I had artistic polymath Joel Oppenheimer on the podcast today who has recently retired from being an art dealer. He was the former president of Oppenheimer Gallery in Chicago, IL with his son David officially taking over last year.

It's a wonderful gallery. There are many different components to Oppenheimer Gallery. One of them is art conservation, which is how I've gotten to know Joel over the years. Hands down the best paper conservator I've ever had the pleasure of working with.

They also have a renowned art printing component. They make and sell prints of the works of ornithological artist J.J. Audubon. In fact, much like how I am known for my expertise on the artist Maynard Dixon, Joel is most likely the world's leading expert on Audubon and his prints. He's done a couple of different books on Audubon that showcase his knowledge as well as his commitment to achieving the highest quality reproductions possible.

Anyhow, it was a long podcast, we talked for almost two hours, but it was very, very interesting. His life is definitely unique and he's a very wise individual.

He's also an artist. Joel basically started as fine artist and navigated through the art world from expertise to expertise, and now with retirement, he's going back to his original love, painting and pastels.

So this was very unique story of a very successful art dealer and I had a great time. This is Joel Oppenheimer part two.

I had artistic polymath Joel Oppenheimer on the podcast today who has recently retired from being an art dealer. He was the former president of Oppenheimer Gallery in Chicago, IL with his son David officially taking over last year.

It's a wonderful gallery. There are many different components to Oppenheimer Gallery. One of them is art conservation, which is how I've gotten to know Joel over the years. Hands down the best paper conservator I've ever had the pleasure of working with.

They also have a renowned art printing component. They make and sell prints of the works of ornithological artist J.J. Audubon. In fact, much like how I am known for my expertise on the artist Maynard Dixon, Joel is most likely the world's leading expert on Audubon and his prints. He's done a couple of different books on Audubon that showcase his knowledge as well as his commitment to achieving the highest quality reproductions possible.

Anyhow, it was a long podcast, we talked for almost two hours, but it was very, very interesting. His life is definitely unique and he's a very wise individual.

He's also an artist. Joel basically started as fine artist and navigated through the art world from expertise to expertise, and now with retirement, he's going back to his original love, painting and pastels.

So this was very unique story of a very successful art dealer and I had a great time. This is Joel Oppenheimer part one.

So Billy Schenck and I have been working on a two year project. It's a retrospective, a 55-year retrospective, and we did a catalog. This podcast was filmed a year ago at Billy's studio where we talked about this project at length.

Now, you get to actually see what we've been working on. To put all this effort in and to get to see them all together is exceptionally gratifying. I'm sure it's gratifying for Bill because this is a big deal, but it's a big deal for me too.

On top of all of his important works that make up the museum show, Billy has has been putting away new works for two years for this show. Large format photographic prints that have never been shown before, as well as some of his caption pieces and a beautiful group of his landscapes.

It was quite interesting to try to set this up because we're looking at his life's work (his serigraphs and foundational paintings) in combination with the result of a life of working on art (his newest body of work). The museum show has a good portion of his serigraphs paired with his early paintings. Trying to figure out that balance from a curatorial standpoint was an interesting experience.

If you're listening to the podcast, go to YouTube, go check out the show, not only the gallery show, but the museum show. We have included a preview of the show in this version of episode 377 of the Art Dealer Diaries Podcast.

So this podcast that you're listening to is the culmination of all the work that we did over the last two years to get to this point. It was an exercise in storytelling, telling the Billy Schenck story, and I think we've done a beautiful job of it.