Hargrove bids addio to Point Pleasant and ciao to Chelsea with what you might call a return to his roots. Collectors familiar with
H. Hargrove’s biography will recall that his first paying job as an artist was
in the basement of a Greenwich Village gallery, painting still lifes to be
sold upstairs. It was not the glamorous life he’d envisioned for himself, but
the job paid the bills, if barely, for a young man with a wife and daughter to
support. H. Hargrove has promoted his work at absolutearts.com since 2009.
View more of and purchase H. Hargrove's work via absolutearts.com at http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/h/hargrove
IMAGE
Artist: Nicolo Sturiano (H. Hargrove)
Title: Crossroads of the World
Year Created: 2007
Medium: Oil Painting
Width: 40 inches
Height: 30 inches
Depth: 3 inches
Price: US$ 25,000
It wasn’t long before his paintings attracted a following. Soon Italian
immigrant Nicolo Sturiano assumed the pseudonym H. Hargrove and set out on his
own, moving his family to New Jersey and painting in the basement of an old
farmhouse he could just afford. What followed was a succession of successes,
from open edition serigraphs to limited edition serigraphs and lithographs, to
today’s exclusive limited edition museum-quality giclées of original oil
paintings. (And in his spare time, the artist has converted his farmhouse to a
replica of an Italian villa, a tribute to his heritage.)
It has been some 40 years since Nicolo Sturiano left New York, and today, as
H. Hargrove, he announces his return. His signature galleries in his home town
of Toms River and later in Point Pleasant were showpieces hailed by critics
and customers alike, but for the artist something was missing. That something
was ... New York.
“The New Jersey shore,” he explains, “is a summer destination for thousands,
but New York City is a year-round destination for millions. Exhibiting my
paintings there would provide maximum exposure, provided that the venue was
appropriate.”
The new venue, it turns out, seems custom made for an artist of Hargrove’s
reputation and caliber: the Chelsea gallery district in lower Manhattan,
referred to by those in the know as the new SoHo.
The Chelsea Market is an enclosed food court and shopping mall built within
the former Nabisco factory complex where the original Oreo cookie was invented
and produced. It is a 22-building complex that fills two entire city blocks,
between 9th and 11th Avenues and from 15th to 16th Streets. In addition to the
retail concourse, it also provides standard office space for tenants,
including media and broadcasting companies such as the Oxygen Network, Food
Network, and EMI Music Publishing, in addition to local cable station NY1.
Recently, Internet search engine Google has moved into two floors of the complex.
Ellen Bradshaw, president of the Chelsea Gallery, will be adding
Hargrove’s work to her already prestigious collection of contemporary and
traditional art. Ms. Bradshaw and Hargrove formed an immediate symbiosis, and
both look forward to the admirers his paintings will draw into the gallery.
Hargrove collectors are well aware that the artist’s other passion
(besides Debbie, of course) is food. All kinds of food. So while they were
visiting Chelsea, they had to explore the restaurants of two of the Food
Network’s Iron Chefs: the eponymous Morimoto, and Mario Batali’s Del Posto.
The Food Network tapes its shows Iron Chef America and Emeril Live in its
Chelsea studios. (Chef Emeril Lagasse has Hargrove’s “Cool Jazz” in his own
art collection.)
>From Chelsea, it’s a short trip down to Mulberry Street to Little Italy,
where Hargrove and Debbie enjoyed cappuccinos and cannolis while strolling
past landmarks like Umberto’s Clam House and Il Cortile. (It was in Little
Italy, naturally, that television’s Sopranos spent much of their time eating
and discussing “family” business.)
To walk off the decadent cannolis, Hargrove and Debbie strolled The High Line,
it’s a 1.45-mile New York City park built on a section of the former elevated
freight railroad.
A visit to the Italian-American Museum rounded out the tour, and the couple
returned to New Jersey refreshed and rejuvenated.
Residents of and visitors to New Jersey still have time to visit the H.
Hargrove Signature Gallery in Point Pleasant before its doors close at the end
of June. And those too far away to visit the New Jersey shore or New York, or
have no access to local galleries, can still acquire Hargrove’s art via his
Web site. www.hhargrove.com.
“It will be a bittersweet goodbye I give to Point Pleasant in June,”
Hargrove says, “but I’m thrilled to be included in Chelsea’s Parthenon of fine
artists. In a very real way, it’s like another return to my roots.”
Related Links:
