New York – Entering the Salmagundi Club library you set your watch back about 100 years and immediately respond to a genius loci unique to what may be New York’s only authentic, century old art reference library. Visitors absorb the warm tones given off when old books, oak furniture and vast, accumulated knowledge blend together and venture into the time capsule with a profound sense of wonder and enchantment. The club’s library committee, chaired by Salmagundian art historian Alex Katlan, has recently completed a careful restoration of its beloved space. “Our chairman believes in ‘making Salmagundi more like Salmagundi’ says Katlan, and we have done just that.” Guided by a floor plan drawn by members in 1917, the library now looks much like it did then, complimented by a discreet but highly effective modern lighting system bringing the bookshelves and oak furnishings, historic artist’s palettes and unique painted ‘library mug’ collection to life. Looking down from atop the west wall bookcase, a bust of Thomas Moran, America’s greatest landscape painter and former President of Salmagundi, appears to smile in contentment. To celebrate recent improvements and the club’s 150th year, Alex Katlan has arranged a commission, the first at the club in over a century. “The library doors are functional but unimpressive, and we want to change that,” says Katlan, adding that he has a few ideas of his own, but looks forward to seeing what is presented. The commission application is open to all artists, Salmagundians and non-members, but will be limited to seventy artists chosen by Katlan and his committee. Selected applicants will submit a concept to paint each of the pair of interior vertical doors, two panels in all. Such commissions were common in Venetian palazzi, French chateaus, English country houses and even Newport mansions, but are rare in modern New York City. A significant monetary prize will be awarded, together with the prestige of having work on permanent display, likely for as long as Salmagundi prevails. It has done well so far, repelling economic storms, pandemic invasion and, perhaps most courageously, attacks from within the art establishment itself which revolted against the representational, academic art the club and its 1,000 members cherish in an insurgency which gained full strength after WWII, but may have begun in New York at the Armory in 1913. In any event, Thomas Moran did not live to see it. Contact: Chris Nunnally, Director of Operations, cnunnally@salmagundi.org
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