Richard Roth & Stefan Knapp – History of the mural on Alexanders Building

Discover the incredible friendship that emerged from the project of the lost department of goods in NYC!

Translation of an article that appeared in Untapped Cities, by Jo Holmes.
Thank you very much, Jo, for letting me translate and use the article content here.
https://www.untappedcities.com/tain-wall-nyc-architect-richard-roth-jr-alexanders/

Every month Untapped New York will publish new essay by Jo Holmes about the life and work of the late architect Richard Roth Jr. of Emery Roth & Sons. Each essay explores another building or developer from Richard's career, intertwined with stories from his personal life and fragments of exclusive interviews conducted by Holmes and Justin Rivers of Untapped New York.

Richard Roth Jr. was no doubt a social figure. Although he was proud of his work, he was also delighted with the relationships he had built throughout his life. One such friendship grew out of his commitment to Alexander’s department stores, specifically in the flagship building in Manhattan. It was through this project that he met Op artist Stefan Knapp, who became a family friend for life. In fact, many of Richard's closest friends are artists. He considered the commissioning of works of art to lobby and building squares to be one of the most rewarding parts of the work.

How did Richard and Stefan meet in New York?

In 1963, Emery Roth & Sons held a competition for a building design for popular seller Alexander’s in Midtown Manhattan. It was supposed to be a flagship store. Until then, the main store was located in the Bronx, with an additional location "out of town" in New Jersey. Later Richard designed Alexander’s stores in Valley Stream (1967) and Kings Plaza (1968), as well as a branch at the Mall at the World Trade Center (1974).

A winning design for a site in Midtown at 731 Lexington Avenue (at 58th Street) included a site for a work of art on the facade. Sandy Farkas, the son of Alexander’s founder George Farkas, wanted to use Salvador Dale’s designs.

"Dali made 17 murals he sold to Sandy at a generic sale price," said Richard. "Sandy wanted to move these murals to the side of the building – he wanted to turn them into mosaics, as he saw in Florence." Richard feared how long this process would take, given the enormous size of the murals. "It seemed Dali didn't want it either," Richard explained.

Sandy decided to ask another artist, Stefan Knapp, to recreate Dale's mural. Knapp was a Polish painter and sculptor who developed and patented the technique of painting enamel on steel. He created a series of murals for London's Heathrow Airport in 1959 (‘Murals 1959’) and for the Alexander’s store in New Jersey. It is no surprise that Knapp was not delighted with the request to replicate someone else's work – even Dalí.

"I entered a meeting with Farkas at Alexander’s headquarters at 500 7th Avenue and found Dale there. Knapp, whom I really met a week earlier, was sitting outside. It was pretty awkward," Richard recalled. "In the end nobody did it, and the Farkas family sold Dale's works for a fortune!"

Instead, Alexander’s commissioned the original work to Knapp. The work consisted of over 400 large white panels with rows of colored enamelled steel domes. Architectural critic Paul Goldberger wrote in The New Yorkerthat "the whole looked like Billboard full of eyeballs or rims or salad bowls. It was easily the most monumental work of Op Art in New York."

Op Art, or Optical Art, is an abstract style that became popular in the 1960s. It is characterized by geometric shapes and high contrast of colors, which often create optical illusions distorting the viewer's perception. In addition to Knapp, other artists in this style include Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley and Yaacov Agam.

Opening Alexanders

Alexander’s Manhattan store opened in 1965, shortly before the company went public in 1968. Founder George Farkas has always purchased land and property for his stores instead of just renting the site, creating a valuable portfolio of properties. Interstate Properties took over stores in 1980 to maximize the value of the company's real estate.

Steven Roth (no relation to Richard) was then head of Interstate and later became the largest commercial tenant in New York City headed by Vornado Realty Trust. Donald Trump even held a significant stake for several years, but using it as collateral, he was forced to surrender it in the loan settlement in 1991.

The flagship store along with all other Alexander’s locations closed in 1992 when the company went bankrupt. Although the shops disappeared, some works of art survived.

What happened to Knapp's panels?

One of Stefan Knapp's panels from a Manhattan store is at the Museum of the City of New York. According to Paul Goldberger, writing in The New Yorker in November 2000, New York art collector Barbara Jakobsen acquired 80 domes from Marshal Mark Macdonald and reconstructed a panel in her garden. Macdonald got the domes from the demolition contractor. Panels at the MCNY exhibition were donated by Jakobsen and unveiled in 2023.

Several panels from the huge mural that decorated Alexander’s store in New Jersey were restored and installed at the new Valley Hospital in Paramus. More Knappe works can be found in museums collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Tate Gallery in London.

