A Modern Collection, Awash With Color

When the artist Rosalyn Ackerman Engelman and her husband, Irwin, relocated to Manhattan from Westport, Conn., they insisted that their apartment be filled with light, surrounded by green, and within walking distance of museums. They settled on a Fifth Avenue two-bedroom with sweeping views of Central Park, which they then gutted, knocking down some walls and building others, to create the right setting for a vast art collection that includes many of Mrs. Engelman’s own works.Though close to the city’s foremost museums, the Engelmans enjoy a collection of art ranging from Japanese woodblock drawings to Art Deco furniture and abstract paintings in the comfort of their own home.Mrs. Engelman, who directs the couple’s art collecting endeavors, has filled the apartment over the last two decades with large-scale, modern pieces awash with bright colors. “I love color,” Mrs. Engelman, who wears bright red glasses, said. But she added, “This is a home, not a museum, so it has to be functional, too.”The ability to mix functionality with artistry is most visible in the couple’s furniture, most of which is Art Deco. A wood dining-room set by the 20th-century French designer André Arbus includes a one-of-a-kind table made of African palissandre wood, and chairs made of rosewood and covered in leather. A desk used by Mr. Engelman, the former chief financial officer of Ronald Perelman’s investment firm, MacAndrews & Forbes, was crafted by the French furniture maker Jacques Adnet in 1932. On the desk stands a circa-1930 Jean Perzel lamp, one of the first ever to feature a plastic shade.Two leather couches that replicate the works of Le Corbusier, as well as four French chairs, provide seating in the living room. The two smaller chairs are made of sycamore, designed by Dominique, and were part of the interior of the Liberté, sister ship of the famed ocean liner Normandie. The larger chairs are designed by the French artist Adolphe Chanaux. A signed Art Deco Jacques LeLeu rug lies on the floor.The focal piece of the living room is a brightly colored, three-dimensional aluminium hanging sculpture by the Contemporary artist Frank Stella called “Forecastle Midnight.” Part of the artist’s Moby Dick series, it is an abstract representation of the story. As an Abstract Expressionist herself, Mrs. Engelman was drawn to the piece — a collage of curves, waves, and elements from the book hidden inside: “It’s not an easy read. It requires thinking and close attention to see what’s going on.”Next to that piece stands a steel Abstract Expressionist sculpture by Louise Nevelson, in which the artist employed her signature style, assembling separate box-type pieces to form one structural sculpture. As a female artist herself, Mrs. Engelman said she is dedicated to buying the work of other women. In the living room hangs “Quake Shoe” by Elizabeth Murray, an irregularly shaped, curvy piece made of oil on canvas and mounted on wood, which was featured in a Museum of Modern Art retrospective on Murray between 2005 and 2006.Hanging prominently in her hallway is a painting by modern artist Jennifer Bartlett. Titled “2 A.M.,” the piece depicts the artist’s garden at 2 a.m. and is part of a series of 7-foot-square paintings based on a 24-hour period. “I collect a great many female artists, because women have always had a harder time getting their work out there,” Mrs. Engelman said.Opposite the Nevelson sculpture in the living room hangs a large, brightly colored abstract painting by Richard Pousette-Dart, titled “To See Within, To See Beyond.” Mrs. Engelman liked how she could see the thick brushstrokes and sense the process of creating art. “All of my paintings show the process of painting,” she said.The Pousette-Dart painting complements three of Mrs. Engelman’s own abstract works hanging nearby: “Essence-Red,” “Bal Harbour Sunset,” and “Ocean Moon.” The paintings, like most of her works, are saturated with color and show many brushstrokes. The more one looks, the more one can see. “I don’t just paint the thing. My vision is very much in line with Matisse’s idea of painting the essence of the thing,” she said.Mrs. Engelman describes her taste as minimalist, and she has a penchant for Japanese art. While her husband traveled to Asia for business, Mrs. Engelman would study Asian art. Soon, they both fell in love with it. Indeed, when Mr. Engelman retired as CFO of General Foods, he was given a Japanese screen that had hung in his office, and it hangs in his home office today.“I love their fabrics, their gardens, their theater. They suggest so much more than they show, and that’s what my art does,” his wife said.The apartment is filled with Asian-inspired art, and several of Mrs. Engelman’s own paintings, which feature ancient Japanese poems hidden under subtle layers of harmonious color, were inspired by the mounted scroll paintings in tea houses she visited during her travels to Japan. “Through the addition of gold, silver, or sheen, the paintings change with light and the viewer’s position,” Mrs. Engelman said.In the hall hangs a large-scale painting by Mrs. Engelman, titled “Hakone,” depicting cherry blossoms in the Japanese vacation spot. (Mrs. Engelman’s art is often about capturing memory — in her kitchen, signed menus from her trips hang on the walls like art.)“Hakone” incorporates thousands of strokes, with various shades of pink, white, black, and gold. It also features faint vertical lines, which represent the vertical nature of Asian writing. “It’s something you might not see right away, but that’s the point. Every time you look at the work, you see something new,” she said.In a small nook nearby hang six Japanese woodblock prints, called Ukiyo-e, which date as far back as the 18th century and feature landscapes and stories from history.The Engelmans’ love for their grandchildren is apparent from the dining room, where the children’s homemade art is displayed next to serious pieces. Mrs. Engelman chose to “add a little bit of whimsy” to the room with a trompe l’oeil triptych painting by Christian Thee. The painting, titled “Trio,” shows French doors that open out to an ocean and blue skies. “We wanted to take a piece of Connecticut with us,” Mrs. Engelman said.On each side of the dining room table stands a sculpture of a musician. On one side there’s “L’Accordéoniste,” a bronze piece by Ferdinand Parpan that depicts a man playing an accordion, and on the other side, a wooden folk sculpture from China depicts a woman playing the flute. “It’s wonderful. We can sit in our dining room, look at the beach, and feel like we’re surrounded by music,” Mrs. Engelman said.Mrs. Engelman’s work is currently on display in two New York shows: “Dry Tears” is a mixed media installation at Hebrew Union College’s Jewish Institute of Religion Museum (1 W. 4th St., between Broadway and Mercer Street, 212-824-2205) that explores genocide and the vulnerability of the victim. A collection of her paintings is also on display at Gallery 440 (440 Lafayette St., between Astor Place and East 4th Street).

A Modern Collection, Awash With Color

A Modern Collection, Awash With Color

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