“See the Children through the Trees”, an exhibition and auction benefiting American AIDS orphans and parentless kids through the work of Health People founded by Chris Norwood will be on display at the gallery at the Conde Nast Building at 4 Times Square (42^nd Street and Broadway) though October 15^th also happens to be the perfect fall art exhibit.  Featuring museum quality artwork focused on the theme of trees, it presents an intriguing range of work that conjures the many meanings---and absorbing images of nature.

 

Works range from internationally acclaimed artist April Gornik’s “The Woods” to Ross Bleckner’s abstracted leaves in “Early Every Morning”; from Milton Glaser’s blazing “Red Tree” to an original  signed panel from Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury (which takes a sterner view toward trees) to Walter Channing’s 8 foot sculpture in which a natural tree trunk seems to “whirl” to the sky.

 

Other prominent artists participating include: Edwina Sandys, Jean Holabird, Steve Miller, Larry B. Wright, Michael Knigin, Cuca Romley, Joan Kraisky, Steve Maciw, Neke Carson, Christophe von Hohenberg, Suzanne Anker, Nick Patten, David Prentice, Michelle D’Oyley, Elizabeth Meyer, Cheryl Warwick, Susan Shatter, Steve Hudak, Alan Turner, Susan Hall, Bill Ciccariello, Matthew Hamblem, Carolina von Humboldt and Charles Yoder.

 

The exhibit may be seen daily from 9am to 6 pm---with bidding in a silent auction until Thursday, October 15^th 2009. Also up for auction are unique celebrity “leaf” autographs from John Updike, Dolly Parton, Michael Bloomberg, Lauren Bacall, Carl Bernstein and many others. The exhibition will culminate with a gala live auction from 6 to 9 pm at the Conde Nast Building on October 15^th 2009 which will honor April Gornik with Health People’s first Leadership in Art and Civic Society Award.

 

Also slated to be honored that evening are Julia Gruen, Executive Director, and the Keith Haring Foundation. Julia Gruen started working with Keith Haring in 1984 and has headed the Haring Foundation since the artist's death in 1990. The Haring Foundation honors the artist's legacy and vision by helping organizations that assist children and that serve people with AIDS. Ed Martin, the Director of International Insights at the Hershey Company and Director of Pause to Support a Cause, an innovative new business philanthropy initiative, involving major corporations around the world, which links charities and nonprofits to the $18.9 billion market research industry.
 
Tomas Rivera a graduate of Health People's Kids-Helping-Kids Mentoring Program will receive the Youth Leadership Award.  Tomas recently returned from being stationed with the US Army in Iraq and is now a pre-med student planning to help his community.

 

 

Health People founded in 1990 by Chris Norwood, its executive director, began as a women’s HIV/AIDS peer education program teaching women most affected by the epidemic to become leaders in fighting the disease.  Men soon asked to join Health People and, urged by sick and dying parents to help their children. Health People developed the groundbreaking Kids-Helping-Kids Mentoring Program which trains older teens with sick or missing parents to be mentors for younger children in the same difficult situations.

 

“Health People’s original impetus was to make sure that children whose families have been afflicted or even lost to HIV/AIDS have a deeply committed society there to help them through this horrible burden,” states famed American landscape artist April Gornik.

 

“With more and more American children becoming parentless, Health People abundantly deserves my and others’ support to go forward with an unique mentoring program, in which kids learn to help other kids, and that is proven to really help children in these difficult circumstances.”

 

Known as a generous supporter of civic life, Gornik has long assisted Health People’s women’s and children’s services and will receive its first “Leadership in Art and Civic Society Award on October 15^th 2009. Tickets for the cocktail reception with the artists are

 

Gornik ‘s, ‘The Woods”, in a signed and numbered limited edition lithograph exclusively printed for  the benefit is available online at www.healthpeople.org for the pre-publication price of $800 and for $1,000 after October 15^th 2009.  Please visit www.healthpeople.org or call 718-585-8585 ex. 237 for more information.

Proceeds benefit Health People’s services for New York children with sick and missing parents, especially those orphaned by HIV/AIDS. To see and bid on auction items please go to www.charitybuzz.com and type in Health People in the search box.

 

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More About Artists Participating in “See the Children Through
 the Trees.”

 

April Gornik (“The Woods”)

 

With a body of critically-acclaimed work, Gornik has been collected in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, the Cincinnati Museum, the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, the Modern Art Museum of Art of Fort Worth, the Orlando Museum of Art, and other major public and private collections.  She has shown extensively, in one-person and group shows, in the United States and abroad, most recently in a one-person show, “The Luminous Landscapes of April Gornik” at the Hecksher Museum on Long Island.

 

Ross Bleckner (“Early Every Morning.”)

