ABSTRACT SCHMABSTRACT examining abstract styles
with
ALTERED EDGES
featuring
RICHARDS RUBEN
Anita Shapolsky Gallery A.S. Art Foundation
ABSTRACT SCHMABSTRACT with
ALTERED EDGES featuring Richards Ruben January 19 - April 9, 2019
I dedicate this exhibition to Irving Sandler, who was a consistent presence in the New York art world from the 1950s until now. He clearly defined the “avant guard”. He was a modernist who tried to bridge the post-modernist emphasis of subject matter and their disregard of the form – content synthesis. He saw that American art entered a period of total pluralism, which is still “in” today. My gallery opened in 1982. Minimalism and Pop Art were reigning in galleries in New York. Dealers and critics had their own aesthetic appetites. Pop Art turned up in those places where what’s new sells – art, television, fashion, and advertising. Art became fashionable, especially Kitch. The minimalists tried to purify art in asserting primacy of colors and smooth, uncomplicated surface and line, used in single or systematic configuration – a self-referring abstract formalism. The sculptors used ordinary materials and found objects with innovative placement. My appetite for abstract expressionism has never waned because of the various types of art it encompasses. Action Painting (coined by Rosenberg) implies that the canvas was an area of action, and the artist turned it into a force by laying down their spontaneous feelings and sensations. The finished painting is a product of the ego, the id, the super-ego, and the libido, too. They were each exercised on canvas. Greenberg referred to the style as simply “painterly abstraction”. He saw a trace of the cubist grid underlying most abstract paintings as having an “open design”. He believed in the more reflective, plotting, and deliberate philosophy wing of art. Both of these pace-makers’ visions contribute to the oeuvre of this exhibition. Anita Shapolsky Director, Anita Shapolsky Gallery and A.S. Art Foundation
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SEYMOUR BOARDMAN (1921-2005) Seymour Boardman was an artist who expressed his direct experience and willingness to take risks in the pursuit of ambitious painting. Initially working in the freely brushed manner of Abstract Expressionism, Boardman gradually eliminated the arbitrary aspects of his work until only straight lines and two or three areas of flat, sometimes somber, tones remained. He could hardly have achieved more with less. In a career that was steady and determined, Seymour Boardman created paintings that are unique, while avoiding fashion and trends. Selected Collections: Whitney Museum, NY Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY Newark Museum, NJ Herbert Johnson Museum of Art of Cornell University, NY Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, MA Gallery Beyeler, Switzerland New York University, NY Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN Stichting Yellow Fellow Museum, Netherlands
UNTITLED, 1971 Seymour Boardman acrylic on canvas 48” x 38”
Seymour Boardman with a hard-edge painting (Courtesy of Anita Shapolsky Gallery) 5
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ILYA BOLOTOWSKY (1907-1981) Ilya Bolotowsky had a legendary career that involved painting, sculpture, mural production, as well as teaching and also filmmaking. He was an idealist who constantly embraced new trends in search for order and balance in response to his tumultuous upbringing in Russia. A socially progressive thinker who devoted his life to enriching the abstract tradition, he found that the geometric discipline of the cerebreal Neoplasticism exemplified by Piet Mondrian was a way to express his desire for a dynamic equilibrium. His geometric abstractions of the 1950s achieved a sophisticated balance of linear spatial divisions and striking color tonalities. Selected Collections: The Art Institute of Chicago, IL Brooklyn Museum, NY Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY The Museum of Modern Art in New York, NY The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA Museum of Fine Arts, MA San Francisco Museum of Art, CA Walker Art Center, MN Whitney Museum of American Art, NY Yale University Art Gallery, CT
NAPLES YELLOW & GREY, 1958 Ilya Bolotowsky oil on canvas 34.5” x 22.5” 6
