VILLA MAYBECK: Portrait in Red
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND, 2pm | BERKELEY Hills
Join us at the beautiful, historic home of L. John Harris for an intimate afternoon exploring the correspondences between literature, art and music. The salon will celebrate the launch of Harris’ new book Portrait in Red, accompanied by the unveiling of a new illustrative work by artist Max Thill, with musical performances by pianists Audrey Vardanega and Christos Vayenas, and Italian guitarist Peppino D'Agostino.
Admission includes wine, hors d'oeuvres, a signed copy of Portrait in Red, and a limited edition Villa Maybeck print.
Portrait in Red: A Paris Obsession
A quest to uncover the history of a mysterious painting, and a joyous exploration of art in the twentieth century and beyond.
While wandering the streets of Paris in 2015, L. John Harris finds an abandoned, unfinished, and strangely compelling painting. The subject: a girl wearing a bright-red head covering, fixing her viewer with a foreboding gaze. The painting bears no signature, only the date: January 12, 1935. Harris, a journalist and illustrator, embarks on a multi-year quest to uncover the story behind this painting.
With wit and a contagious enthusiasm, Harris traces unexpected connections between Paris on the eve of World War II, his bohemian life in the San Francisco Bay Area, the aura of original paintings, the magic of found objects, and the aesthetics of a perfect croque monsieur.
The Program
— Opening Reception —
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Literature
John Harris - Lady in Red
Art
Max Thill - Creating the Villa Maybeck Poster
Music
Audrey Vardanega – Piano Nocturnes
Peppino D'Agostino – Selected Works for Guitar
Christos Vayenas- Improvisations for Piano
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— Desserts, Book & Print Signing —
The ARTISTS
Max Thill
Max Thill is an artist, papermaker, and art conservator from Berkeley, California. He is a self-taught artist and a graduate of the University of Chicago, with a degree in philosophy.
His work in oil paint and drawing seeks to recover the in-person, fleshy actuality of the world on handmade, Renaissance-style paper. His work combines control and mastery with the uncontrollable beauty of traditional materials. Unlike the perfect smoothness of a modern paper, the textured surface of handmade paper (a permanent feature from its birth between coarse woolen felts) can never disappear for the artist. Turning away from the ersatz perfection of the machinic, Max’s work seeks to draw out those features that are essential and irreducible in his materials and subjects.
Peppino D'Agostino
A native of Italy, D’Agostino has made his considerable international mark as a musical artist on the guitar since he arrived in America 35 years ago. In 2017 Guitar Player listed him as one of the 50 transcendent superheroes of the acoustic guitar. The CD, “Every Step of The Way,” was awarded by Acoustic Guitar’s People’s Choice Awards with a Bronze medal for Best Acoustic Album of All Time.
Peppino’s signature Seagull acoustic guitar has been voted among the ten best signature guitars by Guitar Player magazine. He currently gives guitar workshops, master classes, and seminars worldwide. To date, Peppino has recorded 19 albums, and performed in over thirty-five countries at international festivals and concert halls.
Audrey vardanega
Praised as a “[musically] eloquent” (San Francisco Classical Voice) player “with the kind of freedom, authority, and strength…that one expects from the world’s finest pianists” and a “bewitching musical presence” (The Piedmont Post), American pianist and arts entrepreneur Audrey Vardanega (b.1995) has performed as a solo and collaborative pianist across Europe, China, and the United States.
In 2019, in response to her passion for bringing artists together for new opportunities for performance, the creation of new work, and interdisciplinary collaboration, Audrey founded Musaics of the Bay.
L. John Harris
L. John Harris studied art and literature at UC Berkeley in the 1960s. Seduced by Berkeley’s food revolution in the 1970s, Harris worked at several iconic shops and restaurants and wrote The Book of Garlic (1974). He launched his cookbook company, Aris Books, in 1980 and his “Foodoodles” cartoon byline in Bay Area magazines led to a series of illustrated memoirs: Foodoodles (2010), Café French (2019) and My Little Plague Journal (2022).
Mr. Harris coproduced with PBS in 2001 the film Los Romeros: The Royal Family of the Guitar and serves as the curator of the Harris Guitar Collection at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Harris’s next book is a history of Berkeley’s “gourmet ghetto,” to be published by Heyday.
Christos Vayenas
A pianist/composer, writer and impresario, Christos Vayenas is an autodidactic who draws inspiration from the Romantic and Symbolist traditions of the past, as well as various other musical cultures of the world.
He is the creator of the NYC-based Autumn Salon, a multi-media production house and invite-only events series aiming to redefine the way people perform, present and experience the arts.
Through his work he aspires to unite the living energy of the present with the timeless artistic traditions of the past, helping to define an intercultural aesthetic for the future.