Eric Ian Hornak-Spoutz | |
---|---|
Spoutz lecturing at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in Hagerstown, Maryland in 2013 | |
Born | Eric Ian Spoutz August 3, 1983 Mount Clemens, Michigan, U.S. |
Education | Fort Hays State University,Rutgers University |
Occupation(s) | Art dealer; Historian |
Height | 5’ 11’’ |
Spouse(s) | Lynsie Leinenger (married 2024); Natasha Gavroski (divorced; married 2012-2018) |
Relatives | Rosemary Hornak (mother); Ian Hornak (uncle); Julius Rosenthal Wolf (uncle) |
Website | www.ericspoutz.com |
Eric Ian Hornak-Spoutz (born August 3, 1983) is an American art dealer, [1] [2] historian [3] and museum curator. [1] [2] Spoutz has owned art galleries in Detroit, Michigan, [1] [2] Cape Coral, Florida, [4] Palm Beach, Florida, and Los Angeles, California. [5]
Spoutz was born in Mount Clemens, Michigan on August 3, 1983, to Carl Spoutz, a real estate developer and Rosemary Hornak, an artist. [6] Eric Ian Hornak-Spoutz's maternal uncle and namesake [7] was the founding Hyperrealist and Photorealist artist, Ian Hornak. [1] [2] Ian Hornak's life partner was Julius Rosenthal Wolf, [8] [9] who was a prominent American casting director, producer, theatrical agent, [9] art collector, art dealer, and the vice president of General Amusement Corporation, then the second largest talent management agency in the world. [10] [11] During the 1950s and 1960s, Wolf had been the assistant director of Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery in New York City where he became a champion of American Modernism in the visual arts. Via the bloodline of his paternal grandmother, Hornak-Spoutz is the eleventh-generation descendent of Mayflower passenger, Francis Cooke (1583-1663). He is also the thirteenth-generation descendant of captain John Marchant (1540-1592), and the tenth-generation descendant of Massasoit Sachem (1580-1661). [10]
Spoutz's parents divorced in 1993 when he was 9 years old. He was raised by his mother, his father's parents and his uncle, Ian Hornak. During the school year he lived in Mount Clemens, Michigan and many summers, and holidays he spent with Ian Hornak at his home and studio in East Hampton, New York and in New York City. [2]
Through his early exposure to the art world in New York, Spoutz took an interest in art and became his uncle's studio manager in East Hampton at age 16. [2] Elmer Spoutz, Eric Spoutz's paternal grandfather who was a real estate developer and businessman, died when Eric Spoutz was 18 in 2002 and he became the trustee of his grandfather's estate. [2] Later in 2002 when Spoutz was 19, his uncle Ian Hornak died and Spoutz became the executor of his estate. [2]
Spoutz graduated from Cardinal Mooney Catholic College Preparatory School in 2001. [1] [2] He graduated with a Bachelor of General Studies degree with concentrations in General Business & Historical Studies from Fort Hays State University. [12] As of 2022, he is a graduate student at Rutgers University where he is pursuing a Master of Arts degree in Creative Arts and Literature. [13]
In 2003, Spoutz opened the Eric I. Spoutz Gallery in the Fisher Building in Detroit, Michigan which specialized in photorealist and hyperrealist artwork. [1] [2] He curated, "Lowell Nesbitt: A Retrospective" there in 2004, which was the largest display of the artist's artwork since the artist's death in 1993. [14] Later Spoutz moved to Palm Beach, Florida where he lived in a beachfront penthouse until moving back to Michigan in 2008.
Between 2007 and 2017, Spoutz placed artwork by many artists into the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art, the Smithsonian Libraries, the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, the Library of Congress Rare Books and Special Collections Division, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the National Hellenic Museum, the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, the Florida State Capitol, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Los Angeles County Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Dartmouth College's Rauner Special Collections Library, the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, The George Washington University Art Galleries, The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, the Forest Lawn Museum, the Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages, the Flint Institute of Arts, the Boston Children's Hospital, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the Detroit Historical Museum and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. [15] [1] [2] Spoutz also curated traveling museum exhibitions throughout the United States including an exhibition at Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington D.C. that was on display during Barack Obama's 2013 Presidential Inauguration sponsored by Ben Bernanke, [1] [2] [3] the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, [16] the Kinsey Institute, [17] and the Anton Art Center. [18]
During the City of Detroit bankruptcy, Spoutz was quoted as an art expert in The Detroit News, valuing the Detroit Institute of Arts collection [19] and public art in the City of Detroit including Marshall Fredericks sculpture, Spirit of Detroit, and the Robert Graham (sculptor) sculpture, Monument to Joe Louis. [20]
Spoutz opened Gallery 928 at The Westin Cape Coral Resort at Marina Village in Cape Coral, Florida where he exhibited the artwork of contemporary artists and masterworks by Andy Warhol, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso and others, at one time reportedly having 20 million dollars with of artwork on display. [4] [21] The gallery closed in 2014 and Spoutz moved to Los Angeles, California where he opened an online dealership for authentic masterworks. [6]
He also volunteered as a curator for The Heidelberg Project in Detroit, Michigan, The Connecticut Cancer Foundation in Old Saybrook, Connecticut and the estate of Jack Mitchell (photographer). [2]
Hornak-Spoutz married Natasha Gavroski in Beverly Hills, California in 2012; they divorced in April 2018. [22] [23] [1] [2] In April 2023 he became engaged to Birmingham, Michigan, decorative arts dealer, Lynsie Leinenger in a suite of the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel. Hornak-Spoutz and Leinenger were married at a group wedding ceremony titled, “Totality of the heart,” in Trenton, Ohio during the Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024. [24] [25]
On February 3, 2016, Eric Spoutz was arrested at his penthouse in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California based upon a 26-page criminal complaint [26] issued by the office of United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara. [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] On June 3, 2016, Spoutz pled guilty in the case of US v. Spoutz to one count of wire fraud related to the sale of falsely attributed artwork accompanied by forged provenance documents. [15] The government charged Spoutz with marketing and selling the fraudulent artwork through online auction sites and auction houses. The criminal case did not relate to Spoutz's legitimate art galleries that he owned, the artwork that he put into museum collections or the artwork by his uncle, Ian Hornak. [5] Dozens of character letters from Spoutz's friends, family, colleagues and clients written on his behalf begging for leniency were presented to the court including letters from former New York Yankees, Texas Rangers and Cleveland Indians baseball player, John Ellis, American lyrical abstraction co-founder Ronnie Landfield, New York artist Scott Kahn, and the executive director of The Heidelberg Project. [23] On February 16, 2017, Spoutz was sentenced by the Honorable Lewis A. Kaplan in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to 41 months in federal prison at Federal Correctional Institution, Morgantown and ordered to forfeit the $1.45 million he made from the scheme and pay $154,100 in restitution. [15] [33] [34] [35] [36]
Mount Clemens is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 15,697 at the 2020 census. It is the seat of government of Macomb County.
Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be used broadly to describe artworks in many different media, it is also used to refer specifically to a group of paintings and painters of the American art movement that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is a museum institution located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. It has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers 658,000 square feet (61,100 m2) with a major renovation and expansion project completed in 2007 that added 58,000 square feet (5,400 m2). The DIA collection is regarded as among the top six museums in the United States with an encyclopedic collection which spans the globe from ancient Egyptian and European works to contemporary art. Its art collection is valued in billions of dollars, up to $8.1 billion USD according to a 2014 appraisal. The DIA campus is located in Detroit's Cultural Center Historic District, about 2 miles (3.2 km) north of the downtown area, across from the Detroit Public Library near Wayne State University.
Art forgery is the creation and sale of works of art which are falsely credited to other, usually more famous artists. Art forgery can be extremely lucrative, but modern dating and analysis techniques have made the identification of forged artwork much simpler.
Ely Sakhai is an American art dealer and civil engineer who owned Manhattan art galleries The Art Collection and Exclusive Art. He was later charged and convicted for selling forged art and was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for fraud. After his release he continued to operate The Art Collection in Great Neck, New York.
Adolph Alexander Weinman was a German-born American sculptor and architectural sculptor.
Ian Hornak was an American draughtsman, painter and printmaker. He was one of the founding artists of the Hyperrealist and Photorealist fine art movements; credited with having been the first Photorealist artist to incorporate the effect of multiple exposure photography into his landscape paintings; and the first contemporary artist to entirely expand the imagery of his primary paintings onto the frames.
The Spirit of Detroit is a monument with a large bronze statue created by Marshall Fredericks and located at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center on Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan.
Marshall Maynard Fredericks was an American sculptor known for such works as Fountain of Eternal Life, The Spirit of Detroit, Man and the Expanding Universe Fountain, and many others.
Betty Parsons was an American artist, art dealer, and collector known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She is regarded as one of the most influential and dynamic figures of the American avant-garde.
Lowell Blair Nesbitt was an American painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor. He served as the official artist for the NASA Apollo 9, and Apollo 13 space missions; in 1976 the United States Navy commissioned him to paint a mural in the administration building on Treasure Island spanning 26 feet x 251 feet, then the largest mural in the United States; and in 1980 the United States Postal Service honored Lowell Nesbitt by issuing four postage stamps depicting his paintings.
Carol S. Wald was an American artist who was also widely known for her talents as an illustrator. Her collages and paintings appeared in Time, Fortune, and Ms, and on the covers of Business Week, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, and Saturday Review.
The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
Merton Daniel Simpson was an American abstract expressionist painter and African and tribal art collector and dealer.
Eric Smith is a former Macomb County Prosecutor and convicted criminal. He resigned on March 30, 2020, after criminal charges were filed against him.
Julius Rosenthal Wolf (1929–1976) was an American casting director, producer, theatrical agent, art collector, art dealer, and the vice president of General Amusement Corporation, then the second largest talent management agency in the world.
John Parker Glick was an American ceramicist. Though open to artistic experimentation, Glick was most influenced by the styles and aesthetics of Asian pottery—an inspiration that shows in his use of decorative patterns and glaze choices. His experience working with ceramics led him to publish several articles about the craft. In addition to producing pottery, Glick began making "landscape oriented" wall panels during the latter part of his career. Known as "the people's potter," he is primarily remembered for his contributions to art and the field of ceramics.
David Courlander was a self-taught ("primitive") artist who painted scenes of everyday American life. He began painting when he was 85 years old. Many of his paintings now reside in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's permanent collection and have been put on public display as part of various Smithsonian art exhibitions.
Rosemary Hornak is an American visual artist, known for her late twentieth-century contributions to American Folk Art; art collector; philanthropist; the sister of founding Photorealist and Hyperrealist artist, Ian Hornak; and the mother of art dealer and historian, Eric Ian Spoutz