Gloria Klein: Beautiful Structures

MAKING MARKS, MARKING TIME

Gloria Klein

MAKING MARKS, MARKING TIME

CHRISTIE’S

Gloria Klein

Gloria Klein, Number Seven (NYC 18), 1975-79. Photograph courtesy David Richard Gallery, New York. Artwork © Gloria Klein.

APRIL RICHON JACOBS

To discover the extraordinary body of work created by the artist Gloria Klein is to uncover a fascinating new realm, where a profusion of tiny, colorful marks create sophisticated arrangements that seem to pulse with an inner light. These paintings openly display the process of their creation, making evident the obsessive activity with which they were made.

awareness, including A Lesbian Show, in 1978 and the “Lesbian Art and Artists” issue of Heresies, an early feminist art journal.

Klein used a system of numerical factors to create complex patterns out of a limited set of colors. Working with a 60-inch square canvas, she placed a series of one-inch diagonal marks within a 60-inch grid, the colors of which were based on factors of sixty.

This catalog marks the rst major solo exhibit in New York to delve exclusively into Klein’s paintings from the 1970s & ‘80s. It showcases the extraordinary talent of this largely forgotten artist.

These paintings are rooted in her early studies with the Conceptual artist Robert Barry at Hunter College between 1970 and `73. At Hunter, she also studied the phenomenological possibilities of color with the artist Robert Swain.

Born in 1936 in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, Klein came of age in New York in the 1970s and played a vital role in organizing many artist-based initiatives in SoHo and the Lower East Side.

She also participated in several groundbreaking activities for lesbian artists’

Although her work shares certain af nities with both Minimalism and Color Field painting, it is rmly rooted in a Conceptual practice that is predicated on a self-devised

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Making Marks, Marking Time: Gloria Klein’s Paintings of the 1970s & ‘80s

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Despite relying upon a rational system or framework in her paintings, however, there are small uctuations in the length and width of each mark in Klein’s paintings. These subtle variations are a continual reminder of the physical presence of the artist’s hand and the “craft” of painting itself. In this case, seeing is believing. Encountering Klein’s hatch-mark paintings in person is breathtaking to behold. The slightly-raised surface texture of each individual mark drives home the laborious, time-consuming process of their creation.

Recent interest in the Pattern & Decoration movement brings Klein’s work to the forefront yet again. She was featured in the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art catalogue in 2019, and the Blanton Museum of Art exhibited her painting Yellow Dawn (1975) in their Expanding Abstraction exhibit last Fall. In fact, Klein’s work was included in many of the early, seminal Pattern & Decoration exhibits in New York in the 1970s, including Pattern Painting at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1) in November of 1977.

Like so many women artists whose work refused to neatly align within the prevailing artistic tends, Gloria Klein struggled to gain recognition in the era in which she lived.

“Having felt myself to be an outsider,” she explained, in the 1970s, “I devised a system, the use of which grounded me and ordered my painting.” 1

Gloria Klein with her painting in an exhibit at 5 East Third St., 1979. Photograph by Geoffrey Biddle. © Geoffrey Biddle

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system, executed in a meticulous, timeconsuming manner. Working within this rigid set of parameters paradoxically freed the artist to experiment with color, which, as the years progressed, she began to use more intuitively, creating shimmering, allover patterns that resemble woven textiles, needlepoint, stained glass, and the pointillist technique of Georges Seurat.

Ironically, it was often the very movements that championed feminism that ended up excluding Gloria and her work. As a result, she often had trouble tting in to any one prevailing style or genre. Instead, Gloria’s paintings are resolutely her own.

allowed her to express herself whist working within a unique, intuitive vernacular. Indeed, while Klein’s work is rigorous, mathematical and systems-based, it is also tender, intimate and deeply personal.

This exhibition allows her viewers to grasp the depth and breadth of her work through a new lens, placing her within an important cadre of women artists whose work has also been reappraised in recent years, including Yayoi Kusama, Ruth Asawa and Louise Bourgeois.

