As a rule, Claude Villani never gets any business at his Galerie Sono from passersbys who stop and ponder the art on display in the windows of his Norwalk exhibition venue. But there was a memorable exception.
“It happened one time,” said Villani, laughing at the recollection. “A guy saw a $25,000 Anne Packard painting and he said, ‘I’ll take that one in the window.’”
And not unlike the deep-pocketed customer, Villani’s presence in the Fairfield County art scene could be seen as something of an exception to the long-standing rule of what sells.
Photo by Phil Hall
“When I opened in 1999, I had a number of friends who had galleries in Greenwich and New Canaan and Westport, and a lot of it was traditional art,” he said. “It is what I used to say was ‘the dog with the pheasant in its mouth’ paintings. And I said that I was going to focus on contemporary art and they said, ‘Good luck with that in Connecticut.’”
Housed within a 6,000-square-foot space at 123 Washington St. in the heart of Norwalk’s SoNo district, the gallery is an [Read more…]
