New Year Blog Giveaway

Enter between Friday, December 31st and Friday, January 7th to win an 11 x 17 limited
edition Giclee print. You have a choice of one of these three prints:


Empire State Building












Grand Canal, Venice

Cape Porch

Here's what you need to do to enter:

1.) Visit my etsy shop and find your favorite print.

2.) Return to this post, tell me what your favorite image is in the comments. Also, please leave your email address or a way for me to contact you. One entry per person.

3.) That's it! I'll draw a winner by random number at 8 p.m. on Friday, January 7th and post their name on Monday, January 10th. The print will be shipped as soon as the winner makes their selection from the three choices.

4.) Here is a little twist: If the winner is a follower of this blog AND "likes" my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/David-Hinchens-Houses/176679582363834, they can then choose a SECOND 11 x 17 print from any image in my etsy shop.

Good Luck!

My mom and I

Participating artist David Hinchen with his mother, Gail Hinchen, in front of his Best of Show painting during "Built: Albany's Architecture Through Artists' Eyes," an art exhibit and silent auction to benefit the Historic Albany Foundation. Gail Hinchen won Best of Show at last year's "Built" show: http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/Social-Scene-Built-Albany-s-Architecture-809846.php#photo-4

Photo by Joseph Putrock, special to the Times Union

ALBANY SKYLINE

My new painting of downtown Albany was recently featured and awarded best in show at BUILT: Albany's Architecture Through Artists' Eyes at the New York State Museum. The annual art show benefits the Historic Albany Foundation and it's ongoing efforts to preserve, protect and promote Albany’s built environment. It it available as a limited edition giclee print here.

NEW HOUSE PORTRAITS, CHATHAM, CAPE COD

DAKOTA APARTMENTS

I just finished this 23 x 30 pen and ink drawing of New York City's

most legendary apartment building, the Dakota.

With an impressive, arched entrance on 72nd Street with sentry box flanked by large planters, the buff-colored building is surrounded by a dramatic low cast-iron fence in front of a "dry moat." The four corners of the courtyard, which has a fountain, lead to separate lobbies and passenger elevators.

When it was built in 1884, it towered over the Upper West Side and was an immediate success with all its apartments rented on opening day. Its developer, Edward Severin Clark, an heir to a sewing machine fortune, died two years before it opened. The building's name allegedly reflected the fact that the building was so far removed from the city's established luxury residential areas that it might as well be in the Dakota territory. Its 72nd Street façade, indeed, has an image of a Native American carved on its façade.

Designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh, who would later design the Plaza Hotel, this fortress-like building had tennis courts and a croquet field on the adjoining 175-foot-long lot on West 72nd Street that was later developed after World War II as a separate apartment building.

The 93-unit building's Victorian and Gothic architectural details and ambiance were featured in the popular spooky movie, "Rosemary's Baby," but it is famed more now for its spectacular apartments and famous residents. There is a subway stop at the corner.

Shea Stadium - Home of the New York Mets (1964-2008)

The place where Seaver and Ryan once threw, Piazza once squatted and the Stork, George Theodore, once roamed.

This recent painting was based on my photos taken just before Shea Stadium was demolished and replaced with the new Citi Stadium in 2009.



The Mets moved to the new state of the art Shea Stadium in Flushing Queens in 1964, where for the first two seasons the Mets would be a side attraction to the World's Fair which was going on across the street from the new ballpark. In 1969, the Mets completed the biggest upset in World Series history. Donn Clendenon who hit three key Home Runs in the series was named World Series MVP, as the city embraced its Amazin' Mets. In a strange side note, Mayor John Lindsay, was reelected largely thanks to the good feelings around the surprise World Champions.


In the 1986 World Series against the Boston Red Sox, the Mets faced elimination leading into Game 6. The Red Sox scored two runs in the tenth inning and twice came within one strike of winning their first World Series since 1918. However, the Mets rallied and would come back in typical Amazin' Mets fashion, as the game became one of the most famous games in baseball history as the Curse of the Bambino appeared to be alive and well. In fact, it was in this series that talk of the curse began.

The Mets remain the only team to come within one strike of losing a World Series before recovering to become World Champions.


Limited edition prints of Shea Stadium are available in my Etsy Shop.