Not unlike Kusama and Bourgeois, whose art was often sidelined by mainstream art, Klein suffered from emotional problems as a result. She ultimately sought refuge in an art form that was obsessive, meditative and even soothing, not unlike Kusama’s In nity Nets and Bourgeois’s Insomnia Drawings. This

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Above: Gloria Klein, Magenta Divisor, c 1976. © Gloria Klein. Below, Louise Bourgeois, Insomia, 1996. © 2021 The Easton Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY.

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“To structure the canvas, I use a grid and horizontal lines,” Gloria declared in an artist’s statement from the 1970s. “To mask this uniformity, however, I use predetermined colors in a random way.” 2 To create a painting such as Untitled (NYC 06), (1975, at left), a luminous arrangement of colorful diagonals on a bright, yellow ground, Gloria began by drawing a one-inch grid on a blank canvas.

“I draw a grid of 1” square on the canvas. In each square I place a diagonal mark in ¼-inch tape and paint over the entire surface in a single color which varies from painting to painting. The tape is removed revealing white diagonal hatch marks which are then lled in with various colors.” 3 A standard 60-inch canvas, therefore, would contain a staggering 3,600 diagonal marks.

These paintings are deeply rooted in a mathematical system. For a standard 60 inch canvas, Gloria used factors of 60 -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30 -- to distribute color, one at a time, according to its corresponding factor. Often complimentary colors were placed alongside each other, with red next to green, and so forth. “The brightest colors are put on rst and spaced furthest apart. Other colors are then added and distributed according to the factors but many hatch 4 marks are left blank at this stage.”

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As her paintings progressed, Gloria began to move away from the factor system and placed her colors more intuitively. In paintings such as Number 7 (NYC 18) (1979; front cover & p. 21), a scintillating arrangement of candy-colored hatch marks on a blue ground, the placement of each color was decided at random. This was a timeconsuming and laborious endeavor that could take weeks if not months to complete.

It was largely based upon her own innate

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Her Process

Gloria Klein, Picnic at Wards Island, 1979. Photograph by Geoffrey Biddle. © Geoffrey Biddle

mastery of the intrinsic properties of color itself. “The end result is to stretch colors to their limits,” she explained, “examining how 5 different colors work in different situations.”

Her Origins Gloria Klein is a native New Yorker, born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn, during the postwar boom of the early 1950s. Among her myriad in uences, she recalls her father’s career as a wallpaper hanger as having a formative impact on her work. It was Gloria who judged whether or not the enamel paint that her father mixed together actually matched the wallpaper’s exact hue. In the 1970s, Gloria attended Hunter College,

taking classes with the Conceptual artist Robert Barry. Barry encouraged her to think about the set of systems in which society and the world around us is organized. For Klein, this may have guided her toward developing the systems that she used to structure her paintings. Ironically, using a system of predetermined parts freed her up, allowing her to experiment with newer and more elaborate color variations and greater and more intricate patterning.

Also at Hunter, Klein was introduced to the phenomenological possibilities of color and its relationships by the artist Robert Swain.

Swain was a longtime member of what would become the “Hunter Color School,” which took a meticulous, scienti c approach to color by investigating how it is visually perceived.

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Gloria Klein, Untitled, 1979. © Gloria Klein 2021

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Gloria Klein would go on to claim ownership over the succinct diagonal marks that have become her signature, declaring in 1977: “I 6 wanted my own identity.” She continued to create these extraordinary paintings throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, with her canvases taking on ever more greater, and more elaborate patterning. In paintings like Untitled (NYC 02) (1981, see pp. 12 & 27), she creates a pixillated display of vibrant and pulsating color, where the individual one-inch hatch marks have been replaced by full color one-inch squares, arranged with the improvisatory air of a jazz musician. “She tried to push the limit of what each square of the 7 graph could hold,” the scholar Rachel Beaudoin explained. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that Gloria’s work would become associated with the Pattern & Decoration movement of the late 1970s and early ‘80s.