 

Born in New York City and raised in Hewlett, NY.  Bleckner received a Bachelor of Arts from New York University and a Master of Fine Arts from Cal Arts.  The Solomon R. Guggenheim of Art had a major retrospective of his work in 1995 and he has had solo shows at internationally acclaimed exhibition venues such as SFMoMA, Contemporary Arts Museum, Stockholm Moderna Museet, and the Carnegie Museum of Art.  His notable series on death and memory, such as Falling Bird, are now iconic to American art.  Not only has Mr. Bleckner had a profound impact of shaping the New York art world, his philanthropic efforts have enabled many community organizations to perform their vital work.  Currently, Mr. Bleckner is president of Community Research Initiative on AIDS (CRIA), a non-profit community-based AIDS research and treatment education center.  In 2009, he was named a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, the first artist to be so honored

 

 

Milton Glaser (“The Red Tree”)

 

As the catalogue for Milton Glaser’s recent 50 year retrospective at the School of Visual Arts points out, to many, Milton Glaser is synonymous with American graphic design.”  He co-founded the revolutionary Pushpin Studios in 1954, founded New York magazine with Clay Felker in 1968, established Milton Glaser, Inc. in 1974, and designed the famous “I♥NY” campaign in 1977.  Among his many contributions to visual culture, Glaser was pioneering in his bold and creative use of text, belying the idea that a large image should dominate the design of a poster.  One of the best known examples of this is the poster he designed to rally New Yorkers following 9/11, which reads, “I♥NY MORE THAN EVER.”  Throughout his career, Milton Glaser has been a prolific creator of posters and prints.  His artwork has been featured in exhibits worldwide, including one-man shows at both the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  Milton Glaser was born in the Bronx, and has kindly donated two works to help the children of that borough.

 

 

Garry Trudeau (Original Signed “Doonesbury” Panel)

 

Garry Trudeau, born in New York City in 1948, launched the Doonesbury comic strip in 1970 and in 1975 became the first comic strip artist ever to be awarded a Pulitzer for Editorial Cartooning.  Doonesbury, beloved and followed throughout the world, is now syndicated in 1,500 newspapers both in the United States and abroad and Mr. Trudeau’s work has been collected in some 60 books!  He still lives in New York City with his wife Jane Pauley and three children.

 

Walter Channing (Untitled “Whirling” Wood Sculpture)

 

Mr. Channing, who lives with his family in Bridgehampton and New York, is one of the nation’s premiere wood sculptors, known for large works intriguing for the way they use the natural lines of tree trunks and branches to make memorable images.  He focused on using “found” wood when he rescued masses of wood from destruction when the Hudson Piers were demolished and “the nobility of stumps” became a cause for him.  His work has been shown at such places as the O.K. Harris gallery, the Webb and Parsons Gallery and the Benson-Keys Gallery.  Channing grew up in Boston and graduated from both Harvard and the Harvard Business School.  He is also a founder and partner in Channing Daughters Winery in Bridgehampton, New York, where his sculpture garden, with his wood figures, many seeming to dance across the field, is generously open to the public.

 

Edwina Sandys (“Ecological Woman”)

 

A renowned sculptor, artist, writer, and mother of two, Edwina Sandys is also the granddaughter of one of the most important political figures in modern history, Sir Winston Churchill.  Sandys flirted with politics, but made a name for herself in the world of art and literature.  She won the 1997 United Nations Society of Writers & Artists Award for Excellence for a series of marble sculptures she created for United Nation locations in New York, Geneva, Vienna and the United States Embassy in Dublin, Ireland.  Her sculptures play with the line between literal representation and alternative reality and her painting and etchings investigate many themes, often with a focus on women.  She lives in New York and Florida with her husband Richard Kaplan.

 

Jerome Avenue in the Bronx---then the route to a fashionable horse-racing track--- is named after Leonard   Jerome, the father of her American great-grandmother, Jenny Jerome. Jerome built Jerome Park Racetrack on his estate near old Fordham Village and it was there, in the Bronx, that Jenny Jerome met Lord Randolph Churchill whom she married, with Winston Churchill being their first son.

 

 

Steve Miller (“Health of the Planet Solo Saco Velho”/Courtesy Phillipe Laumont, Laumont Editions)

 

In the past 25 years, Steve Miller, who lives in Bridgehampton, Long Island, has been a pioneer in integrating science with fine art.  He has presented 31 solo exhibitions at major institutions in the United States, China, France, and Germany.  His exhibitions have been reviewed in Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, ArtForum, ARTnews, and Art in America.  Miller was one of the first artists to experiment with computers in the early 1980’s, and his work today continues to explore the interaction of technology and fine art.  He recently had his first solo photography show, featuring his signature x-ray photography, at the Robin Rice Gallery in Manhattan.

 

Michael Knigin (“Slow Move”)

 

Michael Knigin was born in Brooklyn, NY.  He attended and graduated from Tyler School of Art, Temple University.  After graduation Knigin started teaching at the Pratt Graphic Center in Manhattan, an extension of the Pratt University.  There he started a fine art lithography workshop.  After a year and a half he opened his own publishing company, Chiron Press, and added a silk screening facility, the first facility in the U.S. that combined lithography and screen-printing.  The shop remained open for seven years, printing and publishing editions for the most renowned contemporary artists, including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Paul Jenkins.  Michael's work is included in over sixty museums and corporate collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Albright-Knox Museum, and The Smithsonian Institute to name just a few.  Knigin has also been commissioned to create art by over forty corporations and institutions.

