For The Love Of Jack Lenor Larsen

“Love Song to Jack,” a virtual Valentine’s Day event in honor of LongHouse’s founder Jack Lenor Larsen, who died December 22, 2020, at the age of 93, will be presented on February 14, at 6 p.m. and features a lineup of well-known performers and artists. The event is a winter benefit for the East Hampton non-profit organization.

The evening kicks off with a heartfelt rendition of “It Had to Be You” by singer Joy Jan Jones, followed by more love songs performed by Laurie Anderson, Royal Khaoz, Nico Muhly, G.E. Smith and Taylor Barton-Smith, and Rufus Wainwright.

Festivities include a tour of Larsen’s residence at LongHouse led by Paul Goldberger, a look inside artist Shirin Neshat’s Brooklyn-based studio, and conversations with the benefit’s honorary couple chairs Bill T. Jones and Bjorn Amelan, Eric Fischl and April Gornik, Rufus Wainwright and Jörn Weisbrodt.

In addition, Goldberger will be honored with the LongHouse Art Leadership Award, while Neshat will receive the LongHouse Award.

To purchase access to the virtual benefit, visit longhouse.org. Tickets start at $50.

LongHouse Reserve, a 16-acre sculpture garden founded by Larsen in East Hampton, features pieces from Buckminster Fuller, Yoko Ono, Eric Fischl and Willem de Kooning, to name a few. Larsen was an internationally known textile designer, author and collector and the 13,000-square-foot house that was his residence on the property is being converted to a house-museum, which will showcase his unique and dynamic blending of art, architecture and craft.

It will be open to the public by reservation in the future. As many as 60 works of art may be viewed in the LongHouse gardens, which are open to the public from April to December with exhibitions that change each year. The gardens serve as a living case study of the interaction between plants and people in the 21st century.