Robert Swain, Untitled 703, 1978. © Robert Swain, courtesy the artist, New York

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The optical quality of pure color had also been explored in the 1960s by Color Field artists, such as Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler and Kenneth Noland. Ellsworth Kelly’s early experiments with color seem particularly apt to Gloria’s work, but was not necessarily a known in uence on her paintings.

Ellsworth Kelly, Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance III, 1951. © Ellsworth Kelly, courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery

Pattern & Decoration The Pattern & Decoration movement of the late 1970s has been described as “the last genuine art movement of the Twentieth Century.” 8 In a sense, P&D was a natural outgrowth of mostly women artists who opted to reject the “emptying out” of Modernist painting that had been championed by the art critic Clement Greenberg in the 1960s. Greenberg insisted that a painting adhere only to the a priori elements of its own making -- at canvas and pigment. Early supporters of P&D, like the art critic Amy Goldin, knew that Greenberg’s reductivist parameters could not stand: “Artists are not notably renunciatory -- they don’t give up anything they want,” she declared in Arts magazine in 1966. 9 The P&D artists were a tight-knit group, based in New York and California, whose members were largely women, including Valerie Jaudon, Miriam Schapiro and Joyce Kozloff. Together they embraced color, patterning, and the traditional handicrafts of “women’s work” like ceramics, quilting, wallpaper and tapestries. Often

Gloria Klein, Untitled (NYC 27), 1981. Photograph courtesy David Richard Gallery, New York. Artwork © Gloria Klein.

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Although her paintings were included in many of the early, important P&D exhibits, including Pattern Painting at P.S.1 in November of 1977 and Decorative Art: Recent Work at Douglass College Art Gallery at Rutgers University in November of 1978, Gloria was often excluded from what she considered to be a “cliquish” group. Perhaps as a result, her work did not appear in any of the P&D exhibits after 1978.

Around that time, Gloria’s work became associated with the Criss-Cross art collective out of Boulder, Colorado. Criss-Cross was a rather quirky movement that championed the democratizing effect of pattern painting, speci cally its reliance upon a nonhierarchical system. This was in line with

Gloria Klein, Untitled (NYC 02), 1981. © Gloria Klein

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childhood memories served as source material, with in uences seemingly everywhere -- on carpets, on walls, printed fabric, Persian miniatures, trips to the department store or a visit to Grandmother’s house. “Everything,” as Robert Kushner explained, “that was left out of Janson’s 10 History of Art.”

Criss-Cross Art Communications. (Image courtesy Rule Gallery, Denver and Marfa)

their origins as a rural, hippie commune in 1963 and their collective vision of a cooperative society. Although Gloria never belonged to the commune, her work was often included with Criss-Cross because it was visually similar to those in their group, such as George Woodman, the husband of ceramicist Betty Woodman. George and Betty were close personal friends with Gloria and she often stayed with them when participating in exhibits in Boulder.

The system that Gloria adopted for use in her work was a deeply personal one. Its origins date back to the summer of 1970, stemming from a series of interpersonal relationships that had troubled her at the time. In speaking with the sculptor Mary-Ann Unger in 1978, Gloria revealed this, the fascinating origin story behind her use of diagonal hatch marks.

It indicates the rejection she felt on a personal level and even the proto-feminist motivations that spurred her on: “I began inventing this system in the summer of 1970, not because I felt organized, but because I was angry. I was sharing a beach house with

Gloria Klein, Untitled, 1979. © Gloria Klein 2021

people who irritated me — and worse, I didn’t even have a place to paint. So I sat around and drew. I would strike out on graph paper with jabbing marks. … [D]iagonals are like striking out at someone or something… [and] I think in this situation the diagonals somewhere re ected my anger at the people who were around me at the time. …. I felt isolated and was in a controlled rage doing these hatch 11 marks on graph paper.”

Gloria’s technique is revealed in a series of works on paper from the 1970s, many of which feature these slashing diagonal marks (see above, Untitled, 1979). A select group of these drawings were titled after women she either knew or knew of, including Gertrude Stein, Kate Millett, and the artist Joyce Kozloff (1979, ink on graph paper).

