For more than fifty years, Spanierman Gallery cultivated a reputation as one of the country’s preeminent galleries dedicated to American Art. Founded by Ira Spanierman in 1961, the gallery initially offered a wide selection of material, including silver, arms and armor, Old Master, European and American art. Over time, Spanierman chose to focus exclusively on American art, a move that would establish the gallery as a tour-de-force in the field. Well-known for his outstanding ‘eye’ and dedication to connoisseurship, Spanierman was trusted by institutions and private collectors alike. The gallery was known to have sold to hundreds of museums across the United States and abroad while fostering the development of some of the country’s most prestigious private collections.
In addition to its reputation as a dealer, Spanierman Gallery was esteemed in the industry for its dedication and support of art scholarship. As a young man starting off in the business, Ira Spanierman recalled researching and identifying paintings through tedious research at the Frick Art Reference Library. These hours of study left an indelible mark on Spanierman who would go on to publish catalogue raisonnés for artists such as Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman, Willard Metcalf, and co-sponsor the catalogue on the work of Winslow Homer.
When Spanierman Gallery closed in 2014 an impressive inventory remained. We are pleased to offer a selection of these works from the estates acquired by the gallery including those of Dora Maar, Solomon Ethe, Vaclav Vytlacil, John F. Carlson, Joseph Amar, James and Myron Lechay, Martha Walter, Mercedes Matter, Lamar Briggs, Sumiye Okoshi and Robert Emmett Owen.
Abraham Bogdanove 1888–1946
Painter Abraham Bogdanove was born in Minsk, Russia (now Belarus) in 1888. He immigrated with his family to New York City in 1900. Over the next decade, Bogdanove went on to study at the Cooper Union, National Academy of Design, and Columbia University's School of Architecture. He also produced painted advertisements for the New York Journal and began to take on commissions, including for murals at Fleischman Baths in Midtown, the Hebrew Sheltering and Guardian Society in Pleasantville, New York, and various New York area schools. Bogdanove also taught art at local schools from 1913 until 1942.
After visiting Maine for the first time in 1915, Bogdanove found his true home in the United States. His initial trip was to Mount Desert Island near Bar Harbor. Subsequently, Bogdanove journeyed to Monhegan Island off the coast of Boothbay Harbor in 1918 and purchased a house there in 1920. Enchanted by the isolated setting and rugged natural beauty, and a climate relatively similar to his native Russia, Bogdanove would visit Monhegan Island annually until his passing in 1946. Over the course of nearly three decades, he became highly skilled at painting coastal landscapes and seascapes, which some have compared stylistically to the works of Winslow Homer.
Bogdanove retired from teaching in 1942 and moved to Dunbarton, New Hampshire, but he continued to visit Monhegan Island in his final years. During his lifetime, works by Bogdanove were exhibited at the National Academy of Design, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Corcoan Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and elsewhere. Posthumously, Bogdanove retrospectives were held at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine in 1957, the College of the City of New York in 1961, and the Spanierman Gallery in New York from 1997 to 2000.
Auction Results Abraham Bogdanove
