On Saturday, July 14, artists, philanthropists, socialites, business leaders and art world luminaries gathered in Southampton for the Parrish Art Museum’s 2012 Midsummer Party. The evening event honored the “creative spirit of the East End” and seven individuals who exemplify that spirit.

Always a highlight of the Hamptons summer season this year’s event raised $650,000 by honoring director/choreographer Patricia Birch, visual artist Chuck Close, author/historian Barbara Goldsmith, interior designers Tony Ingrao and Randy Kemper, musician G.E. Smith, and choreographer Paul Taylor.

This years Midsummer Party Co-Chairs included: Deborah F. Bancroft, Carlo Bronzini Vender, Etta Froio, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Michele Pesner, Douglas Polley, Frederic M. Seegal, Marcia Dunn Sobel, and Alexandra Stanton.

The Midsummer Party kicked off with cocktails, followed by dinner, catered by Glorious Food, served up in the museum’s historic arboretum. Wine was provided by Niche Import Co. and Glacier Potato Vodka. DJ Tom Finn, got everyone dancing by nights end!

Notable Hamptonites in attendance included: Ross Bleckner,  Liliana Casabal, Gale and Ira Drukier, Arthur and Grethe Elgort, Eric Fischl and April Gornik, Jane Freilicher, Etta Froio, Larry Gagosian, Andrea and Marc Glimcher, David and Elizabeth Granville-Smith, Philip Isles, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Malcolm Morley, Charlene and James M. Nederlander, Lisa Perry, Campion and Tatiana Platt, Toni Ross, David Wassong, and Robert Wilson.

About the Parrish Art Museum:

The Parrish Art Museum is located in Southampton, New York. Founded in 1897, the Museum celebrates the artistic legacy of Long Island’s East End, one of America’s most vital creative centers. Since the mid-1950s the Museum has grown from a small village art gallery into an important art museum with a collection of more than 2,600 works of art from the nineteenth century to the present. It includes such contemporary painters and sculptors as John Chamberlain, Chuck Close, Eric Fischl, April Gornik, Elizabeth Peyton, as well as such masters as Dan Flavin, Roy Lichtenstein, Jackson Pollock, Esteban Vicente, Lee Krasner, and Willem de Kooning. The Parrish houses important collections of works by the American Impressionist William Merritt Chase and the post-war American realist Fairfield Porter.

A vital cultural resource serving a diverse audience, the Parrish organizes and presents changing exhibitions and offers a dynamic schedule of creative and engaging public programs including lectures, films, performances, concerts, and studio classes for all ages. On July 19, 2010, the Parrish broke ground on a new building designed by internationally acclaimed Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.

The 34,500-square-foot facility will triple the Museum’s current exhibition space and allow for the simultaneous presentation of loan exhibitions and installations drawn from the permanent collection. The new building will open November 10, 2012.

[images 7,8, and 9 courtesy of Patrick McMullan]