Joining Themes

The art collection of Lucia and Brad Ginesin is woven together with classic furniture and realistic art.

by John O'hern Photography by Francis Smith

Lucia and Brad Ginesin discovered an 1830 farmhouse in the Hudson Valley of New York and turned it into a home, a place to display antique furnishings as well as a growing collection of contemporary representational art. Most importantly, it is their home, shared with their two children, Zack and Petra.On the left is Hamilton, Racked and Taped, 2014, oil on panel, by Dan Brown. Flanking the window are two paintings by Brad Kunkle: the commission Petra’s World, 2017, oil and silver leaf on panel, and Maybe It’s All Just a Myth, 2019, oil, gold and silver leaf on panel. The two wing chairs are 18th-century English George III.

Lucia relates the journey: “Growing up in Bucharest, Romania, I shared with my mother an appreciation for art and antiques. She had a Ph.D. in Engineering and was a university professor, but her true love was oil painting and designing clothes. After I graduated from the University of Bucharest with a math degree, I came to the U.S. and initially lived in Philadelphia where the magnificent Museum of Art provided unending art indulgence and learning.

“In 1990, my parents shipped from Romania a couple of tapestries by Ileana Balotā, who was a professor at the Bucharest National University of Arts (and a good friend of my mother’s); a couple of oil paintings by Neculai Iorga, who also taught at the same university; and an Old Dutch painting that my great-grandfather, a professor of Old Greek, had owned,” she continues. “These five pieces formed the basis of my collection.”At the top is Double Portrait No 1, 2017, oil on linen by Louise Fenne. Resting on the cupboard is Menippus—Laughing Philosopher, 2018, oil on linen, by Robert Liberace, and on the right is Paula Rubino’s Sapling, 2019, oil on linen

Lucia and her husband met while working for the same financial firm in New York City. “Once married, we started augmenting my little collection,” she says. “The first piece we purchased together is a drawing by René Boucher, the Vogue and TIME magazine illustrator. Boucher had emigrated from Berlin to Paris in the 1930s and then left France for the U.S. during the Vichy government. In 1940, while awaiting passage to the States he stayed in Cassis-sur-Mer in the south of France. There, on the Mediterranean beach, he drew a young woman who was a resident of the same room-and-board. The drawing now shares a space with a small sculpture by my beloved mother-in-law, Sheila Ginesin, of her little boy building sandcastles on another beach, in a different, happier time. For the past 20 years, my husband and I have made a good team acquiring art, with a similar soft spot for realism and figurative paintings. In the process we’ve met and sometime became friends with a few incredible people who also happen to be brilliant artists: Simon Dinnerstein, Brad Kunkle and Dan Brown.”In the dining room is Simon Dinnerstein’s 1978 oil on panel, Joel’s Pants, the pants supplied by his friend, artist Joel Rudnick. Above the TV cabinet designed and built by David T. Smith are: Dan Brown’s oil on panel The Seashore is Lovely Down Here, 2014; Serge Marshennikov’s Transfiguration, 2017, oil on panel; Still Life with Local Objects, 2018, oil on linen panel, by Paula Rubino; and Brown’s Franklin & Washington, Cancelled and Racked, 2018, oil on panel. The high boy is American Queen Anne, possibly New Hampshire, early 1700s, tiger maple

Above the game board is Felicia in Black, 2016, oil on panel, by Vincent Giarrano. Under the stairs are, from top, Presentation, 2018, oil on panel, by Margo Selski; Hardware Paints, 2015, oil on canvas, by Giarrano; and Beauty, 2014, oil on canvas, by Malcolm T. Liepke. In the stairwell is Milan, 2017, pencil and gouache on paper, by Gregory Mortenson. The chandelier is a reproduction by Period Lighting, Clarksburg, Massachusetts. The leaded and bullseye glass in the door is by La Ranger Studio, Lake Carmel, New York

On the left in the dining room is Simon Dinnerstein’s 1978 oil on panel Joel’s Pants. To the left of the window is Meredith Back Then, 2012, oil on panel, by Paula Rubino. On the right is Lily, 2017, oil on linen panel, by Mary Sauer. The dining table is an antique cherry top farm table. The Windsor chairs are circa 1800. The chandelier is a reproduction by Period Lighting, Clarksburg, Massachusetts.