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ERNEST BRIGGS (1923-1984) Ernest Briggs was born in San Francisco in 1923. He studied under Clyfford Still at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. The faculty, assembled by Douglas MacAgy, also included Mark Rothko and Ad Reinhardt. After moving to New York in 1953, Briggs began exhibiting at Stable Gallery. He participated in several Whitney Museum Annuals and in 1956 was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition “12 Americans” curated by Dorothy Miller. Briggs sought inspiration in nature. The changing qualities of the natural world are conveyed through his ragged and expressive brushwork. A second generation Abstract Expressionist, Briggs represents “action painting.” His paintings are alive; they offer viewers an experience that is both mysterious and known. Selected Collections: Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC San Francisco Museum of Art, CA Oakland Art Museum, CA Rockefeller Institute, NY Blair Collection of Bay Area Abstract Expressionism, CA Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA San Jose Museum of Art, CA Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN Jan Vanhoeven Collection, Woudrichem, Netherlands Portland Museum of Maine, ME A.S. Art Foundation, PA
SUMMERSCAPE, 1962 Ernest Briggs oil on canvas 11” x 11.75”
Ernest Briggs (Courtesy of Anne Arnold) 8
Next: UNTITLED DIPTYCH, 1953 Ernest Briggs oil on canvas 69.25” x 53.25”, each
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LAWRENCE CALCAGNO (1913-1993) Lawrence Calcagno was born on March 23, 1913 in San Francisco, and passed away at the age of 80, in 1993. He began painting at the age of 19, and continued to use the medium throughout his life to describe the world around him. After serving in WW2, he painted in Paris under the G.I. Bill. Calcagno began to show in San Francisco and New York as part of the second generation of Abstract Expressionist painters. His style ranges from meditative linear abstract landscapes to free-form abstract expressionism. Calcagno’s color palette and compositions resonate with saturated oranges and reds of the California landscape. His minimalist pieces fade in and out of focus like San Francisco fog, where shapes and forms play off the subconscious. Larry Calcagno has work in many major museum collections throughout the United States, and is highly prized in private collections. He has just concluded several museum exhibitions around the country. Selected Collections: Baltimore Museum of Art, MD Boston Museum of Fine Arts, MA Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY Denver Museum of Art, CO Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA Museum of New Mexico, NM National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. New York University, NY San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA Walker Art Center, MN Whitney Museum of American Art, NY
BLUE PAINTING, 1971 Lawrence Calcagno acrylic on canvas 52” x 48” 13
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UMATILLA, 1959 Amaranth Ehrenhalt oil on canvas 59” x 87” JUMP #1, 1954 Amaranth Ehrenhalt oil on canvas 11.5” x 9” 14
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AMARANTH EHRENHALT (1928─present) As one of the few living abstract expressionists of the 1950s, Amaranth Ehrenhalt is actively working and producing fine art. After spending more than thirty years living in France and Italy, Ehrenhalt returned to the home base of the New York School in 2007. She lived in New York in the early 50s and knew Al Held, Ronald Bladen, and Willem de Kooning. As an expatriate, Ehrenhalt exhibited with contemporaries such as Sam Francis, Joan Mitchell, Shirley Jaffe and others in Paris. Amaranth Ehrenhalt has established herself as a multifaceted artist with many solo and group exhibitions in Paris, Italy, New York, and California. She was included in the catalog of the groundbreaking 2016 exhibition “Women of Abstract Expressionism” at the Denver Art Museum. Her work expands beyond the canvas to include drawings, prints, watercolors, tapestries, mosaics, murals, sculptures, poetry, prose and more. In order to experience the surprises and treasures of Amaranth Ehrenhalt’s art, it must be seen and digested by the viewer. Selected Collections: Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France Ministry of Culture, Paris, France Mobilier National des Gobelins, Paris, France City of Paris Collection, Paris, France Downey Museum of Art, Downey, CA Joseph H. Hirshhom Museum, Washington D.C. Phillip Morris Collection, VA Novotel, Paris, France Finance Consult, Paris, France Litton Industries, Groupe Atal, Paris, France National Engineering School of Metz, Metz, France Mobilier Modulaire Moderne, Paris, France French Bank of California, CA Allstate Savings and Loan Association, CA Shiley Laboratories, CA Golas Foundation, Paris, France Sovac Group Inc., Paris, France Thelem Insurance, Paris, France Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MA Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, England A.S. Art Foundation, PA
