How Did That Joan Jonas Get There?

Welcome back to How Did That Get There?, a monthly column by Annie Armstrong about how fine artworks end up out of museums and into restaurants around the world. Last month, we got the inside story of how a Frank Stella lithograph took center stage at the East Village wine bar Stars. This month, chef Ned Baldwin takes us back to Yale art school, where he first encountered the seminal video performance artist Joan Jonas…

Snarling through its scribbled on, twisted, vicious mouth and pernicious blue eyes, a drawing of a dog greets you on your left when you walk into Houseman, chef Ned Baldwin’s restaurant that has fed Hudson Square since 2015. It’s a drawing by Joan Jonas, Baldwin’s professor long before his mentorship from Prune’s Gabrielle Hamilton, back when he was an aspiring abstract artist at Yale’s prestigious MFA program.

Baldwin bought this drawing from art dealer Pat Hearn in 1999 from a show that New York Times art critic Roberta Smith lauded for its improvisation, resulting in an “air of unabashed lyricism” and “a wildness that is less artistic device than elemental condition,” as she described it.