The Salmagundi Club Library is pleased to announce An artist’s eye: the Lukas Charles collection (loaned from the Lyme Academy of Arts and Dr. Lukas Charles ). Featuring rarely-seen portraits by some of the 19th and early 20th centuries’ most accomplished European, American, and British portrait artists, including several historic Salmagundi members Frank Dumond (1865-1951) and William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), and non-members Ilya Repin (1844-1930) and Solomon J. Solomon (1860-1927). The fine collection was assembled by Dr. Lukas Charles, an artist and New York radiologist. The 12 paintings selected (from Lyme) from Dr. Lukas Charles’ extraordinary collection represent some of the finest examples of realistic portraiture produced during this period. “My collection has grown from my love of fine painting and my observations of the differing and deep connections between these artists and their subjects,” reflects Dr. Charles.

Originally exhibited at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts from Nov 19, 2023 to Feb 18, 2024, the exhibition there included 28 paintings of which 12 paintings were selected for the Salmagundi exhibition. Curators and Co-Artistic Directors of the Lyme Academy, Jordan Sokol and Amaya Gurpide, see in this collection an opportunity for their students, fellow artists, and the art-loving public to witness first-hand both the technical excellence and expressive diversity of previous academic masters. “The artists represented in this exhibition were trained in academies,” comments Gurpide. “This institutionalized practice of art education dates back to the Renaissance and became popular again in the 18th and 19th centuries… Yet, the artists each have their own style and approach their subjects differently, with resemblance becoming secondary to the evocation of character, mood, and self-reflection.” This is, in fact, what ties the collection so closely to the Lyme Academy (and the Salmagundi Club), whose own (Lyme’s) mission is to train the newest generation of figurative artists in this age-old tradition, while also encouraging them to discover their own expressive voice.