Our top 12
out of
50 artists
Louis Leonard Gallery
The man behind Marlo Furniture has a new venture: Wanna buy some art? By John Kelly, Columnis, Metro Section, Washington Post, June 19, 2017
Lou Glickfield, who founded Marlo Furniture with wife Marilyn, seeks similar success in art sales. Here he’s at his office/gallery in Rockville, Md. (John Kelly/The Washington Post)
L
ou Glickfield, the Furniture King of Washington, doesn’t need the money. “This is a passion,” Lou says of his latest venture. He says he has already sunk over a million dollars into an online art gallery that sells the work of more than 45 contemporary artists. But who’s counting? “I told you, I’m not in it for the money,” Lou says of VanGohArt.com. (VanGoghArt.com was taken.) You know Lou because in 1963 he took the first three letters from his wife Marilyn’s name and the first two letters from his name and combined them to name their new business venture: Marlo Furniture. Their ads were everywhere: in The Washington Post and on TV. In one spot, local actor Terrence Currier danced through a cavernous Marlo warehouse while singing a jingle set to the tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy”: Everybody goes to Marlo, ’cause they know the prices are low. “We used to have 170 salesmen,” says Lou, 85. He started shining shoes at age 7 in his native New York. As a teenager, he worked as a bellboy and ran a little operation out of a hotel closet selling toiletries — tissues, toothpaste, razor blades — to guests. “When my dad was making $18 a week, I was making $250,” Lou says. “I felt so proud to be able to give it to my mother, who needed it.” When Lou was in the Army, stationed at Aberdeen Proving Ground, he would run down to a toy wholesaler in Baltimore and buy dolls — pull a
string and she would say a prayer — to sell to his fellow GIs. “I learned everything by doing,” Lou says. By the time Lou got out of the Army, he had saved $5,000. He went to Harry Cohen, who ran the Thieves Market antiques store on Route 1 in Virginia. “I’ll give you the $5,000,” Lou told him. “Just teach me.” The two were partners for a while. When the Wardman Park Hotel was getting rid of its furniture, Lou bought it and stuck it in a disused grocery store on 17th Street NW. He called that store Ali Baba’s. A few years later, he opened Marlo Furniture. “My biggest advantage was I would go and buy these surplus inventories from the factories at huge discounts,” Lou says. He would pass those discounts on to his customers. Marlo occupied the middle of the market. “We were selling to the average person,” Lou says. Marlo is still around, although Lou doesn’t own it anymore. In 2012, he sold the business and the name. But he kept the buildings, including the colossal white flagship in Rockville. And that’s where I meet him on a recent afternoon, in his top-floor office, where an ocular window overlooks Rockville Pike. “This lady who used to be the mayor of Rockville, she said we built the ugliest building in Rockville,” Lou recalls. I ask Lou if that hurt his feelings. “A little bit,” he says. “Not much.” Still, it made him curious.
“I wanted to find out if it is ugly,” he says. “I asked other people, and I found out that was just her opinion.” One of the people Lou asked was his daughter. “She said, ‘Dad, this is like the big pyramids built thousands of years ago. It is what it is.’ ” Today, what once housed the Marlo corporate offices holds Lou’s art. There’s room after room: landscapes, seascapes, portraits, abstracts, animals, flowers. Photos, too. It ranges from representational to gently surrealist, all of it colorful and happyish. You might not see these artworks in the Hirshhorn or the National Gallery, but Lou thinks there’s a market. Back when he ran Marlo, he was in charge of buying the art. “We sold 400, 500 pieces a month,” he says. Lou will help you buy the originals, but what he’s really selling are what he calls “embellished” prints. These are giclees, inkjet printed onto canvas that the artist then reworks with paint so no two versions are alike. Prints are available in 17 sizes, averaging from around $300 to $800. “I have artists today who are working very hard,” Lou says. “They’re wonderful people. They’re very bright, and they work so hard, showing at art shows all over America. They really don’t make much money, by the time they set up and drag their stuff. And if it rains, they lose money.” So: VanGohArt.com. For now, anyway. A lot of people find the name confusing so Lou will probably transition to LouisLeonardGallery.com (his first and middle names). We walk around the gallery, me and Lou, accompanied by his assistant of two months, a Corcoran art school graduate named Jhoane Garcia.
