Litchfield County’s Best Kept Art Secret

A middle school gymnasium may not sound like the most intriguing location for collectors with even a passable knowledge of contemporary art, but that is the occasional beauty of living in a rural community just outside of New York City — make a call for art, and you never know who may answer. Those looking for minor works at an entry-level price point should mark The Rose Algrant Art Show on their calendars, opening Friday, Aug. 11 at Cornwall Consolidated School in Cornwall, Conn., and lasting through the weekend.

In 1987, in a piece of characteristically countryside journalism, Anne Saunders wrote on the front page of The Lakeville Journal, “No one seems to know exactly how old Rose Algrant is or when it was she arrived in Cornwall, or how long the annual art exhibit has gone on — nor will she say much about the past.” Algrant, born in Turkey and raised in France, died a few years later in 1992, but the annual group art show of Cornwall residents that she began in 1959 has continued on in her honor.

In recent years, The Rose Algrant Show has counted painter Philip Taaffe among its participants. Taaffe first burst onto the stage of the New York art world at the start of the 1980s, and his large-scale abstract work has since been included in the collections of The Whitney and MoMA. His personal collectors have ranged from art dealer Rafael Jablonka to the late fashion designer Gianni Versace. The once famed full-time resident of The Chelsea Hotel has since found a home in Cornwall, and his Rose Algrant miniature offerings have come in the shape of tile-sized canvases illuminated in neon cosmic color, all musing on a theme — last year there were photorealistic pinned butterflies against melting rainbow sherbert backgrounds, and in 2019 he painted a series of suggestively shaped peaches and other pit fruits.

For those who never plan to step into Gagosian in a buyer’s state of mind, this is the perfectly sneaky way to snag your own little Taaffe — or even a few.