Making an Artist Monograph

The National Academy of Design invites you to join us for a conversation on artist monographs with art historian and curator Annette Blaugrund, writer and critic David Ebony, and book designer Henk van Assen, with special guests Mary Abell, Naomi Antonakos, and Melissa Kaish. The conversation will focus on three recent books about National Academicians: Carmen Cicero: Drawings and Watercolors(Abbeville Press, 2024), Stephen Antonakos: Neon and Geometry (Rizzoli, 2023), and a forthcoming book on Morton Kaish (to be published by Abbeville Press).

RESERVATIONS: Admission is free but reservations are required.

ACCESSIBILITY: This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs. To request free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service, email your request at least three weeks in advance of the event to [email protected].

About the Speakers

Annette Blaugrund, former director (and first woman director) of the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts (1997-2007), has published and lectured widely on diverse subjects in American art and culture. Before that, she was the Andrew W. Mellon senior curator at the New-York Historical Society and a curator at the Brooklyn Museum and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She has written sixteen books about American art including some about the Tenth Street Studio Building, the 1889 world’s fair in Paris, and John James Audubon. In 1992, she was named a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, and she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Design in 2008, among other honors. She holds a PhD in art history from Columbia University (1987), where she taught American art (1996-2001). From 2012-2023, she was Consulting Curator at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, NY, and recently co-curated the exhibition Shifting Shorelines: Art, Industry, and Ecology Along the Hudson River at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery.

David Ebony is a contributing editor of Art in America and formerly the magazine’s Managing Editor. He is a member of AICA (International Association of Art Critics), and a former board member of the organization. Currently a senior editor at SNAP Editions, he is also the author of “David Ebony + Art Books,” a long-running column for Yale University Press online. He frequently contributes to artnet News, The Magazine Antiques, The Brooklyn Rail, Snapshot of the Art World, Upstate Diary, and Lacanian Ink, among other publications. He is the author of numerous artist monographs, including recent titles Stephen Antonakos: Neon and Geometry(2023, Rizzoli); Larry Poons (2023, Abbeville Press), and Carmen Cicero: Drawings and Watercolors (Abbeville Press, 2024).

Ebony is also an independent curator; among his exhibitions are Lucio Pozzi: In Here at the Magazzino museum, Cold Spring, New York (currently on view through June 23); Presença/Presence: Recent Works by Helena Kozuchowicz at the Brazilian Consulate, NYC, 2024; “Grasshopper: A Judy Pfaff Survey,” at CR10, Linlithgo, New York, in 2016; and “Metropolis,” at Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery, New York, 2015.

Henk van Assen studied design and typography at the Koninklijke Academie van Beelden Kunsten (Royal Academy of Fine Arts) in The Hague, The Netherlands. From there he worked at Reynoud Homan Design in Amsterdam until coming to the United States to pursue an MFA at Yale University. In 2004, he founded HvADesign, a multidisciplinary design studio located in DUMBO, Brooklyn, New York. The studio has worked on hundreds of projects spanning print, environmental and screen-based media. With clients from the cultural, publishing, innovation and educational realms, projects have ranged from brand identities and book design to web design and spatial graphics (see “work”).

In addition to his studio practice, Henk is a senior critic in the graphic design department at Yale University’s School of Art, and a member of the faculty since 1999. Prior to this appointment, he taught design at the University of Texas at Austin, the School of Visual Arts, New York, and the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. Since 2012, he is also an adjunct lecturer at Parsons School of Design, New York. Additionally, Henk conducts design and typography workshops around the world, most recently in Shanghai, Tel Aviv, and Monterrey, Mexico.

Stephen Antonakos NA’s work has been seen in hundreds of solo and group shows, since 1958, in New York, around the USA, Europe, and Japan. For almost every exhibition, he created new work. Antonakos: A Retrospective was held in 2007-08 at the Benaki Museum Piraeus and was accompanied by a major catalogue. It traveled to the Allentown Museum of Art (PA) in 2008. Irving Sandler’s comprehensive monograph Antonakoswas published in 1999. Stephen Antonakos: Neon and Geometry was released by Rizzoli in 2023. He received the Prize for Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2009) and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY (2000), the National Academy Museum, and the Greek America Foundation (both 2011).

