CONCEPT ART GALLERY DECEMBER 6Concept Art Gallery has an upcoming online and in-building auction of fine art, design, and art glass on Saturday, December 6th starting at 10 AM Eastern Standard Time. If you are an out-of-town buyer, we’ll be happy to help you in the pick-up, packing, shipping, and insuring of your purchase. We are an authorized Concept Art Gallery shipping partner and offer special pricing to their clients.

 

Vanessa GermanWe have been pleased to help rising local artist, Vanessa German with the crating and shipping of her pieces to museums, galleries, and collectors across the country. Ms German was recently covered in a Huffington Post article where she talks about her “power doll” pieces and her community work with children. She has been chosen as a feature artist in the Crystal Bridges Museum’s State Of The Art exhibit and her works are also displayed at the Pavel Zoubok Gallery in NYC. Many of Ms German’s pieces are created from recycled artifacts found in her neighborhood. Her mixed media assemblages present special challenges in successfully packing, crating, and shipping, but we have risen to the challenge.

 

One of the greatest pleasures in the our business is helping folks with transporting important family treasures. Here’s a review sent to us by a gentleman from Honolulu who we helped get an oversized  heirloom painting from Pittsburgh to Hawaii

Aloha Mike,

You read my mind, I was going to email you this morning when I woke up.

The painting did arrive in perfect condition. I normally don’t have issues with long distance shipping, however this one was a major concern since it was a family heirloom being passed on to me.

When I began researching online, your company was the first that I saw…and when I compared your services with others, there was no comparison. From my first correspondence and all the way through the process and right up to delivery, your customer care was exemplary. My family even reported to me how impressed they were with the two young men were who picked up the painting…dressed well and held a pleasant conversation with them. You made me feel completely comfortable with the fact that this painting, which reflected my childhood and family history, was in very capable and safe hands.

Mike, thank you so much for doing what you do so well. You customer service is perfection! Should additional shipping be in my future, from my childhood home in Moon Township, you will be the only person that I will call. Please thank your staff for all their help.

Aloha,

Frank L.,Honolulu, HI

The days of Big Steel are long gone in Western Pennsylvania. But the era of mills lighting up the night skies with fire and smoke lives on in the work of Aaron Gorson, who specialized in painting nocturnal landscapes of the region’s industrial past. One of Gorson’s finest, “Steelmaking at Night on the Mon,” is among the highlights at Concept Art Gallery’s fine art and antiques auction Nov. 1.

Painted in 1910, the oil-on-canvas is housed in a hand-carved, gilded Arts-and-Crafts-period frame. The painting was once owned by Arthur Riley, a noted collector of works by Western Pennsylvania artists.

Another painting with a regional background and a completely different point of view is an A.F. King daytime rural lakeside landscape. Best known for his nearly lifelike still lifes, King also journeyed into the local countryside to paint. Concept owner Sam Berkovitz calls this work the greatest A.F. King landscape he’s seen, citing the intricate detail in the tiny work. Sold by Pittsburgh’s famed Gillespie Gallery in the early 20th century, the 512-inch-by-9-inch work, titled “Lake Landscape With Sailboat,” rests in a gilded Victorian frame decorated with extensive scrolling.

Other paintings in the sale with local ties are Daniel Ridgeway Knight’s oil-on-canvas “The Washerwoman Along the Seine” and several pieces by Mary McKibbin. An ex-pat from Chambersburg, Franklin County, Knight worked mainly in France, and “The Washerwoman” was originally sold by the Gillespie Gallery. McKibbin, whose oil-on-board scenes depict Pittsburgh neighborhoods, taught at Schenley High School, where Andy Warhol was one of her students.

In the antiques section of the sale, bidders can compete for an elegant Tiffany Arabian-style desk lamp or a Pairpoint “Puffy” boudoir lamp. The sale includes a sizeable amount of high-end jewelry, such as a 3.3-carat pear-cut brilliant diamond ring set in platinum. Also in the mix are Eskimo art, a “crazy quilt” crafted by public-school students in Idaho, early maps of Pittsburgh, silver flatware and serving pieces, accessories, mint coin sets and art glass.

Previews are at Concept Art Gallery from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, until 8 p.m. Thursdays or online The sale will start at 10 a.m. Nov 1. Previews and the sale will be at 1031 S. Braddock Ave., Regent Square. Details: 412-242-9200 or www.conceptgallery.com

IMG_0232The best part of the shipping business is the variety of folks, items, and destinations you deal with. Here’s a quick sample from the past week:

