Beatrice Mandelman: The 70's and 80's

Beatrice Mandelman 1912-1998

Selected works from the 70s & 80s

203

FINE ART

Early Modern to Contemporary

A selection of paintings and works on paper from the 70’s and 80’s: prolific and inspired decades for Beatrice Mandelman.

Jazz II #1709, 1987, 48 x 36’’, acrylic on canvas 1

Born in 1912 in Newark, New Jersey, Beatrice

Mandelman spent her early years actively involved in the New York art community. During this time, she befriended integral artists from the abstract expressionist movement, including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. In 1944, Mandelman travelled to New Mexico with her husband, painter Louis Ribak, who she met while studying at the Art Students League of New York. The couple eventually settled in Taos, helping to bring modernism to the area’s established art colony.

Mandelman was prolific and often worked in series. She

painted well into her 80s, exploring a variety of movements - pulling from cubism, deconstructivism, and biomorphism.

Mandelman began to receive due recognition towards the end of her life, particularly for her work created in the 70s and 80s.

Today, she is recognized nationally for her fluid and lively abstractions. She has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, The National Gallery of Art, The Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, and the Harwood Museum. Her work is held in numerous private and museum collections.

The paintings in this selection were acquired from the

Mandelman-Ribak Estate and span two decades of the artist’s work.These pieces exemplify Mandelman’s range of experimentation, while showing the development of her signature visual language.

Mandelman ca. 1987 with Jazz II #1713

Rift #8, c. 1980s, 36 x 24’’, acrylic on canvas 2

Space Series 9330, c. 1972, 43 x 59’’, oil on canvas 3

‘In my paintings, I don’t want to manipulate but find or touch on the miracle Push to the edge to enclose that wild power on toward madness to curl the edges it comes out of love and knowledge to have a powerful heart...

... I work in private, for private reasons I am from the long haul Who could tell - No one.

I was never concerned about making a career.

My work is autobiographical It is about myself and my surroundings an exchange - I try to say it all.’

Source: Beatrice Mandelman, 1989, Stables Art Center

Grey Abstract Composition, c. 1960’s, 74 x 50’’, oil on canvas 4

‘My language is color and form.

It’s mine, but it communicates.’

Source: Beatrice Mandelman, New Meaning from an Old Language, 1980, Art Lines

Moontime, c. 1980’s, 48 x 24’’, acrylic on canvas 5

Poems in White Mandelman, 1974 The paintings are my feelings about silence In cracks, corners It has to do with memories.

White memories.

Creation of the World, Death of the World The end of a genration beginning of a new Half way I invented my own language though I mastered the traditional form of the day I think beyond the painting and paint again, The observer is left to his own reflections.

One should feel their existence I am a private voice.

An artist must take risks I am looking for treasure not a corpse.

With a knife I cut my way in I am looking for something beyond beyond myths for truth about I and you.

The painting should be more like a dream disquieting and concealing Truth itself is not always here One has to find it The door is not open One has to find a way to go thru I don’t preach at the observer.

Source: Beatrice Mandelman, The Energy of Stillness, 1980, Tricia Hurst, Artspace

Intimate Echoes XVII, c. 1980s, 22.5 x 14’’, acrylic on paper 6

Rift #3, c. 1986, 36 x 24’’, acrylic on canvas 7

‘I am a believer in the poetry of the unconscious moving into the realm of abstraction. My work could be called ‘subjective abstractions’. I have the freedom of choice today to let my space flow. I make room in my painting for the observer to dream.’

Source: Beatrice Mandelman, Mandelman Shows in Taos, 1977, Santa Fe New Mexican

Detail of Jazz II #1709, 1987, 48 x 36’’, acrylic on canvas

Japan, c. 1980s, 24 x 20’’, acrylic on canvas 8

‘What I’m trying to convey in my paintings is joy, love, song, dance. I’m trying to get life translated.

Its like music, it either touches you or it doesn’t.’

Source: Beatrice Mandelman, Hidden Light,1998, Forbes Magazine

Illustrated in Beatrice Mandelman Taos Modernist, by Robert Hobbs

Rift #7, c. 1986, 24 x 20’’, acrylic on canvas 9

White No. 1, c. 1983, 22.5 x 30.25’’, acrylic on paper 10

203

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Early Modern to Contemporary

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