She says, “Our last few art purchases have been from Steve Diamant’s superb gallery, Arcadia Contemporary, including the exquisite Monarch by Julio Reyes. One of these days, I hope to make it to L.A. and meet Steve in person!

“After living in Manhattan for years, we serendipitously came across a 200-year-old antique farmhouse in the exurbs of NYC. It’s been a lovely place to raise our children and grow our contemporary art collection.

“Every day we are delighted and thankful to live with beautiful art; to quote the great Picasso, ‘Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.’”In the far room is Simon Dinnerstein’s conté crayon Sonatina, 1981, a portrait of his daughter, concert pianist Simone. Two pastel and 12k gold leaf on panel paintings by Anne McGrory are on the right, Irish Pony, 2017, and Baa, 2017. The ceramic Giraffe, 1994, is by Les Mains D’Argile - Chinon, France.

The Ginesin children have literally become part of the family art tradition. Lucia and Zack collaborated on the book Prince Jack, the Little Artist, featuring then-5-year-old Zack’s drawings and his mother’s text.

Petra is the subject of a commissioned allegorical portrait by Kunkle, Petra’s World. Her mother describes the composition, “She holds a branch that was part of the tree behind her (the tree represents her family). The branch is now broken off, as she is her own person. The three birds flying around her represent her mom, dad and brother.” On a candle stand beneath her portrait is a bowtruckle she made. J.K. Rowling describes the bowtruckle in her book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, “The Bowtruckle, which eats insects, is a peaceable and intensely shy creature but if the tree in which it lives is threatened, it has been known to leap down upon the woodcutter or tree-surgeon attempting to harm its home and gouge at their eyes with its long, sharp fingers. An offering of woodlice will placate the Bowtruckle long enough to let a witch or wizard remove wand-wood from its tree.”The Ginesin home is located in the Hudson River Valley.

Occasionally, the subject matter of works in the couple’s collection will have additional cultural references. The model in Vincent Giarrano’s St. Mark’s Place poses in front of the elaborate decoration on the buildings on St. Mark’s Place that were featured on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album, Physical Graffiti.

At other times, the art becomes part of the house. Lucia explains the mural commissioned from Susan J. Dyer. “She specializes in Early American, Rufus Porter style murals,” Lucia says. “Two hundred years ago, our property was a sheep farm. Back then, itinerant artists would travel from town to town and, for room and board, would paint murals for less well-to-do homeowners who couldn’t afford wall paper.”To the left of the window is 14th Street, 2016, oil on canvas, by Vincent Giarrano. His St. Mark’s Place, 2016, oil on canvas, is above the settee. Jeremy Lipking’s charcoal on paper, Windswept, 2016, is next to the yarn winder. The custom Mariner’s Compass floorcloth, 2016, is by Lisa Curry Mair, Canvasworks Designs, Perkinsville, Vermont.

Ileana Bolotā’s tapestry, woven of many materials, and associated with Lucia’s mother, weaves together the whole collection. Lucia relates, “Her lifelong artistic principle was ‘To unite the archaic with the modern, with lucidity, daring and passion into a perfect organic composition.’”

That is an apt description of the Ginesin home and collection. —

John O’Hern, who has retired after 30 years in the museum business, specifically as the Executive Director and Curator of the Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, N.Y., is the originator of the internationally acclaimed Re-presenting Representation exhibitions which promote realism in its many guises. John was chair of the Artists Panel of the New York State Council on the Arts. He writes for gallery publications around the world, including regular monthly features on Art Market Insights and on Sculpture in Western Art Collector magazine.