Amaranth Ehrenhalt, 1951 (Courtesy of Vogue Magazine) 15
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JOSEPH FIORE (1925–2008) Joseph Fiore attended and subsequently taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. There, he had studied with Willem de Kooning, Jacob Lawrence and Jean Varda. Later, he taught at the Philadelphia College of Art, Maryland College of Art and the National Academy. Fiore was a member of the 10th Street Art Scene in the late 50s and 60s, a group of galleries that showed his work and the work of Alex Katz, Lois Dodd, Bernard Langlais, and others. He has had one-person shows in New York at Staempfli Gallery (reviewed by Fairfield Porter), Schoelkoph Gallery, Fischbach Gallery, and others. Selected Collections: Whitney Museum of American Art, NY North Carolina State Museum, Raleigh, NC Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C. Colby Art Museum, Waterville, ME Weatherspoon Gallery, Queensboro, NC National Academy of Design, NY Chase Manhattan Collection, NY Asheville Museum of Art, NC Housatonic Museum of Art, Bridgeport, CT
ERIE, 1955 Joseph Fiore oil on canvas 30” x 40” 16
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BUFFIE JOHNSON (1912-2006) Buffie Johnson’s canvases are witness to her creative process from the world’s largest abstract mural in the Astor Theatre in the 1950s, to her gestural paintings of the 60s, her monumental plant images of the 70s, and then her numbering series of the 90s that explores the power that arises from zero. Always striving to represent divine female power even when met with resistance and discouragement, Johnson embodies that very power. Selected Collections: The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C. The National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C. San Francisco Museum of Art, CA Boston Museum of Fine Arts, MA Yale University Art Gallery, CT Baltimore Museum, MD Fine Arts Museum of Cincinnati, OH Rhode Island School of Design, RI University of Michigan Museum, MI University of New Mexico Art Museum, NM New York University Art Collection, NY Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, NY Newark Museum, NJ Santa Barbara Museum, CA Walker Art Center, MN Whitney Museum of American Art, NY New Orleans Museum of Art, LA The Brooklyn Museum of Art. NY The Guggenheim Museum of Art, NY Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
CYCLICAL TIME 1, 1962 Buffie Johnson oil on canvas 21” x 24”
Buffie Johnson (Courtesy of Anita Shapolsky Gallery) 19
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WILLIAM MANNING (1936 - Present) William Manning was born in Lewiston, Maine and lived in Maine all his life. Manning started painting in 1954 and later taught at the Portland School of Art (now Maine College of Art) for 10 years. He was then fired for what was considered a radical philosophy in teaching and painting. Manning was the first native Maine painter to paint abstract work (Marsden Hartley did a few abstract paintings around 1917), and was also the first to receive a National Endowment Grant and a MacDowell Fellowship. He co-founded Concept, a school of visual studies. Many of the students he taught became recognized artists in New York and elsewhere. He then became involved in the New York art scene for over 25 years, meeting and showing with many of the first and second generation abstract expressionists. Selected Collections: Amherst College, Amherst, MA Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME Center for the Arts, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME Lewiston Public Library, Lewiston, ME Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME Stichting Yellow Fellow Museum, Leidschendam, The Netherlands University of New Hampshire Museum of Art, NH Verhoeven Art Collection, Woudrichem, The Netherlands A.S. Art Foundation, PA
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ATLANTIC SERIES #63, 1993 William Manning oil varnish on wood 76.75” x 51” x 6.75”
Right: MANANA WEST #27, 2006 William Manning collage and acrylic on wood 12” x 12” x 4” 21
