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What is your gallery about and describe your vision and your role there?
I established the Gallery a decade ago, with a mission to connect art lovers, homeowners, and collectors to artists with a value-added approach that sets us apart. This is our 10th anniversary season of art, and C. Parker Gallery will be announcing a series of new initiatives and special programming to honor this milestone.
I am often told that my professional background sets us apart in the art world, in valuable ways that can be elusive to most gallery owners. I was originally in the Manhattan finance world (as a former Wall Street executive at UBS Investment Bank, J.P. Morgan & Co., and D.E Shaw & Co.).
My unique background serving investors, corporate leaders, and financial clients brings a different approach to the art equation, and many of these people are now art collectors and clients of the Gallery. They love this attention to service. These relationships I successfully forged with high-value customers, through my years on Wall Street, are also valuable to our artists.
Our roster of artists tells me that this sets us apart from other galleries, because of these types of clients from the world of finance that I bring to the table ― people who trusted me for decades, steering financial portfolios for families and institutions. Transferring this success to the Gallery for the past decade has been one of the most rewarding and treasured experiences of my life.
One of the new initiatives we rolled out for our 10th-anniversary programming has been centered on the exhibition featuring Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier ― they are two of the world’s most celebrated nature photographers/conservationists of our generation. For their exhibition, the Gallery is honored to partner with the Town of Greenwich’s Conservation Commission, the Greenwich Shellfish Commission, and the Greenwich Point Conservancy: three prominent ecological leadership groups in the Tri-State area.
We also worked with the SoundWaters education initiative for this show, and are grateful for the support of Bank of America for the artists’ lecture event at the Bruce Museum. Together with this new alliance of community leaders, we are able to successfully extend the reach and visibility of these artists and their work, and their vital message through art to protect the planet. We will be announcing more initiatives with this strategic alliance of conservation commissions as the Gallery enters its second decade.
Can you describe your approach to curating exhibitions and selecting artists to feature in your gallery?
My passion has always been art. I love being a bridge for clients who know they want art in their living or corporate space but aren’t quite certain about how to go about doing it. We all relate to art in different ways, whether it is a specific artist, medium, or style. I listen carefully to what objectives clients have. I help provide knowledge and transparency to the art buying process.
I wanted to create an engaging and value-added business (similar to my successful career on Wall Street). People want to understand the art business more, but to many, it can seem to be a very opaque landscape that they don’t know how to navigate. My intention is to help clients learn more about the art world so that they can make more confident decisions, and to continue to establish our Gallery’s impeccable reputation for integrity. We also strive for our collectors, and our artists, to have some fun along the way!
My gallery came about because I’m a passionate art collector, a lifelong student, and someone who likes to create and share new knowledge. Many of our Gallery shows feature artists whose works I fell in love with, and I wanted to share their stories. I appreciate artists who are creating amazing work, and at the same time are giving back and making our world a better place.
Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier ‒ these world-famous artists/conservation champions have created some of the most iconic wildlife images of our modern-day culture. They are internationally acclaimed for harnessing the majestic beauty of their images to inspire change on our planet, via their 12 million followers worldwide. Their nature photographs are included in some of the world’s most important private collections and have been featured by major national media including National Geographic and TIME Magazine.
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