The Friendship of Stefan and the Roth Family

During the Alexander’s Knapp project, he became a great friend of the Roth family. Richard was fascinated by Knappe's life experiences. As a teenager, he spent time in the Siberian Gulag. Fired in 1942, he went to Britain and joined the Royal Air Force, serving as an officer and pilot of Spitfire. After the war, he stayed in London and studied at the Royal Academy and Slade School of Fine Art.

"We were as close as two people could be," said Richard. Knapp even lived in the Roths' apartment for a while. Richard was the godfather of Knapp's son, Robin. Richard and his wife Alene spent many years with Stefan and his wife Cathy when Knappaks had an apartment in Le Lavandou in the south of France.

Richard mentioned a terrible incident in which Knapp had a life-threatening tooth infection. Richard remembered seeing a body bag in the hospital room. Fortunately, Knapp fully recovered from an operation conducted by the head of dental surgery in Lenox Hill. ( Shockingly, the surgeon himself died in an air accident a few hours after the surgery.)

Other artists and Richard

Perhaps considering his own artistic abilities, it is not surprising that Richard had many friends in the art world. "My friends were not so much in the field of architecture. I had more friends who were artists...You know, we had a lot in common. We could've talked. And I enjoyed their company."

Sometimes he worked in exchange for artwork. "One of my closest friends is Richard Anuszkiewicz, and he asked me to design his studio in New Jersey in exchange for the painting. I said yes, why not?"

Anuszkiewicz was an American painter, graphic artist and sculptor of Polish origin, one of the founders of Op Art.

Magazine Life described it as ‘one of the new Op wizards’ in 1964. He exhibited at the Biennale in Venice, Biennale in Florence and Documenta. His works are in permanent collections around the world.

"I was there supervising in one weekend and I noticed that people are digging under the foundation." The studio was built on the hill behind the house. "I asked Anuszkiewicz what they were doing. He said, ‘My father does it **—**creates a basement.’ I said, ‘It will collapse!’" Father Anuszkiewicz **—**Then I was 80. **—**He was trying to create more space. " Fortunately, I got there before the whole thing fell off the hill!"

"I also designed the Fischbach Gallery on 57th Street in exchange for the painting," said Richard. The Fischbachs were then the largest electric contractors in New York City, and Richard actually designed to expand their home in Westchester. "And I designed an apartment for Harry Fischbach, father, in exchange for doing electrical work in my apartment!"

Richard was a close friend of Gallerist Denise René. "She ran one of the leading art galleries in Paris. She represented all the painters of the optical art." René opened a gallery in New York City, and Richard acted as an unpaid consultant. In return, Denise gave Richard and his family several items, including small steel sculptures by Hungarian artist Nicolas Schöffer. Later Schöffer himself came to a meeting of artists in Richard's apartment in New York, where one of his pieces was exhibited on a coffee table. "He turned it over. It turned out that we always had the opposite side of him!" Richard laughed.

Another friend was sculptor Art Brenner, who lived in France for many years. "Part of the fun of going to Paris was seeing Art. He finally lived on a barge. His original studio and apartment at 17 Rue d'Aboukir was just around the corner from Les Halles, and it was wonderful," described Richard. He was excited to experience the famous market before its demolition in 1973.

In 1974, Richard commissioned Art to create a large sculpture outside the hotel near Philadelphia Airport. Unfortunately, Richard's clients changed his hotel designs. "They decided to rob the facade cheaply," said Richard. "So I said, ‘Art, I want you to do something as big as possible because they broke the building and I want to cover it as much as possible." So he did this huge thing about 30 feet at about 20 feet tall. And it was orange, so the eyes were clinging to it." The sculpture Brenner called ‘Atlas X’ was later transferred to the parking lot of another nearby hotel and painted blue **—**Probably to match Hilton branding. Richard had a small model sculpture.

As someone who considered the artist's career, Richard instinctively took an interest in every planned play in his buildings. One of the reasons why he liked working with Maverick developer Melvyn Kaufmann was Kaufmann's passion to turn on the ‘decorative elements’. For 77 Water Street they collaborated with lighting designer Howard Brandston, graphic designer Rudy de Harak, and sculptor Pamela Waters.

Richard was particularly excited about the installations in the Pan Am building, including the sculpture of Richard Lippold’s ‘Flight’ and the large wall of Josef Albers. He loved the fountains of the blowers that he commissioned to the square at 1345 Avenue of the Americas, formerly Burlington House. "They were really beautiful and when it was hot and the wind was blowing, people sat on the leeward side so that the water would spray on them."

From the translator: Thank you Mrs Jo Holmes for enabling the translation and publication of your article.