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ETHEL SCHWABACHER (1903-1984) Ethel Schwabacher started her art education in sculpture. In 1923, after her apprenticeship in stone carving with the sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, Schwabacher abandoned sculpture in 1927 and enrolled in Max Weber’s painting class at the Art Students League. That year she met Arshile Gorky, with whom she developed a long-lasting friendship. Gorky’s surrealistic-inspired imaginary, biomorphic abstractions and erotic forms drawn from his unconsciousness fascinated Schwabacher and she became interested in exploring her own psyche. The paintings from this period combine automatism with abstract forms, referring to nature. Through the 50s, Schwabacher developed the interconnected themes of womanhood, childbirth and children. Following the death of her husband, Wolf, in 1951, the topics of loss, anxiety, loneliness and separation infiltrated her work. During those painful years Schwabacher’s abstract paintings were searching through the personal traumas, remembered experiences and fear of isolation. Her work was recently featured along with other women abstract expressionists in the revolutionary 2016 exhibition, “Women of Abstract Expressionism”. Selected Collections: Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY Whitney Museum of American Art, NY Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY Jewish Museum, NY Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY Rockefeller University, NY Miskin Gallery, NY Denver Art Museum, CO
WARM RAIN II, 1959 Ethel Schwabacher oil on canvas 42” x 35” 22
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THOMAS SILLS (1914—2000) Married to mosaicist Jeanne Reynal, Thomas Sills was inspired by her collection of abstract art, and began working with materials that his wife used in her mosaics, but soon branched out to oil on wood as well as canvas. Thomas Sills spent most of his creative life in New York City, deeply rooted in the artistic trends as well as cultural issues from the early 1950s to 1970s. Unlike Mark Rothko and Barnet Newman, who were very articulate in verbalizing about their work, Sills felt it was not necessary to pin down his art with words, aligning himself more with William de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, and Franz Kline. Even though he lacked formal training, his self-taught artistic skills released phantasmical abstract paintings. His provocative handling of color and innovative use of media attracted the attention of the New York avant-garde. Selected Collections: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY Los Angeles County Museum, CA Museum of Modern Art, NY
SUMMER, 1950 Thomas Sills oil on canvas 44” x 43” 25
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ALTERED EDGES featuring
Richards Ruben RICHARDS RUBEN (1925—1998) Richards Ruben was known for incorporating geometry in his paintings, both through the forms within his paintings and through his uniquely shaped canvases. He constantly searched for new ideas in unexplored territories. He provoked the creative possibilities of sight by utilizing familiar forms and suggestive colors to question the boundaries and limitations with which we restrict ourselves when looking at objects of art or the horizon of our environment. Ruben painted in a very sculptural way. He took his stretcher bars, carved them and shaped the canvas to reflect his interest in how the inner rhythms of the image corresponded with the outer edges of the canvas as well as the canvas’ interaction with the wall itself. In an interview for Ocular magazine in 1981, Ruben claimed that “the critical measurements of a canvas on the wall (horizontal, vertical, and diagonal) are as intrinsic to the structure of the place as they are indigenous to visual experience.” Even within his strictly rectangular canvases, bold diagonal lines threaten to escape off the edges of the painting, onto the gallery walls. Ruben reined them in using muted colors and a calm, stable hum that seems to vibrate through and between each work. “I don’t see why the painting has to be about something. I don’t see why painting isn’t just itself. We’ve gotten into the idea that painting is supposed to be about something, the notion that it is carrying some kind of story, some kind of illustration of subject matter, a picture of something and that is what it has to be and its meaning has to be translated into language. I think that painting is entirely by itself.” In addition to painting, Ruben taught at prominent art schools throughout his entire career. After serving in the US Army from 1942 to 1944, Ruben returned to Los Angeles, his hometown, and studied at the Chouinard Art Institute. He would teach painting there and at the Pomona and Claremont Colleges in LA until he moved to New York in the 1960s, where he continued teaching at NYU, Columbia University, and 26
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Anita Shapolsky and Richards Ruben (Courtesy of Anita Shapolsky Gallery)
