About the Sale
Mr. Wilchusky was a world renown historian who specialized in Renaissance era bronzes, medals and plaquettes. He attended the Institute of Fine Arts where he became the protege of famed art historian John Pope-Hennessy. In the ...view moremid-1980s he worked for several years at the pioneering White Columns Gallery as an assistant curator. In 1992 he was a contributing author in the seminal “ The Currency of Fame : Portrait Medals of the Renaissance” exhibition at The Frick Collection and The National Gallery of Art. Soon after he became a private sculpture dealer based in New York. He worked as a private art advisor for John R. Gaines, J.Tomilson Hill and Charles C. Dent. During the pre-internet days Mark could not resist passing by an antique shop without going in. Among his most important discoveries were the bronze figure of Mars Gradivus by Willem Van Tetrode [now at The Hill Collection] found in a small antique shop in Brazil as well as the oil lamp in the form of a winged monster [now in the late Robert H. Smith collection promised to The National Gallery of Art]. He made numerous contributions to the Matthew Brudniak Collection in Washington DC. Dealers, collectors and academics would inevitably stop by his private, künstkammer-like Upper East Side apartment gallery hoping to find an ancient porphyry fragment, medieval stained glass, palissy ware or a gothic ivory carving. Mark has made many donations throughout the years to collections and museums worldwide. This is a once in a lifetime collection to view and own a piece of history.