 

Christophe von Hohenberg (“Rain Forest St. Croix”)

 

Christophe von Hohenberg is a portrait and lifestyle photographer.  This internationally known photographer spent his early years in the West Indies and Europe. He studied art, philosophy, and history in Germany, France, and Spain.  Von Hohenberg graduated from Schiller University in Paris.  American Vogue discovered Von Hohenberg and The Museum of Modern Art recognized his talented work with two showings of his photography.  Throughout his productive career photographing celebrities, he has worked with magazines including American Vogue, Interview, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, German Vogue, German Rolling Stones, New York Times Magazine, French Vogue, Hampton's Magazine, and others.  Von Hohenberg also wrote a book on Andy Warhol published in 2006.  He now divides his time between New York City, the Hamptons, and the West Indies.

 

Cuca Romley (“Central Park”)

 

Ms. Romley a beloved folk painter and owner of the well-known Winter Tree Gallery in Sag Harbor, grew up in Spain and then lived in Paris where she went to the L’Ecole National des Beaux Arts and built a growing reputation as an illustrator and artist.  Her many clients included Dior, Worth, Elle and Vogue.  In 1969, drawn to the United States as “the country of the future” by the moon landing, she came to New York and quickly became an illustrator for American Vogue.  She then stooped her work in advertising illustration to focus on her painting.  Her many shows since then include shows at the Lessing Gallery, Galerie Beaux Arts, Galerie Select, Guild Hall and Gallery International Naïve Art in New York.  Her iconic scenes of the Sag Harbor waterfront and historic area are frequently seen as covers on Dan’s Papers

 

 

Carolina von Humboldt (“The Tree of Hope”)

 

Carolina von Humboldt specializes in "trompe l'oeil" painting.  As a young textile designer for companies like France's D. Porthault and designers like Eliakim, she began to develop an interest in painted surfaces.  She began her career creating intricate wall designs for houses on Mexico's Pacific coast, and between studies in Paris and specialized courses in Rome and Milan, her reputation as a "trompe l'oeil" painter grew very quickly.  Today she is sought out by clients such as Pfizer Laboratories, the Four Seasons, and the exclusive Las Alamandas Resort as several well-known restaurants in Manhattan.  She is currently living in New York. She goes where the walls are, calling herself "the flying brush"

 

Neke Carson (“Leaf”)

 

Fresh from the Rhode Island School of Design, Neke Carson hit the art world running when Andy Warhol showed his sculpture, Moon Man Fountain, at his Factory space in 1969.  Since then, Carson, sometimes known as an American Dadaist, was a sculptor and performance artist throughout the early ‘70s and was the Director of Performances at the Robert Friedus Gallery for 1978.  He also worked as an Art Director at Camera 35 and founded the modeling agency LaRocka in 1979, opening a nightclub/performance venue with the same name in 1980.  He has written for the Village Voice, Mirabella, and Night Magazine, and as a photographer contributes to the Styles of the Times section of the New York Times.  He is a director of performances at the Gershwin Hotel, NYC.  His tow most recent shows were at the Andy Warhol Museum in 2008 and, this year, his innovative and acclaimed photography exhibit, “Out of the Closet,” at John McWhinnie at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller.

 

Joan Kraisky (“Autumn at Sparkhill”)

 

Joan Kraisky was born in the Bronx, NY and raised in Yonkers.  She attended the Rhode Island School of Design, The Museum School of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, MA, as well as the Art Students League in New York, NY.  As a member of the American Society of Portrait Artists and, locally, the Artist Alliance of East Hampton, Joan Kraisky's goal as an artist has been to express her emotional connection to what she paints and photographs.  Kraisky's images are a combination of color, gesture, and impressions of what she sees.

 

Steve Maciw (“18 Apple Trees”)

 

Mr. Maciw a Southampton wood worker, has a growing reputation for his charming folk art paintings which depict the attractions of the landscape, old houses and farming areas of the East End of Long Island.  He has held several exhibitions, most recently at the Southampton Historical Museum.

 

Health People: Community Preventive Health Institute

 

Health People founded in 1990 by Chris Norwood, its executive director, began as a women’s HIV/AIDS peer education program teaching women most affected by the epidemic to become leaders in fighting the disease.  Men soon asked to join Health People and, urged by sick and dying parents to help their children.  Health People developed the groundbreaking Kids-Helping-Kids Mentoring Program which trains older teens with sick or missing parents to be mentors for younger children in the same difficult situations. Health People, located in the South Bronx, has also used its powerful peer education model in very effective programs to fight asthma, diabetes and smoking.  In 2005, Executive Director Chris Norwood was one of 1,000 women from around the world selected for a unique Nobel peace Prize nomination honoring women for their local work.