  • Export crated and shipped a 900 lbs mechanical grapple going to Western Australia. As shown in the picture below, this awesome piece looks like the business end of of a tyrannosaurus rex!
  • Shipped ten beautiful works of art by local artist Michael Lotenero to the Morrison Gallery in Kent, CT
  • Picked-up and shipped to domestic and many international destinations lots purchased by 20 plus clients of Concept Art Gallery from the auction held on 10/27. Many of the paintings were from the estate of Jane Haskell, a very renowned Pittsburgh artist who passed away a year ago. We were very proud to have assisted Ms Haskell’s daughters in packing-up many of the remarkable pieces created by their mother.  Concept’s next auction is on December 6th.
  • Provided “last mile” delivery services for a logistics company coordinating the roll-out of a merchandising program to a national retailer. Stores visited ranged as far as Erie, PA and Johnstown, PA.
  • Crated and provided next-day transport services for a local art collector for a painting going to a restoration firm in Eastern PA. We received the call from this collector’s office on Tuesday afternoon, picked-up the piece & crated it that day, and transported on our own truck to deliver the next day.

If variety is the spice of life, then this last week was a very savory time for us. Here’s a quick recap of the broad spectrum of projects we worked-on and completed in the past week:

– packed up and air freighted an 18 foot kayak to Singapore

-packed-up and transported to storage 90 pieces of artwork for the estate of a renown Pittsburgh artist

-manufactured and delivered 14 export crates to a local specialty steel manufacturer

-picked-up, packed, and shipped 5 “small moves” for a variety of clients

-packed-up and air freighted to Naples, Italy a 9′ x 6′ multi-media artwork for a local gallery

– picked-up, packed, and shipped a large order of rental religious items (statues, altar pieces, candle holders, tabernacle, and much more) from Church Connection going to a movie production in Bostom, MA plus sale items going to a monastery in Upstate New York

-received and delivered furniture items on behalf of two local interior designers

-worked on a containerizing and shipping project involving 55,000 lbs of fire-damaged recycling equipment going to Shanghai, China for reburbishing

-worked on the planning of a project involving the packing and shipping of the archive of a well-know local academic from Pittsburgh to a university in Germany

A busy week that reinforces our motto: We ship anything, anywhere! Hope your long-weekend is a restful as we plan our’s to be.

Baron BatchWe just completed a shipment of thirteen artwork pieces by very talented Pittsburgh-based artist Baron Batch. His works will be featured at the Lubbock Arts Festival  being held April 11-13. If you have a chance to attend, make sure you check-out his wonderful pieces.

LionsMany times we have art pieces that at the client’s request need to be packed and shipped with some urgency. Sometimes for looming gallery show openings and sometimes simply for excited out-of-town purchasers that needs to see their items as soon as possible. We are always happy to accommodate and can honestly say we have never missed a deadline. But sometimes, we feel the need to pack and ship quickly for our own psychological wellbeing. Case in point was a recent shipment we made on behalf of a Concept Art Gallery auction purchaser. The pieces in question were two brass lions with glass eyes that were both startling and frightening especially if you were to come upon them without warning in our packing area. More than one employee (including this writer) “jumped” when confronted by this fierce duo. Needless to say, packing and shipping the pair was made a priority and they are now happily haunting a residence in South Florida.

We just wanted to share a recent and funny review of our services by Susan from Langley, WA. We  helped Susan and her two sisters pack and ship furniture, antiques, and artwork from an estate in Pittsburgh to homes in Seattle, WA, St. Louis, MO, and Washington, DC. Read on to see how Susan likens our work to the magic of OZ. Tap those red shoes together or call us for similar service! Thank you, Susan, Peg, and Ann!Dorothy

If you are thinking of shipping something small, big, fragile, huge-locally, or across the USA, I highly recommend hiring Michael MacDonald at Pak Mail Pittsburgh Crate & Ship. No question was too big or too small or inconvenient. One must understand my family…we are remarkably demanding! We don’t hesitate to call, to question, to ask… even on a week-end or an evening..and…………..oh man, do we ask! We ask for an additional delivery, make excessive phone calls, needing clarification on this, and on that. Mike always, and I mean always, responded to our pleas immediately. I began to call him “Oz”- he was like the Wizard of Oz- for our family. He always had an answer, and always had a plan.

But this of course, is not the really important part. My shipment arrived across country in PERFECT condition. The glass photos, the furniture, the glass vases, the framed pictures, the awkward, gorgeous huge marble sculpture all arrived in perfect condition. Every inch was packed to perfection. The shipment was packed from start to finish like a well-executed movie. The packers came to our home, and quickly organized and packed the entire house. They were so personable, strong and kind! Then they took the shipment to the warehouse for additional careful packaging.
Mike advised me every inch of the way.

I recommend him and Pak Mail Pittsburgh Crate & Ship so highly. And now another important piece-for the service, the perfection, the delivery-Mike’s prices were even lower than his competitors!!

Susan C., Langley. WA

 

Cindy Lisica, a good customer of ours opened a new business “Revision Space Gallery & Boutique” on February 21st. The gallery is located at 5262 Butler Street, 15201 in the Lawrenceville area offers original artwork and home decor items. Check them out on Facebook.
Revision Space