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Art Displayed: by Fox
Michelle’s Hinz’s painted works are a byproduct of her discriminating research of art movements and trends which reflect patterns of living and the artistic mood of a global community. She synthesizes her research and translates it into visual expressions using progressive and innovative painting techniques. As technological advances persist and its influence changes our world, so too Michelle’s art expands, moves and evolves. Michelle often portrays an emphasis on simplicity, and creates open-interpretive art compositions, clothed in luxury, casting a mood of comfort to busy minds and schedules.
Majestic Vista I
Industrious
Majestic Vista II
Evening Breeze
Meditation
Pondering I
6
Norwegian Night
Majestic Vista II
La rive gauche
After the Ball
Kabuki
Grass Paper
7
Art Displayed: Zinnia Zannia by Laoria
Paul is an abstract artist who also has the unique ability to paint and draw in the classical style. His paintings are in some of the most beautiful homes and private collections in the world. “I dream in vivid color. Sometimes the red is so bright that I can’t believe it exists inside my head. I paint in layers of color. Each layer that I paint exposes a new dimension. The shapes that are formed dictate my direction. I don’t know what the painting will mean until the final layer has been put down. All of my abstracts contain an element of surprise. Serendipity is part of the plan.”
Art Displayed: Victorian Afternoon by Fox
Franz Fox was born on the island of Cuba, the son of a prominent Havana lawyer, under the Batista Regime. After the Castro government came into power, several uprisings resulted in his father and family members being jailed for defiance of the communist government. Soon thereafter, Fox’s family migrated to the US, just before the Cuban missile crisis. During his travels to England, France, Italy, Spain, and Holland, Franz perfected his art through his studies of landscape and architecture. He studied painting in Paris, France and Malaga, Spain. His formal education in architecture giving him a unique mastery of perspective and spatiality.
Adorabella
Lenore
The Muse
After the Ball
Cobalt Venus
Peace
10
Flower Duet
Wedding Bells
Memories of a Lady
Speed of Light 11
Love Bouquet
Thinking of Van Gogh
Art Displayed: Zinnia Zannia by Yap
Born in the Republic of Panama to Chinese parents, Mai Yap has been able to magically blend East and West on canvas. Within the walls of her parent’s home, she was immersed in the beauty, balance and perfection of millennial traditions passed on from one generation to another. Once outside these walls, her senses were overcome by the amazing colors, sounds and energy of the Tropics. Panama provided a bustling backdrop of exciting people, places, and music. Most importantly, its natural surroundings provided the perfect artistic inspiration.
Art Displayed: Many Moons Ago by Murf
For over thirty years, Marvin (Murf) Murphy has used his keen sense of color, design and form, to create dynamic images which evoke inspiration and appeal to the senses. Murf’’s multi-dimensional, mixed media pieces have gained him recognition and popularity on an international level. In 1990, Murf copyrighted and published his first lithographs. This Art Deco Jazz Series was first introduced at the 1991 New York Art Expo. Since that time, Murf has published many more popular designs. Many of these images are well known through the use of art festival posters as well as album and magazine covers.
Art Deco Sun
Moon Dance
Safari I
6
Speed of Light
Tribal Path I
14
Time
After Picasso Storm Cone
Lost Melody
15
Star Dust
Lost Words
Art Displayed: Scream by Vinmark
In 1998 Vimark graduated from the faculty of computer design of the Belarusian state University of Informatics and Radioelectronics. He worked as a designer in advertising agencies of Minsk, engaged in the development of corporate style and design web sites. Since 2006 he also worked as a freelancer and worked on creating his own art. In 2012, he received a special Jury prize in the 6th International Digital Cartoon Competition (SICAF’12, Seoul, Korea). He worked with publishing houses like HarperCollins Children Books (USA) and McGraw-Hill Ryerson (Canada) on creating art for book covers and illustrations.
Art Displayed: Domburg Seaside by Flipper
Jack the Flipper is a project of two artists and photographers that arose through Markus Brungsfriendship and the certainty to achieve their goals together. The project is all about pursuing dreams and passion for art and photography by the team of two artists Markus Brungs and Sascha Hojzakowa. “Together we pursue an artistic goal. It is the unbridled, creative urge to live and share a vision. In life everyone at times faces decisions of such great significance that they have lasting effects on one’s future decisions guided by an inner voice, a gut feeling, and knowledge, namely knowledge that the uniqueness of the moment can indeed be captured, lived in, breathed in, and felt.”
