Hamptons Artists Hall of Fame
Induction Ceremony: Saturday, July 13 at 11:30 AM in the COLLECTORS LOUNGE
The Hamptons region has long been recognized as a Mecca for the creation and patronage of fine art. Currently over 1,500 artists reside in the region. We recognize and salute a handful of well respected and much-accomplished East End based artists (both living and posthumously) who will be inducted into HFAF 2024 Hamptons Artists Hall of Fame. The purpose of the HOF is to highlight, as well as to invite, a rediscovery for those esteemed local artists who have not fully received the national fame and recognition they deserve.
Herman Cherry (1909-1992)
Connie Fox (1925-2023)
Connie Fox, whose art career spanned seven decades, received her BFA in 1947 from Un. of CO, and attended Art Center School, LA for a rigorous program of drawing, perspective, rendering, and composition. She received her MA at the Un. of NM, Albuquerque in 1952, where she then taught and met artists Elaine de Kooning (1918-1989) and Robert Dash (1931-2013) who later encouraged her to move to the East End of Long Island.
In the traditions of Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism, Connie Fox was an original, and as Amei Wallach wrote, “a super collider of painting…[who] accelerates particles of line, shape, dimension, improbable hue…into emanations of energy. The integrity and sheer exuberance of her life in art is exemplary and it is rare.”
Connie Fox and her husband, sculptor William King (fellow inductee into the HFAF 2024 Hall of Fame), made their home together and worked in the studios they built in East Hampton’s Northwest Woods through the last 40 years of Fox’s life.
Her most recent solo exhibitions were with Danese/Corey Gallery, NY and the Heckscher Museum. Fox’s works are included in the collections of major museums and galleries across the country, including the Parrish and Guild Hall; the American Academy of Arts and Letters; Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Brooklyn Museum; and the University of Florida, Gainesville.
William King (1925-2015)
William King was a pivotal figure in American sculpture. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1925, he grew up in Coconut Grove, Miami. He arrived in New York in 1945, enrolled in Cooper Union, and upon graduation in 1948, won a scholarship to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, in Maine. He traveled to Rome on a Fulbright scholarship, and later to Athens, and to London. His first solo show was at the Alan Gallery, in New York, 1954, and he continued to show his work, both at home and abroad, for the next 60 years. King’s art is in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Hirshhorn, the Whitney, the Met, among many others, and his public commissions are placed in 18 locations throughout the U.S. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he also served as president of the Academy of Design, 1994-98. He received Lifetime Achievement Awards from Guild Hall in 1997, and from the International Sculpture Center, 2007. He lived with his wife, Connie Fox (2024 Hall of Fame inductee), in the Northwest Woods for 33 years. Hilton Kramer wrote: “The sculpture of William King is a sculpture of comic gesture.” He appeared in 3 of the now famous Stable shows (1955-57).
Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas (1929-2023)
Known professionally, simply as Strong-Cuevas, she was a sculptor known for monumental creations of figurative sculptures of large heads, many of which were in profile, made in steel and bronze. Later in life, her highly abstract, cubist, and totemic works consisted of human faces rendered from multiple angles.
Growing up, she was said to be the favorite grandchild of John D. Rockefeller, the Gilded Age tycoon. She studied at the arts Student League, learning wood and stone carving under the tutelage of John Hovannes in the mid- 1960s. Besides bronze, some of her works has been cast in stainless steel and aluminum. Sculptures by Strong -Cuevas have been exhibited in one person shows in NYC and the Hamptons.
Her works have appeared in group exhibitions in leading galleries and museums, such as The Bruce Museum, Kouros Gallery, in Connecticut, The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton Arts Center, Shidoni Contemporary, Biennale III and IV in Monte Carlo, the Tolman Collection in Singapore, Grounds for Sculpture, Guild Hall, Long Island Museum, and Heckscher Museum of Art, where several of her works are in their permanent collection.
William Tarr (1925-2006)
William Tarr was a monumental sculptor, painter, best selling author, Guggenheim Fellow and longtime resident of Springs, East Hampton. While he began his creative career as a painter, by1958, sculpting in metal became his focus. Artistically, Tarr is best known for his massive 63 ton, 30 ft. x 30 ft. x 30 ft. welded-steel memorial to Martin Luther King which took him 3-1/2 years to build and install in front of the M. L. King High School, (66 St., & Amsterdam Ave., NYC), in 1973 which was selected as “Best monument in NYC” by New York Magazine in 1985.
Over the years Tarr undertook many challenging commissions including in 1967, a huge 40 ft. x 8 ft. x 8 ft., 13 ton welded-steel sculpture appropriately adorned with numbers & letters for Harlem Public School 36. In 1969, Tarr showed with O.K. Harris Gallery, and installed a full-scale 28 ft. wingspan, welded-steel WWI era, “Sopwith Camel” biplane atop the 27th floor roof of 77 Water St., NYC, complete with its own runway and lights.
In 1974, he received a prestigious GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIP for sculpture. In 1978 and 1981 he was awarded Best Sculpture and Best In Show, Guild Hall Artist Member Exhibition. In 1990, Tarr installed “Gates of The Six Million”, a 9 ft. tall x 8 ft. wide x 4 ft. deep, 5,400 lb. cast bronze memorial at the Holocaust Museum, Washington, D.C.
Amy Zerner
Amy Zerner is a multi-disciplinary artist and the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist’s Fellowship Grant in the Category of Painting. She attended Pratt Institute and has made her home in East Hampton, NY since 1967, where she lives with her husband, author Monte Farber. Amy has exhibited her mixed-media work extensively in the Hamptons, most recently at MM Fine Art in Southampton, NY. Her unique collage style combines various fabrics, unique textiles, and found objects to create visually stunning and spiritually meaningful works.
Amy has sold her one-of-a-kind art couture jackets, coats and caftans at Bergdorf Goodman for 24 years, along with her unique jewelry designs. Her tapestries and collages have been included in the collections of many prominent individuals including Oprah, Shirley MacLaine, Dame Elizabeth Taylor, Rhianna, Patti LaBelle, Martha Stewart and Michael J. Fox.
She has had many one-person shows at venues such as the Myers Gallery at the State University of New York in Plattsburg, University of North Texas ArtSpace, Eastern Kentucky University Giles Gallery, Las Vegas Cultural Center, First Woman’s Bank, Callenwolde Fine Arts Center, and The Islip Art Museum.
Her work has been shown in many group shows, including the Museum of American Craft, Lebanon Valley Collage Art Gallery, Downey Museum of Art, Pacific Lutheran University, Parrish Art Museum and Guild Hall Museum.
Her artwork illustrates the best-selling mind/body/spirit books and tools she has created with Monte, with nearly 3 million copies in print in 18 languages. A feature length documentary about the couple “Amy & Monte: A Legacy of Love and Creativity” has been produced and will be released Fall 2024.
