The Art Scene 04.25.19

New at Harper’s Apartment

An exhibition of eight mixed-media paintings on jute by the Los Angeles artist Spencer Lewis will open Monday with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. at Harper’s Apartment, the Manhattan outpost of East Hampton’s Harper’s Books. The show will run through June 6.

Mr. Lewis’s recent paintings are composed of layered streaks of smeared, dripped, and spackled paint that are built up into elevated tactile surfaces sometimes encrusted with strips of paper and other detritus from his studio. 

Located at 51 East 74 Street, the gallery’s regular hours are Thursday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m., but because of next week’s Frieze art fair it will also be open Tuesday and Wednesday from noon to 6.

Photographers East

Photographers East will hold its annual spring exhibition at Ashawagh Hall in Springs on Saturday and Sunday, with a reception set for Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. Formed in 1991 by three East End photographers, the group has grown to more than 50 members. The exhibition will include work by Bill Alves, Nina Bataller, Fred Bertrand, Gerry Giliberti David Gilmore, Dennis Maroulas, Bruce Milne, Sandy Peabody, Matt Rohde, Fred VanderWerven, and Denis Wolf.

Peter Beston at MM Fine Art

“Moments/Stories,” an exhibition of paintings by Peter Beston, will be on view at MM Fine Art in Southampton from Saturday through May 19. A reception will be held Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

Born in England, Mr. Beston worked for many years as a film editor before settling in East Quogue and devoting himself full time to painting. His background in film is reflected in the narrative element of his paintings, which use precise composition, intense colors, and occasional elements of the surreal to create realistic images that suggest something mysterious or ominous lurking just outside the frame.

Group Show at Tulla Booth

“Spring Pleasures” will open at Tulla Booth Gallery in Sag Harbor with a reception Saturday afternoon from 4 to 6 and remain on view through May 28. The exhibition will include work from Stephen Wilkes’s “Day to Night” series, photographs from Daniel Jones’s “Cities,” Roberto Dutesco’s “Wild Horses of Sable Island,” sea and land abstractions by Blair Seagram, botanical images by Ms. Booth, and photographs by Lois Lobis Brown.

Helen Harrison Honored

“An Accidental Corpse,” a novel by Helen A. Harrison, director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs, has received the 2019 Benjamin Franklin Gold award in the fiction, mystery, and suspense category. The award program is one of the highest national honors for independent publishers.

Released in August, the novel draws upon the circumstances of the 1956 automobile death of Jackson Pollock and his passenger Edith Metzger to create a “dark whodunit,” according to Kirkus Reviews.

Art in Remembrance

In conjunction with Holocaust Remembrance Day, Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor will present “Witness,” a six-piece series of mixed-media works by the Sag Harbor artist Ron Calvert, from Sunday through May 31. A reception will take place Sunday from 5 to 7 p.m.

Mr. Calvert created the assemblages in response to his 2016 visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland to bear witness to the Holocaust. Known for his abstract paintings, in the new series Mr. Calvert uses the print industry’s bygone type case as the framework for each piece.