Domburg Seaside I South Iceland
Zeeland bridge III Rügen Island II
Zeeland bridge II
De Val
Beachy Head Lighthouse
18
Michelangelo
Leonardo da Vinci
Smarts
19
Vincent van Gogh I
Marilyn Monroe II
Art Displayed: Salvador Dali I by Li
Artist Chengju Li is the founder of the new contemporary style he termed as “Territory Painting”. With his style he creates profile sketches of various personas combined with texture, collage, and color composition to represent one person’s whole life or the history of a nation in one painting. Born in China and educated at the famous Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, Chengju Li moved to the USA in 2010 and opened his art gallery in New York. He held a solo art exhibition at the Sino-China Museum in San Francisco in 2010. In 2014, he exhibited his territory paintings at the United Nations Headquarters, New York. In the same year he was honored with the International Prize, Marco Polo - Ambassador of Art in Venice, Italy.
Art Displayed: The Dutch Masters by Falbo
Anthony R. Falbo is an artist dedicated to pushing the envelope of free expression. He has a very unusual and unique artistic style and is recognized as a trailblazer in modern Christian art. His work continues to receive tremendous praise throughout the art community and can be seen in many of the most esteemed private collections across the globe. Born May 17, 1953 in Flint Michigan. A favorite aunt gave him a paint-by-numbers kit, which opened a whole new world for him (the artist will tell you that it was the smell of the paint that got to him). Although he received little formal training, his fascination with master painters was fueled by visits to the Detroit Institute of Arts. The works of Rembrandt and Michelangelo in particular became major influences and led to the development of the basic fundamentals of his craft.
• DENTAL ART • CHRISTIAN ART • LOVE AND ROMANCE • JUDGES LAWYERS AND PRESIDENTS • MUSIC ART • FOOD ART • BUILDINGS SEASCAPES AND BOATS • CIGAR ART
Class Act
The Moon Pizza
Survivor
One Praying Woman
Marseille France
Behold the Lamb of God
Buck Tooth
Endless Love
22
Snowy Owl
Guardian Orca Best Buds
23
Red Sea Gathering
Turtle Paradise
Art Displayed: Butterflies of the Sea (Top) & Dolphin Idols (Bottom) by Lee
Jeremy Lee Koehn was born and raised in Hawaii on the island of O’ahu. He first expressed himself artistically at age six when he started drawing everyday on his school desk. At age eleven his fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Miles showed a video in class about Robert Wyland and his Whaling Walls. Jeremy was fascinated by the great sea creatures Wyland painted and decided that he wanted to pursue sea life art as a hobby. For his 11th birthday, his parents bought him his first acrylic paint set. With it he produced his very first painting titled Baby Breath on a piece of 3x5 inch drawing paper. At age twelve his Mom bought a book of various sea life masterpieces. “It is a constant process of learning and applying techniques to achieve a desired visual,” says Jeremy, “a delicate balance of color, light, shadow, depth, and space within a limited amount of area.”
Art Displayed: Mixed Band by Jim Roberts
Gyotaku (gyo meaning “fish” and taku meaning “rubbing” or “impression”) was discovered over a century ago by fishers in Japan. Fishers were able to accurately depict the size of their prized catch before serving it as part of a delicious dinner. Gyotaku is a simple art created by pressing rice paper onto a fish. Jim uses water based printing ink, pastels, and hanji papers imported from Thailand in order to preserve the ocean’s beauty for many years to come. Jim uses his experience as an avid angler when creating his artwork. The love and passion for the ocean is reflected in the life-like appearance of his images. Jim enjoys preparing meals from all his catches and is able to relive the excitement of the lucky outing through his own personal collection of Gyotaku.
Thinking of Van Gogh
Thinking of Van Gogh Thinking of Van Gogh
Thinking of Van Gogh
Thinking of Van Gogh
26
Pathway to Peace Perfect Peace
Caribbean Fishing Village
Painted Dock
23
I’m Moving
Art Displayed: Umbrella(Left) & Dunes (Right) by Richmond
I spent much of my life in the Florida Keys and the idea of color and the concept a happy island life has transferred to my images, even those images not representative of the Islands. I use any tools available to convey my vision including of course a camera, imagination, paints and computer. I then print my own pictures with archival inks to a canvas substrate, stretch and spray several coats of a UV protection.