From a personal standpoint, the series of diagonal marks that Gloria came to develop cannot be prized apart from the era in which they were created. “With this system, I created an order in my paintings that satis ed my need to mark time [and] to place 12 myself.” Indeed, Gloria had found a way to situate herself within a world that didn’t necessarily always welcome her. The curator Rebecca Lowery, writing in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art catalog With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972-1985, from 2019, summarized this effect, writing: “[This] shift was tied to her search for an authentic artistic voice, and it 13 had a freeing effect.”

In early 1978, Gloria included one of her signature hatch mark paintings in A Lesbian

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Gloria Klein, Statement, 1978. © Gloria Klein 2021

Show at 112 Greene Street, curated by Harmony Hammond. This collaborative event proved to be one of the seminal moments in the history of queer artists’ relevance.

“Because of the attitudes in this society towards lesbians,” Hammond wrote in the exhibit’s brochure, “there were some women who felt that they could not participate, and some were forced to withdraw. …. Hopefully, this exhibition will begin to dissolve the isolation of lesbian 14artists as well as give visibility to the work.”

Gloria was also included in the “Lesbian Artists” issue of Heresies in the Fall of 1977.

Gloria’s slow and methodical application of thousands of minute marks helped her to “right the ship,” slowing down time and establishing a rational order over things. As an artistic practice, her slow, methodical application of countless individual marks can be compared to Yayoi Kusama’s In nity Nets (opposite), which she has painted, off and on, since the 1950s. Like Gloria, Kusama is single-minded and unrelenting in painting the

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In nity Nets, which she has described as stemming from the hallucinations that had plagued her since childhood -- and a subsequent feeling of depersonalization, being detached from reality. So, too, did Louise Bourgeois contend with the legions of personal memories and trauma of her childhood in the series of over two hundred drawings she produced between November 1994 and June 1995, that have become known as the Insomnia Drawings (see p. 7).

In the 1980s, Gloria’s paintings became even more ornate. As the years progressed, she began to combine her signature diagonal hatch-marks with longer diagonal lines of the same 1/4-inch width, but stretched out like thin streaks of light or skeins of yarn. She paired these with squares of varying sizes and colors. In paintings like Happy New York #4 (1982, p. 33) and Orange Pageantry (1982, p. 35), she lets loose, unleashing her full potential. It is in these paintings of the 1980s

Yayoi Kusama, Nets Blue, 1960. © YAYOI KUSAMA

that Gloria’s innate mastery of color, pattern and design comes into its own.

Gloria Klein’s work does not neatly align with any one artistic practice, but instead shares af nities with many of the radical movements coming out of New York in the 1970s. Her paintings are indebted to the Pattern & Decoration Movement and the legacy of “women’s work,” with its obsessive markmaking. Their shimmering, tessellated surfaces have been also compared to pointillism, stained glass, Illuminated Manuscripts and Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie. Conceptually, they are rooted in her early studies with Robert Barry and Robert Swain at Hunter College. Above all, her powerful body of work demonstrates her remarkable talent for inventing, and sustaining, her own, unique artistic vision.

April Richon Jacobs is an art advisor based in Austin, TX.

Endnotes: 1 G. Klein, quoted in an artist’s statement dated September 1, 2000, np.

2 G. Klein, quoted in an undated artist’s statement, circa 1975, np.

3 G. Klein, quoted in op. cit., 9/1/2000, np.

4 G. Klein, quoted in M.A. Unger, “Interview with Gloria Klein,” Criss-Cross Art Communications, No. 6 (March 1978), p. 9.

5 G. Klein, quoted in op. cit., c. 1977, np.

6 G. Klein, quoted in op. cit., c. 1977, np.

7 R. Beaudoin, in conversation with the author, March 21, 2021.

8 H. Cotter, quoted in “Scaling a Minimalist Wall with Bright, Shiny Colors,” New York Times, Jan. 15, 2008, p. E1.

9 A. Goldin, “A Note on Opticality,” Arts Magazine, May 1966; reprinted in R. Kushner, ed., Amy Goldin: Art in a Hairshirt: Art Criticism 1964–1978, Stockbridge, 2011, p. 41 10 R. Kushner, quoted in G. Adamson, “Reassessing Pattern & Decoration: The Last Art Movement of the Twentieth Century,” ArtNews, September 3, 2019.

