Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 171

preview (tft Do ubtless French glory "The Fortune Teller attributed to Georges de la Tour but of questioned authenticity is part of the glittering showing of 17thrCentury French art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art convincingly surrounded by unquestioned works of de la Tour and others NASSAUSUFFOLK AUEN1UL "The Orderly santabatract large-sctlt acrylics by Margaret Neumann through June Shelter Rock Uniy 165 Sssrfngtonm Rd 245-7363 Reception 3-5 PM tomorrow IMPORT Ait display ind nil Wot Paints Studio Group 9 AM-730 PM today 9 AM-4 PM tomorrow European American lank Main Street 580297 Electronic photos by Lawnncs Baital noon-5 PM weekday through June Intar-Media Ait Cantor 253 BayvAh An 628-6565 Wmahitiaaia recaption 6-11 PM April 24 BUHL "Discover" multt-msdia worts by student aitlits 835 PM PM June 10 11 Maptom High School CAip Avenue 826-2200 BUIE POSIT Gaomatric paintings by Martin Schrsibsr sculpture in woodttons by Richard Haig: realistic paintings by Robert AeweelSn wiuua7 DAI Uladiiooilflto- MINI nOQfrr rM VVWn8SQIr Sunday through June 12 L'Ate-liar 155 Montauk Hwy 363-2407 RMBMJdPTDI "Contains is" worts by 40 artists ctosas Tuesday "Tha Environment" depicted by 43 artists opens with inception 4-7 PM Juno 12 noon-6 PM daily sxoept Wednesdays through Jons 29 EMns Benson Gallery Montauk Highway 537-3233 SR00MI1E "tong Inland Ait-iats Invitational" worts by 22 artiats Muds painting aculp-tun photography graphics handmade paper worts opens Sunday 10 AIM PM Monday-Friday 1-5 PM Sunday through July 11 Post Art Saitary Northern loulavard 299-Z788D9 CENTEREACH Student art work through Jims 11 Library 101 Eastwood Btvd 5854393 C0UI IBM HAM0R "Exhibition at Young Realists" introduction of new talent opens Sunday 10 AM-5 PM Tussday-Saturday 1-8 PM Sunday through Arty 9 Haibor 6aSety 43 Main St 692-9526 EOT HAMPTON WDrks by Mar- CLamb Jana Ritchie WA-Pellecona noon-6 PM Frtday-Sunday through June 18 Gallery East 257 Montauk Hwy 3244393 By AmI Wallaeh do with making all this available There are 11 paintings by Poussin alone in the Metropolitan show with his translucent blue skies his sternly moralistic lucidly composed versions of tales from elaaaiaal Rome his unsweaty un-sexy HacrVianala his grandly ideal landscapes One of the thrills of this show is "The Death of from The Minneapolis Art Insitute Newly cleaned for the occasion the scene of Ger-manirna waking Vii friends to a van gw hia death at the hands of the Emperor Tiberius gleams with the deep blue of the canopy over the bed and the glinting gold of the uniforms This is a painting that sums up much of what Poussin was after: noble sentiments clarity of vision and precision of presentation It was his first big commission in 1626 when he was 32 Some 14 year later he painted "Landscape With Saint John on which with its simplified spaciousness prefigured both later landscapes and Cezanne's sharp-edged rock formations Those lucioua Poussins share a large room in the SaAlur galleries with 10 works by another 17th-Century French giant Claude Lorraine whose calm ob liquely lit landscapes became the ideal for centuries of landscape painters Poussin and Lorrain spent most of their lives in Rome which is both the irony and the point of 17th-Century French painting Borne was where painting was happening where artists critics collectors Tid connoiseurs met to praise and pull apart the conflicting art movements of their day Borne was to those French painters as Paris was to naive Americans as little as SO years ago In Rome the French learned how Caravaggio had translated classical sculpture into dramatically lit paintings modeled on street people instead of Mint The French were more restrained in their handling no Italian excesses for them but Caravaggio is clearly there in the La Tours which the Metropolitan has hung to demonstrate that the dynamically alagant "The Fortune Teller" was painted by the same hand as "The Cheat with the Ace of to its left and The to its right But the knockout La Tour in that room is "Saint Peter his face lit only by the red rising sun as the cock crows thrice and he is faced with the horror of his own treachery Prints by Tad Davies Ryna Segal Wilbur Strsech