Coming Into View

Art has an uncanny way of thriving, no matter the challenges. Here are just two unexpected and refreshing venues, thanks to generous patrons

ARC Fine Art
This contemporary gallery is located in a renovated hundred-year-old barn tucked away behind a nineteenth-century Colonial home in Greenfield Hills. The gallery reflects the savvy of founder and owner Adrienne Ruger Counzelman, a specialist in nineteenth- and twentieth-century art who is a consultant, assisting in acquisition and installation. With a master’s in American art from Williams College, she began her career at Christie’s in New York. Her book After the Hunt documents the art collection of her grandfather William B. Ruger.

May 6-June 6: Barbara Rothenberg, Fragments: New Work on Paper
The exhibit includes new collages from this award-winning Silvermine Guild artist, teacher and recipient of numerous grants, including a Fulbright for study in India. Works include lithographic prints, pieces featuring prints of the artist’s photographs as a background or as part of a collage—essentially painting with paper. An abstract composition becomes, upon closer examination, detailed: seedpods, leaves, dried mushrooms—“all the things I find on the forest floor,” she says.

Reception: May 6, 5-7 p.m.
Artist’s Talk: May 23, 7 p.m.
Book Signing: May 15, with her son, David Rothenberg, author of The Survival of the Beautiful, on the interplay of beauty, art and culture in evolution.
Location: 3113 Bronson Rd., 203-895-9595; arcfineartllc.com

Art/Place
The artists’ cooperative founded in 1981 is in a temporary Fairfield gallery space, thanks to Ellen Hyde Phillips. She’s sharing her interior design headquarters. Art/Place showcases a diversity of mediums, techniques and styles, from traditional to cutting-edge abstraction. (Also, The Watermark at 3030 Park, Bridgeport, presents Art/Place exhibitions in the rotunda gallery. Martha Reinken and Cate Leach are featured in May and June.)

Opening May 5: Art/Place Springs
“I have known most of these artists for years,” Phillips says of the new exhibit. “They are like family—and so professionally committed.”    
Reception: May 5, 3-5 p.m.
Location: 25 Lindbergh St., 203-292-8328; artplace.org