Nancy Gabriel and Julie Hillman's "The Cultivated Eye" pairs Jean Royère, Aboriginal, and contemporary works sourced through Creative Art Partners in a Sutton Tower penthouse.
Staged within a soaring penthouse during New York’s busiest week for art and design, a dazzling showcase at Galerie Gabriel pairs Jean Royère masterworks, Aboriginal paintings, and provocative contemporary pieces to explore collecting as an act of cultural transmission.
What really is collecting?” gallerist Nancy Gabriel asks during a walkthrough of “The Cultivated Eye,” a newly opened exhibition staged within her dazzling duplex penthouse atop Sutton Tower on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The question arrives at a fitting moment, as Frieze, TEFAF, and NYCxDesign all recently coincided to transform New York into a magnet for collectors, curators, and discerning aesthetes from around the globe. With curation by interior designer Julie Hillman, the exhibition examines collecting through the lens of lived experience and connoisseurship, positing that inheritance extends beyond the object itself to encompass the ability to recognize nuance, craftsmanship, and cultural heft. “The cultivated eye forms over time through patience, intellectual curiosity, and lived experience,” Gabriel explains. “There’s a custodian role in being a collector.” [...]
Hillman balanced the furniture’s more dramatic silhouettes with an art program that favors subtle discoveries over instantly recognizable trophies. Works by Daniel Buren, Sterling Ruby, Martin Barré, Louis Eisner, and Nadia Lee Cohen appear throughout the penthouse with an almost studied ease. “Many times in New York, you walk into these apartments and immediately recognize the artwork,” Hillman says. “Here, I wanted people to explore. Your eye doesn’t settle in one spot.” Much of the art came through Creative Art Partners, including works curated by Hillman’s daughter, Paige Israel, who assembled a selection of expressive abstractions and narrative-driven works that deepen the apartment’s layered atmosphere. One particularly enigmatic canvas came from Hillman’s own collection. Purchased by her husband years ago, the text-based work bears an uncanny resemblance to Richard Prince and carries the name Fulton Ryder, an elusive figure whose identity remains something of an art-world mystery after vanishing almost as suddenly as he appeared.
Hillman balanced the furniture’s more dramatic silhouettes with an art program that favors subtle discoveries over instantly recognizable trophies. Works by Daniel Buren, Sterling Ruby, Martin Barré, Louis Eisner, and Nadia Lee Cohen appear throughout the penthouse with an almost studied ease. “Many times in New York, you walk into these apartments and immediately recognize the artwork,” Hillman says. “Here, I wanted people to explore. Your eye doesn’t settle in one spot.” Much of the art came through Creative Art Partners, including works curated by Hillman’s daughter, Paige Israel, who assembled a selection of expressive abstractions and narrative-driven works that deepen the apartment’s layered atmosphere. One particularly enigmatic canvas came from Hillman’s own collection. Purchased by her husband years ago, the text-based work bears an uncanny resemblance to Richard Prince and carries the name Fulton Ryder, an elusive figure whose identity remains something of an art-world mystery after vanishing almost as suddenly as he appeared.
Originally published in Galerie.