photography by Baanor Migdal noon-6 PM Saturday Sunday through Juna 18 Arris's Proof 257 Montauk Hwy 324-0276 "Artists From the Edwairi Albas Foundation" worts by 16 artists: 'Twins on Twins: Photographs by Kathryn Abbe and Frances 10 AM-5 PM Monday-Saturday 2-5 PM Sunday through June 27 Guild Hal 158 Main St All the recent controversy about whether or not Georges de la Tour's The Fortune Teller' is a lake makes it and away the most famous picture in the exhibit "France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-Century French Painting in American Collections" which goes on view at the Metropolitan Museum tomorrow But anyone who is lured to the museum to see a single notorious painting is going to be charmed by the sheer breadth and beauty of the rest of the exhibition 129 other works The 17th Century waa the one in which French painting him into its own All those other Gallic artistic high spots from David to Monet to Braque trace their roots to that heady period starting just before 1600 when painting was at last accepted as an art along with poetry nunrie and architecture worthy of the attention of French monarchs and nobles (Although wall into the century Paa-cal was still writing "What vanity is painting! It elicits admiration for the likeness of things we do not admire at all in the The 17th Century contained the one painter who along with Cezanne is considered the most important that France ever produced Nicolas Poussin as well as the patternmaker for centuries of landscape painting Claude Lorraine And these was that stylized maverick genius de la Tour such lesser-known lights as Simon Vouet Valentin and the Le Nain brothers When the by-then-stale controversy over "The Fortune Teller" broke out anew this spring the painting and much of this exhibit was on view at the Grand Palais in Paris It came as a surprise to the French how much good French 17th-Cen-art resided in American museums It come as a surprise to Americana too Only recently have American museums and collectors been paying attention to that century When the Frick Collection opened in 1935 it contained no 17th-Century French paintings at alL Only 68 of the pointing in the hiHitinin were in this country by 1960 The breaking up of the Bwgli A anlWtinms had rnnrh to EAST HT exploration of natural electric and reflected light along with holograms group show 10 AM-4 PM Wadnaaday-Saturday 430 PM Sunday 8-10 PM Wadnesday through July 3 Wip Art Cantor and GaAety 50 Irish Lina 224-5400 EOT SETAUKET "Eleanor Rapps and the Fort Mason Print- The Frick 6La Tour9 maksrs" graphics by San Francisco arristprinimaksn 1-5 rM Frfday-Sunday through June 27 Felice Cola GaAery 3 West Rd 751-6946 BM0RT Reverse i by Lewis leach Art" Edwin DeMott through June 1735 Hampstead Tpfce by Edwin library 17! 354-5280 Etienne The father signed his name 'Georges De La Tom' with a capital and This signature doesn't have the and it is all one word never believed it was right because of things like the painting of the basket which is very dry and mechanical been calling it a copy for But very quietly and not a wonl in the press Fahy is one of those "absolutely that The Fortune is authentic To underline its case the Metropolitan is screening the PBS documentary which supports its contention at noon and 3 PM on June 10 15 16 and 17 While the Metropolitan has been embroiled in controversy over "The Fortune a La Tour painting that a growing number of art historians now believe is authentic the Frick Collection down the street has cniietly downgraded its La Tbur The Education of the Purchased in 1948 just as Georges de la Tour was bring rediscovered after centuries of neglert the candlelit scene has represented La Tour to many museum goers But the catalog of every 17th-Century French painting in America refers to it as "a Everett Fahy the director concurred "If probably by his son GAROBI CRY Paintings by Antoinette Jabbour doses Thursday paintings by Loretta Harman opens with recaption 3-5 PM Juna 12 9 AM-noon Mon-day-Friday through June MeAetto Gallery Unitarian Uni-vanattat Church Stewart Avenue and Boutovard 248-8855 Sculpture by Miriam Axelrod 11 AM-7 PM Monday-Thursday 11 AM-5 PM Friday through June 30 Ruth Harley Continued next page I a A a A Hr rC 4 4 'A -i.