Ronnie Landfield AFTER THE RAIN
Across the Plains, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 64” x 72”
RonnieLandfield AFTER THE RAIN
SEPTEMBER 6 - OCTOBER 13 . 2013
Railyard: 1613 Paseo De Peralta Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 tel 505.988.3250 Downtown: 125 West Palace Avenue Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 tel 505.988.8997 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com cover: In the Smoke, 1985, acrylic on canvas, 40” x 37”
Ronnie Landfield: AFTER THE RAIN
After the Rain commemorates the personal and professional ordeal
in my studio survives this monstrosity,” Landfied said shortly after the
survived by the artist in the wake of the devastation and destruction of
storm had passed. This hope has sustained him, and through it all he
Hurricane Sandy that struck New York with such calamitous force on
and his art have indeed survived. Perhaps Landfield’s words in 2001
October 29, 2012. The old building on Desbrosses Street, one block
were both prophetic and prescriptive: “As an artist the faith required to
away from the Hudson River in downtown Manhattan, that had served
make visible and to express the inexpressible prepares you to accept
since 1969 as Landfield’s home and studio was flooded within minutes.
the unacceptable and embrace the unknown.” The artist has not only
Scores of works by the artist whose paintings, prints and drawings are
embraced his lot of having weathered the unacceptable, but at the end
installed in more than 40 museums and public collections, were engulfed
of the day he smiles and says, “In a way we’re all lucky.”
in three feet of water: a surging, uncontainable threat to a half-century’s span of extraordinary artistic production. Trapped by the rising waters
The artist is now in the fifth decade of his career as an American master
and helpless to try and rescue his work, the artist and his wife waited for
of Lyrical and Post-Painterly Abstraction. He has helped to define the
the 1,000-mile-wide monster to subside.
evolution and continuing legacy of abstraction in the 20th century. Finding inspiration in sources such as Sung Dynasty Chinese landscape
In its aftermath Landfield, like many other New Yorkers, has endured a
painting, Landfield utilizes large fields of flat color spread across or
modern-day ordeal full of gargantuan effort, deprivation, despair and even a
stained into the canvas, creating lavish surfaces. As he employs subtle
legal battle to fight an attempt to use against him the adversity of a hurricane
gradients of hue, canvas scale, and intensity, color is then released
as premise for eviction from his rent-controlled home and studio of 44 years.
from objective context and becomes the subject itself. Loose broad landscapes of paint application and arcs of joyous color create poetic
Happily, however, countless hours of uncertain labor have been rewarded
scenes to captivate the viewer. The artist himself would not describe his
by the successful rescue of a lifetime of art. The artist, his wife and sons
works as necessarily landscapes, however. Often he will utilize a bold
have retrieved monumental paintings from the edge of muck and mold,
band of high-keyed color at the bottom or side of a painting to indicate
paper work and canvases have been meticulously treated with alcohol
that the work is not a recognizable scene—a balancing act of intuitive
and disinfectant, alternative storage has been searched for and found,
brushwork and a subjective groundedness. Landfield says of his own
endless caches of art and archives have been shuttled to drier places.
work, “Spirituality and feeling are the basic subjects of my work. They are depictions of intuitive expressions using color as language, and the
The zeal and unrelenting sacrifice made by the artist to see his art
landscape as a metaphor for the arena of life.…I sense a visual music
endure has been nothing short of heroic. “I just hope that all the work
that externalizes what I feel within me and in the air.”
3
Threshold of Eternity, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 91.5” x 76”
To the North, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 70” x 54.5”
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5
Vermont Memory, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 67” x 36”
The Orchard, 1977, acrylic on canvas, 63.25” x 40.5”
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7
Woman Diptych, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 15.75” x 31”
Light on the Mountain, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 24” x 24”
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9
Force of October, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 40.25” x 18.25”
Iridiris, 1999, acrylic on canvas, 18.75” x 14.25”
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Tennessee Flame, 1999, acrylic on canvas, 22” x 18.5”
The Harvest, 2006, acrylic on canvas, 77” x 67”
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Coral Wall, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 43.25” x 52”
Shifting Winds, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 69.5” x 74”
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Early Horizon, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 35” x 51”
The Wind and the Rain, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 83.25” x 75”
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Down Approach, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 84” x 80.5”
Seasons of Change, 1985, acrylic on canvas, 59.75” x 37.5”
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Awakened Memory, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 22.75” x 58.5”
From Woodstock to Truro, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 74” x 62”
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Light of Day, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 44” x 91”
Leonore #4, 1979-1981, acrylic on canvas, 80” x 50”
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Morning Measure, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 34” x 28”
Concentric Episode Series, 2012 acrylic on canvas, 12” x 14”
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Colorado, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 30” x 55”
Railyard: 1613 Paseo De Peralta Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 tel 505.988.3250 Downtown: 125 West Palace Avenue Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 tel 505.988.8997 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com