Europe and the United States, as well as recent works by some of today’s top U.S. regionalists, several of whom live in Vero Beach.
On a recent weekday, Stringer and Mistretta were busy changing out the gallery for the opening of “Natural Wonders,” a new painting exhibition by contemporary realists Joseph Sundwall and Luke Steadman.
Based in a small town in the Hudson River Valley, Sundwall has been represented by Stringer Gallery for some 15 years. In northern climes the painter is known, among other things, for his pictures of mounted foxhunters navigating stands of maple and red oak, but don’t expect that subject matter here.
“He’s rather taken with Vero,” says Stringer.
“He travels here quite a bit, as you can see,” adds Mistretta.
Evidence of Sundwall’s Florida sojourns hang all over the gallery. His landscape paintings in the show include “The Great Inland Sea,” a cattle pasture guarded by a lofty sable palm; “Dawn on Dixie Highway,” a blazing sunrise over a marshy patch of green; and “Peace and Plenty,” in which a row of stately coconut palms syncopate the horizontal seascape beyond them.
It is, however, Sundwall’s Florida bird series that steals the show. Among those paintings are “Just Looking,” in which a group of inquisitive ibises check out a colorful pottery display before an Ocean Drive shop; “Skyway,” a cloudless square of blue diagonally halved by a soaring pelican formation; and “Think Pink,” featuring two roseate spoonbills who dance and dabble with their reflections in a blue pool.
Luke Steadman came to Stringer Gallery not long after gallerist Anne McEvoy, who represented Steadman’s work for the past several years, closed her Admiralty Gallery last spring.
“We’ve always admired Luke’s work, and now this is his home,” says Stringer.
Steadman’s paintings fit right into the gallery’s casually elegant ambiance. In fact, the first painting the visitor sees upon entering the shop is Steadman’s “Tranquil Sky and Gentle Rhythms.” A classic seascape, the square composition divides the picture into three regions: luminous sky, swelling ocean, shining sand.
That work’s palette of cerulean, cobalt blue, gray-green and brown (with a hint of reddish purple) opens a gleaming window in the claret-colored wall surrounding it.
Steadman revels in the quality of Florida’s light. In the current show he presents a range of atmospheric moods, from a summer sunrise that stains Vero’s lagoon pink and gold (“Tranquil Morning”) to the amber crepuscule of day’s end (“Sunset on the Indian River”).
Other Steadman paintings that bridge the hours between dawn and dusk are “Morning Watch,” which espies a night heron in a covert of mangrove; and “Passing Showers,” of an afternoon cloudburst over the Indian River lagoon.
“Luke is a tonalist; Joe has that little pop of life and color in his work,” says Stringer. “Together they complement one another.”
In addition to the work of Sundwall and Steadman, Stringer Gallery is also currently displaying paintings by gallery staples John Phillip Osbourne of New York and Mary Garrish of Merritt Island, as well as the work of two Vero Beach island residents, Joy Jackson and Cathy Ferrell.
Dispersed throughout the gallery, Ferrell’s bronze animal sculptures represent a roll call from Noah’s ark. There is a lion, an otter and a red fox, sea turtles and porpoises, and even a double portrait of the gallery’s Yorkie mascots. But it is the pair of life-sized sandhill cranes posted on either side of a pilastered entryway that upstages all the rest.
Joy Jackson’s still life paintings of a pot of pink orchids (“Orchid Island”) and a vase of Queen Anne’s lace (“Hail to the Queen”) flank a magnificent 1924 portrait painting by Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1929).
“Look at the palette, the feeling of them,” Stringer says of Jackson’s jade green, seafoam, pink and violet colors.
“Look at how gorgeous they go with the Reid. Am I right?”
Indeed he is. The Jackson pieces amplify the colors in the Reid, an airy impressionist work that depicts one Miss Marion Wilma Sells convalescing at a Colorado Springs resort.
At the center of Reid’s picture, a blooming young woman smiles at us while a watchful nurse hovers; arrayed around the convalescent is her collection of two rag dolls, a pair of Chinese dolls and an adorable witch in a wide skirt and peaked hat. Outside the window a view of Pike’s Peak literally puts the world at this young woman’s feet.
Stringer is an advocate of collections that grow in response to the breadth of their collectors’ interests. The broader those interests, the better.
Gazing around at his gallery’s eclectic display, Stringer says, “It just shows how you can mix paintings.
You don’t have to have all antique paintings, or all contemporary works. If they have the right spirit, they can look fantastic together.”
J.M. Stringer Gallery is at 3465 Ocean Drive on Vero’s beach. The current show continues through Feb. 11.