Guests arrive at the Seventh Annual Tandem Press Wine Auction

The 2000 Tandem Press Wine Auction was held Thursday, June 22 from 6p.m. - 10p.m. at Brittingham House. Hosted by University of Wisconsin System President Katharine Lyall, this seventh annual event included a live and silent auction, and music by the Gerri di Maggio Trio. Guests enjoyed hors d' oeuvres and a gourmet dinner complimented by a stunning selection of wines poured throughout the evening. An exhibit of Tandem Press prints was available for viewing.

Katharine Lyall, President of the UW System welcomes
210 guests to the auction at the Brittingham House

Numerous private collectors, wine retailers and Madison-area restaurants donated wines to be auctioned. These included high-end selections from local and California vineyards, as well as a number of moderately priced wines and champagnes of outstanding quality. Representative of the vast depth of the selections to be offered were: a magnum of 1997 Kongsgaard Napa Valley Chardonnay and a magnum of 1997 Arietta; 6 bottles of 1998 Clos du Caillou Chateauneuf du Pape "Cuvee Speciale"; 1993 Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Premiere Cru Classe Bordeaux; 1970 Crl Figeac, St. Emilion.

"This year's auction selections were of remarkable quality," said Paula Panczenko, Tandem Press executive director. Attendees also had the opportunity to bid on several outstanding packages, among them a trip to the South of France where the lucky bidders will attend the internationally renowned Roger Verge Cooking School; chef for a day at Charlie Trotter's restaurant in Chicago and an extraordinary vertical selection of Pichon-Longueville-Comtesse de Lalande from vintage years 1961, 1966, 1970, 1978, 1985 and 1989.

Guests bid on the silent auction items

For the first 90 pairs of tickets sold, recipients received the limited edition print, Teetotaler, by Elaine Scheer. Each print is hand painted by the artist. Scheer, one of the UW Art Department faculty, made her reputation as a creator of installations -- large-scale and often interactive, temporal works which allow the viewer to step inside the artwork and participate in it. An invitation to a teapot ceramic show in 1992 sparked an interest in tea, and led to the realization that tea was an important part of Scheer's British and Russian heritage. The Teetotaler piece is one of a collection she created in documenting a1995 trip to China. This collection became the exhibit "Yixing Diary: A Journal in Teapots of My Travels Through China." Yixing is the Chinese city where the teapot was invented some 500 years ago, and was one of the stops on Scheer's visit.

Tickets for Tandem Press Wine Auction were $100 each. Event proceeds benefited Tandem Press, a self-supporting, non-profit, fine art, printmaking press affiliated with the Department of Art in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin. Tandem Press, at 201 Dickinson St., was founded in 1987 to support research, collaboration, experimentation and innovation in the field of printmaking. Throughout the year nationally and internationally recognized artists are invited to Tandem for short creative stints during which they produce works for print that are reproduced in limited editions by Tandem's staff and graduate students.

Tandem's prints are available to and are collected by museums, businesses, academic and art institutions, and by private collectors.

The 2000 Tandem Press Wine Auction was made possible through the kind and generous support of Michael Best & Friedrick, Zimbrick, Inc., M & I Bank and Salon 2000.

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