{"id":395083,"date":"2026-04-24T07:44:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T07:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/395083\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T07:44:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T07:44:20","slug":"george-nelson-prestons-rowhouse-doubles-as-a-public-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/395083\/","title":{"rendered":"George Nelson Preston\u2019s Rowhouse Doubles As a Public Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Great Rooms<\/a><\/p>\n

\n A visual diary by Design Editor Wendy Goodman.\n <\/p>\n

The Parlor Floor George Nelson Preston with his dog, Tecumseh, and his 2026 paintings (from left) That Was Then, This Is Now. Never Forget. Always Forgive; Fetiches et Fleur for Melanie and Lulu at South Beach and Beyond; and Go Back and Find It, which will be part of a solo exhibition at Ryan Lee<\/a> gallery next year.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman<\/p>\n

The artist George Nelson Preston<\/a> sometimes can\u2019t believe the characters he has crossed paths with in nearly nine decades of living in New York. Growing up in Sugar Hill in the 1940s, his neighbors included icons from the Harlem Renaissance such as Lena Horne, Count Basie, and Paul Robeson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whole neighborhood was full of Black luminaries,\u201d says Preston. \u201cWe had salons on the weekends. We\u2019d meet in someone\u2019s apartment, and there would be music and people would bring food.\u201d<\/p>\n

His parents, Mildred and John Lee, the latter a musician, encouraged an early interest in painting, and Preston attended the High School of Music & Art. Later, while studying at City College, he taught at Camp Woodland in the Catskills and met Pete Seeger and the percussionist Babatunde Olatunji. They introduced him to the burgeoning Village scene, where Preston hosted poetry readings at his storefront loft on East 3rd Street. It was called the Artist\u2019s Studio, and Beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, Gregory Corso, and Frank O\u2019Hara were regulars. A photograph of Jack Kerouac performing there<\/a> in February 1959 captured the mood of the period. \u201cThe thick of it went on for two years,\u201d Preston recalls. \u201cEvery Sunday afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preston\u2019s next-door neighbor at the loft was the sculptor Claes Oldenburg. \u201cI may have been the first person to see the hamburgers,\u201d he says. \u201cI came home from school, and he was out on the street ready to ambush me so I\u2019d check out his latest stuff. I looked at it, and, honestly, I didn\u2019t know what to think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preston would go on to become a prominent scholar in African art, as well as a curator, after receiving a Ph.D. in art history and archaeology from Columbia. He is 87 and now lives in the Jumel Terrace Historic District in Washington Heights, just two streets away from his childhood home; his mother bought the property in 1987 to have him nearby. Every surface of the four floors in the 1896 Henri Fouchaux rowhouse is covered with a lifetime\u2019s worth of personal history.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Preston, in 1956, photographed by Claes Oldenburg, his next-door neighbor in the Village.
\n Photo: Claes Oldenburg\/Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Preston at the home of City College of New York professor Florian G. Kraner in 1959.
\n Photo: \u00a9 George Nelson Preston\/Courtesy of the artist and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York\n <\/p>\n

In the back room of the parlor, where Preston paints, he points to a portrait of his great-great-grandfather on a wall of family photographs. \u201cIt all started here with this man, a mule, and a plow. His ancestors were freed slaves who had bought property in Charleston, South Carolina, in an area they called Liberty Hill,\u201d he says. \u201cThe reason I have all these photographs is to remind me of what it took for me to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preston\u2019s maternal great-uncle, a merchant seaman during World War II, collected African art, and it was all passed on to his mother and then to him. Preston kept adding to the collection, buying his first piece of tribal art in 1967 for $65 from the Abstract Expressionist and Madison Avenue dealer Merton D. Simpson. By the time he moved uptown in 1987, he had about 40 objects, and he picked up more masks, wood sculptures, and terra-cotta figurines on research trips to Ghana, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, Nigeria, and Togo.<\/p>\n

In 2006, he decided to open part of his home to the public as the Museum of Art and Origins<\/a>, exhibiting the 600 objects he had accumulated over the years alongside a selection of work by contemporary artists. Is he still on the lookout for new acquisitions? \u201cWell, never say never,\u201d Preston says. \u201cBut I have pretty much sated my appetite.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Ancestors\u2019 Room The portrait of Preston\u2019s mother, Mildred, is draped with the medallion he was awarded as chair of the Brazilian Academy of Fine Arts. The other photographs are of four generations of maternal ancestors.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Salon On the wall, table, and floor, masks and wood sculptures from Cameroon, Mali, Gabon, and Burkina Faso. The divination figures on the right are by the B\u00e9t\u00e9 people of C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire. The copper and steel hanging work is by Rafala Green.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Work Station Masks by the Hemba and Mangbetu peoples from the Congo. The Paul Robeson portrait on the far left is by the director and playwright Alexander Arkatov.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Sitting Area Preston\u2019s In the Four Moments of the Sun (2025) is above the sofa. The photos by John Edmonds (left) and Adger Cowans are under masks by the Fang people of Gabon.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Shrine A self-portrait by Preston\u2019s father, John Lee, from the 1930s is surrounded by photographs of paternal relatives. The large sculpture of Preston\u2019s likeness was carved in Ghana.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Artifact A mummified falcon from the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, circa 1550, that Preston acquired in Cairo in 1968.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Entrance The self-portrait on the left is by Tom\u00e1s Esson. The limestone relief below is from Angola. At the foot of the stairs is a wood sculpture by the Yoruba people of Nigeria. Behind is a portrait of a Harlem dandy by Thomas Baccaro and a mixed-media piece by Ademola Olugebefola.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

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