Naomi Antonakos received her BA from Brandeis University and her MA from New York University. She worked as Director of Stephen Antonakos Studio, as well as a number of New York galleries through the 1960s and 1970s, including Charles Byron Gallery, Fischbach Gallery, and John Weber Gallery. She is well-known for her writing on the work of Stephen Antonakos, Robert Ryman, and Eva Hesse. Her writings can be found in catalogues and publications on Ronald Bladen, Alexandra Danilova, Tom Doyle, Arshile Gorky, Mark Hadjipateras, Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Mangold, Piet Mondrian, Eleni Mylonas, Robert Stanley, and Merrill Wagner, among others.

Carmen Cicero NA’s paintings are filled with mystery, satire and edgy images of life. He combines pointed candor with comic apparitions that reflect his reverence for life’s veracities and vagaries, and the humor he finds in our lives. A native of New Jersey, Cicero holds a BA from Newark State Teachers College and an MFA from Montclair State. Cicero taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York, for nine years and later at Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, New Jersey, for 31 years. He lives in New York City and Truro on Cape Cod. He is also an accomplished jazz musician. Cicero received Lifetime Achievement awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2016), Provincetown Art Association and Museum (2012) and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2007).

Mary Ellen Abell is an independent art historian and curator. She was on the faculty and Chair of the Department of Visual Arts, Graphic Design and Digital Arts at Dowling College in Oakdale, New York, and Director of the Long Point Gallery in Provincetown. Mary earned her Ph.D. in Art History at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, focusing on American art. She is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and married to Carmen Cicero.

Morton Kaish NA’s light and color-filled works have been exhibited nationally and internationally. Critics have noted Kaish’s powerful ability to combine traditional and experimental painting techniques with contemporary insights, and reviews of his work can be found in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Christian Science Monitor and TIME, among other publications. Kaish is Professor Emeritus in the School of Art and Design at FIT/SUNY, and has served as Artist-in-Residence at Dartmouth College; the University of Washington, Seattle; Haifa University, Israel, as well as on the faculties of the New School, the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League of New York. He has been Visiting Artist at Boston University, Columbia University, Queens College, The Parsons School of Design, Philadelphia College of Art, The School of Visual Arts, Susquehanna University, Tyler School of Art, Rome and The Sedona Arts Center.

Born in Newark, grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey, Morton Kaish earned his BFA at Syracuse University where he was awarded the Hiram Gee Fellowship in Painting. He continued his studies at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, the Istituto d’Arte, Florence, and the Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome. Kaish has been honored with The Benjamin West Clinedinst Memorial Medal for exceptional artistic merit by the Artists’ Fellowship, awarded the Alumni Award for Achievement in the Arts by Syracuse University, and received the National Academy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.

Melissa Kaish is the daughter of two National Academicians, Morton Kaish (born 1927) and Luise Kaish (1925-2013). Melissa served on the Board of the National Academy for four years and later the School Committee. She both studied and exhibited at the National Academy School, where she also served as a workshop monitor. In 2016 she founded the Kaish Family Art Project, to promote and preserve her parents' legacy and contributions to American Art. Kaish attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design and has worked internationally with architects and developers, including EuroDisney Paris and PDCM Yuncken Freeman in Hong Kong and Australia. She holds an MBA from Columbia University in Finance and Marketing, a BA from Dartmouth College in Art History and Fine Arts, and a 2-year degree certificate in portraiture from the Heatherly School of Art, London. She has served seven years on the Hood Museum Board of Overseers, Dartmouth College during their expansion of the museum. Presently she serves on the Dean's Council, Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Syracuse University Art Museum Board and the American Friends of the Musee D’Orsay Paris.

Collective Stewardship is the National Academy of Design’s series of free, in-person and virtual, educational public programs that focus on artist and architect foundations and the different approaches and solutions for the planning and preservation of their legacies for the public good and future public accessibility. The ongoing series of talks, panels, and workshops features living legacy projects and foundations with public missions, coupling purposeful storytelling with specific information about the preparation and tools needed to build an accessible archive.

Image: Stephen Antonakos: Neon and Geometry (Rizzoli Electa). Courtesy of Henk Van Assen, HvADesign.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

National Academy of Design, 519 West 26th Street, New York, United States