Pratt. He died in 1998 teaching a summer class in Venice, Italy for a Pratt Institute art program. His works have been shown in numerous galleries and included in many museum collections, including the recent acquisiton of his drawings to the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas. Influenced by his time spent in LA and New York, Ruben created his “City” series. The paintings were not literal references to cityscapes, but instead attempted to capture the energies of the urban lifestyle, specifically the urban exprience unique to New York City. However, he was also enchanted by Venice, spending his summers there after visiting in 1984. The works from his “Venetian Fragments” series are small, abstract geometric oil pastel paintings on kochi paper. Ruben purposefully exposed the rough edges of the paper to blur the lines between the form of each paper piece and the surrounding space they inhabit on the wall. Each “fragment” is an independent glimpse into Ruben’s time in an ageing city full of history. The colors he chose are evocative of ageing metals: copper patina, green malachite, and tarnished gold and silver. The “Venetian Fragments” exhibition at Anita Shapolsky Gallery in March 1990 featured these delicate, under-known paper pieces. The Anita Shapolsky Gallery is pleased to present “Altered Edges” along with “Abstract - Schmabstract”, featuring an artist who literally and figuratively pushed the boundaries of abstract art. His shaped canvases and roughly formed paper works created their own space in the complex world of abstraction. 27
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INNUENDO, 1987 Richards Ruben oil on canvas 62” x 62” 28
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EDGEWISE, 1989 Richards Ruben oil on canvas 68.5” x 54.5” 29
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TIGHTROPE, 1986 Richards Ruben oil on canvas 49.5” x 41” 30
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AT PLACE, 1993 Richards Ruben oil on canvas 70” x 70” 31
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Left:
BECOMING, 1987 Richards Ruben oil on canvas 61.5” x 61.5”
Right: BLACK PAINTING 1, n.d. Richards Ruben oil on canvas 80” x 42” 33
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ECCO-ECCO-ECCO, n.d. Richards Ruben oil on canvas 66” x 64” 34
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PINK A BOOB, 1988 Richards Ruben mixed media on kochi paper 30” x 42” 35
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VENETIAN FRAGMENT CC, 1996 Richards Ruben oil pastel on kochi paper 24” x 21”
VENETIAN FRAGMENT X-K18, 1994 Richards Ruben oil pastel on kochi paper 13” x 10” 36
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VENETIAN FRAGMENT OD, 1997 Richards Ruben oil pastel on saunders paper 13” x 10”
VENETIAN FRAGMENT FC, 1997 Richards Ruben oil pastel on kochi paper 25” x 21” 37
RICHARDS RUBEN, continued Selected Collections: National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C. Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, CA Mills College Art Gallery, Oakland, CA Reading Public Museum of Art, Reading, PA Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Washington, D.C. Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C. Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, CA Pasadena Museum of Art, Pasadena, CA Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY Oakland Art Museum, Oakland, CA Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA San Diego Museum of Fine Art, San Diego, CA Newport Harbor Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA Laguna Beach Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA Stanford University Museum of Art, Palo Alto, CA Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Pomona College, Claremont, CA University of California, Los Angeles, CA University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, CA University Art Museum, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM Ball State University Art Museum, Muncie, IN University of Montana, Missoula, MT Lang Art Gallery, Scripps College, Claremont, CA Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee, WI Yellowstone Art Center, Billings, MT Bradley University, Peoria, IL Menil Drawing Institute, Houston, TX
Lawrence Calcagno with Richards Ruben (Courtesy of Anita Shapolsky Gallery)
Copyright © 2019 by the Anita Shapolsky Gallery & A. S. Art Foundation Catalog by Eve Erickson, 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechnical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests and ordering information, contact: anitashapolsky@gmail.com