I’ve been wanting to go up to the Cleveland Art Museum to see their new Art of the American Indians exhibit, but this week they added some new pieces to the outdoor collection….GO CAVS!!!!

A massive Akron art collection will be following the footsteps of ancient Roman sculpture and paintings by Rockwell and Picasso.  The collection of Mary Schiller Myers will be auctioned off at Sotheby’s this fall, featuring over 90 pieces of contemporaty art.  Mrs. Myers, along with her husband Louis S. Myers- an Akron industrialist- we huge patrons of the arts in Northeast Ohio and New York, where they called both cities home.  One of the pieces up for auction is Claes Oldenburg’s “Soft Inverted Q” a shiny black sculpture which has a pink sister on display at the Akron Art Museum.

Here is an article about the collection and auction that ran in yesterday’s New York Times:

A Little ‘Q’ Gets Its Day on the Block

How Claes Oldenburg, an artist known for his monumental sculptures of everyday objects, came to create a tiny one in rubber, of the letter Q at that, is a story the 80-year-old Pop artist remembers well.

The year was 1974, and Mary Schiller Myers, a passionate advocate of contemporary art, had commissioned him to create one of his first large-scale sculptures, this one for the Akron Public Library garden in Ohio.

“I had wanted it to be rubber because that’s the main industry in Akron,” Mr. Oldenburg said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “But I realized I couldn’t cast a sculpture in rubber more than 18 inches high” because of the properties of the material. So he compromised for the commission, and in 1976 made an edition of four six-foot-tall sculptures of the inverted Q out of painted concrete. (The one for Akron is now on view inside the entrance to the Akron Art Museum.)

Why a Q? “It was a shape that had grown out of some earlier drawings,” Mr. Oldenburg said. Over the years, he added, “it has been associated as a kind of navel form.”

Still, he refused to give up entirely on creating a sculpture in rubber. He decided to make two 18-inch versions of the sculpture, one in rubber and the other in plastic. Each was cast in editions of 12 as well as an artist proof. He gave one of the rubber Q’s to Mrs. Myers.

This fall that sculpture will be sold at Sotheby’s along with some 99 other works that had belonged to Mrs. Myers, who died in December. Together with her husband, Louis S. Myers, a founder of Myers Industries who died in 1993, a tire business and maker of plastic storage containers, they amassed a collection of paintings and sculptures that included work by de Kooning, Calder, Judd and Noguchi. Most of the collection will be auctioned at Sotheby’s contemporary art sales on Nov. 11 and 12. There will also be some works in its Latin American auctions on November, and in its American paintings sale in December. All told, the collection is expected to bring about $30 million.

“In this climate when property has been difficult to find, everyone is after estate business,” said Tobias Meyer, director of Sotheby’s contemporary art department worldwide. But few estates have come up recently, so what little property has been up for grabs has been particularly sought after, making the Myers collection a coup.

For years Mrs. Myers, who lived in Akron and New York, served on committees at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Akron Art Museum, where she was a longtime board member and its president for two years.

Besides Mr. Oldenburg’s “Soft Inverted Q (Black Proof),” which is estimated at $30,000 to $40,000, Sotheby’s is also selling a painting and a sculpture by de Kooning. The painting, “Untitled XV” from 1977, one of his colorful abstract landscapes, is estimated at $5 million to $7 million, and his bronze sculpture “Large Torso,” from 1974, is expected to fetch $4 million to $6 million.

Mrs. Myers “really loved painting,” said Anthony Grant, a senior international expert in contemporary art at Sotheby’s. “Even her sculptures have a painterly quality to them.”

This past Saturday was Meet the Artists day at Made in Akron in Highland Square.  It was a really amazing day of really talented artists, devoted Akronites, and a lot of local pride.  Over twenty artists set up booths to showcase their unique pieces and meet their fans & people interested in what they’re doing.  There was a really great turn out, a few hundred people passed through the doors of the little shop on South Highland Ave.  Here are some pics from the day:

Urban Kanvas Artist Jason Scala and local artist Dan Turner

10x Your City- really cool t-shirts (possibly cooler than ours)

Tags by Judy Rickenbacher

Shiny Distractions by Mina Hosfeld

Akron's favorite song-girl, Rachel Roberts gave a special performance.

Our intern, Danielle, working on one of her crochet pieces.

Draglyttes!

Roza Haidet and her fantastic mustache necklaces & other handmade jewelry.

Beautiful resin jewelry with found pieces & bugs.

Russ' Art Drawers- unique handmade panties.

Todd V discussing his paintings with some fans.

This Saturday afternoon head over to Made in Akron in Highland Square for a unique art event!  From 11am-3:30pm, you can meet some of the amazing artists that showcase their work at Made in Akron, our wonderful sister store.  Artisans of jewelry, mosaics, paintings, screen-prints, photography, t-shirts, stencil art, and more will be on hand to show new pieces and discuss their artistic process.

This event is a great way to support local arts, local business, and meet some really cool Akronites.  In case of rain, the event will take place Sunday, August 30th, same time.

For more information on this event, please call Elizabeth at Made in Akron, 330.535.4774.