11 G. Klein, quoted in M.A. Unger, op. cit., March 1978, p. 9.

12 G. Klein, quoted in op. cit., 9/1/2000.

13 R. S. Lowery, “In nite Progress: Criss-Cross and the Gender of Pattern Painting,” in With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art, 1972-1985, exh. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, p. 116 14 H. Hammond, quoted in A Lesbian Show: An Exhibition of Visual Art, Performances and Readings by Lesbian Artists, exh. cat., 112 Workshop, New York, Jan. 21-Feb. 11, 1978, np.

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Gloria Klein in her Chinatown studio, 1982. Photograph by Geoffrey Biddle. © Geoffrey Biddle. (Artwork © Gloria Klein)

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Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

Exhibited: New York, David Richard Gallery, Gloria Klein: Systemic Painting and Pattern, Sept. 9 - Oct. 7 2017.

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Untitled (NYC US 08) dated ‘SPRING 1974’ (on the overlap) acrylic on canvas 59 3/4 x 45 1/2 in. (151.8 x 115.6 cm.)

Painted in 1974.

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Number Seven (NYC 18) signed and dated 'Gloria Klein 1979' (on the reverse); titled, inscribed and dated again '#7 62 x 60 11/75' (on the overlap) acrylic on canvas 62 x 60 in. (157.5 x 152.4 cm.)

Painted in 1975-1979.

Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Untitled (NYC 06) Signed and dated ‘Gloria Klein 75’ (on the reverse) acrylic on canvas 62 x 60 in. (157.5 x 152.4 cm.)

Painted in 1975.

Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

Exhibited: New York, David Richard Gallery, Gloria Klein: Systemic Painting and Pattern, Sept. 9 - Oct. 7 2017.

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Untitled (NYC 16) signed and dated 'Gloria Klein 76' (on the reverse) acrylic on canvas 62 x 60 in. (157.5 x 152.4 cm.)

Painted in 1976.

Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Untitled (NYC 02) signed ‘Gloria Klein’ (on the overlap) acrylic on canvas 62 x 60 in. (157.5 x 152.4 cm.)

Painted circa 1980.

Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

Exhibited: New York, David Richard Gallery, Gloria Klein: Systemic Painting and Pattern, Sept. 9 - Oct. 7 2017.

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Untitled (NYC 14) signed and dated ‘Gloria Klein 1981’ (on the reverse); signed again ‘Gloria Klein’ (on the overlap) acrylic on canvas 62 x 60 in. (157.5 x 152.4 cm.)

Painted in 1981.

Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

Exhibited: New York, David Richard Gallery, Gloria Klein: Systemic Painting and Pattern, Sept. 9 - Oct. 7 2017.

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Untitled (NYC 27) signed and dated ’81 Gloria Klein’ (on the reverse); signed again twice ‘Gloria Klein’ (on the overlap) acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 in. (152.4 x 152.4 cm.)

Painted in 1981.

Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Happy New York #4 (NYC 12) signed, inscribed and dated ’Gloria K 1982 Happy New York #4’ (on the reverse) acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 in. (152.4 x 152.4 cm.)

Painted in 1982.

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Orange Pageantry (NYC 19) signed, titled and dated ’Gloria Klein 1982 Orange Pageantry’ (on the reverse); signed again ‘Gloria Klein’ (on the overlap) acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 in. (152.4 x 152.4 cm.)

Painted in 1982.

Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

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Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist)

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Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Butter y Shrimp (NYC 31) signed, titled and dated ’Gloria Klein 1985 Butter y Shrimp’ (on the overlap); signed again, titled again and dated again ‘Gloria Klein 1985 Butter y Shrimp’ (on the reverse) acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 in. (152.4 x 152.4 cm.)

Painted in 1985.

Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection (acquired directly from the artist)

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Magenta Divisor signed and titled ‘Magenta Divisor Gloria Klein’ (lower edge) marker on paper 11 x 17 in. (28 x 43 cm.)

Executed circa 1976.

Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection (acquired directly from the artist)

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Floridian Cage signed, titled and dated ‘Floridian Cage - 7/79 Gloria Klein’ (lower edge) ink on paper 11 x 17 in. (28 x 43 cm.)

Executed in 1979.

Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection (acquired directly from the artist)

Exhibited: New York, David Richard Gallery, Gloria Klein: Systemic Painting and Pattern, Sept. 9 - Oct. 7 2017.

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Untitled signed and dated ‘Gloria Klein 6-5-79’ (lower right) ink and acrylic on paper 11 x 17 in. (28 x 43 cm.)

Executed in 1979.

Provenance: The artist, New York Private collection (acquired directly from the artist)

Exhibited: New York, David Richard Gallery, Gloria Klein: Systemic Painting and Pattern, Sept. 9 - Oct. 7 2017.

Gloria Klein (b. 1936) Statement signed, titled and dated ‘Statement Gloria Klein 10-78’ (lower edge) ink on graph paper 11 x 17 in. (28 x 25.4 cm.)

Executed in 1978.

1936 Gloria Klein is born in Brooklyn, New York. She spends most of her childhood in Brownsville, a workingclass neighborhood in East Brooklyn that is bordered by Crown Heights and Bedford Stuyvesant. Her father works as a general contractor. He does carpentry work, painting interiors and hanging wallpaper.

He often asks Gloria if the interior enamel paint he’s mixed is a good match to the corresponding wallpaper he will hang as part of a day’s work.

1959 Attends the Brooklyn Museum School of Art, a professional educational program that provided art instruction as part of the Brooklyn Museum from 1941 to 1985. The school later was later folded into the Pratt Institute’s Continuing Education Division. Notable students include William Baziotes, Max Beckmann, Marisol and Robert Smithson. Gloria attends classes until 1960.

June, 1959: Gloria receives her Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Brooklyn College.

1962, 1968 Attends classes at the Art Students League, NYC.

1969 Studies with the Russian émigré and painter Evsa Model (1899-1976). Model was married to the photographer Lisette Model. His particular brand of geometric abstraction stemmed from his early days in Paris in the 1920s. Gloria studies with Evsa Model from 1969 to 1970.

1970 Begins classes at Hunter College, where she studies with Conceptual artist Robert Barry (b. 1936). As a Conceptual artist, Barry and other ‘70s artists began to question the societal and economic systems that dictate the terms of the art object. This allowed for new types of artworks, like installation, performance and time- or sound-based works. In his art, Barry has focused on non-art objects like radio waves and even telepathy. Gloria begins to evaluate the invisible systems of the larger world around us.

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Chronology

1971 Group Exhibition: “Artists of the Region,” East Hampton, NY

1973 Receives her M.A. in Art from Hunter College in June of 1973 Group Exhibition: “Group Show,” Hunter College, New York, NY

1974 Group Exhibitions: “Group Show,” Hansen Galleries, New York, NY Stratton Arts Festival Exhibition,” Stratton, VT (Sept. 21 - Oct. 20)

1975 Group Exhibitions: “Group Exhibition,” Walker Street Gallery, New York, NY (April 5 - May 15) “Women Artists of 1975,” Hansen Galleries, New York, NY (Sept.

19 - Oct. 12) “Works on Paper - Women Artists,” The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (Sept. 24 - Nov. 9) “Ten Downtown Series,” New York (a selection of ten artists’ studios in lower Manhattan) “Group Show,” Hansen Galleries, New York, NY

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Group Exhibition: “Artists of the Region,” East Hampton, NY

Also at Hunter College, Gloria studied with the artist Robert Swain (b. 1940). Swain was a longtime member of the “Hunter Color School,” which took a meticulous, scienti c approach to color by investigating how it is visually perceived. Through Swain, Gloria was introduced to the phenomenological possibilities of color and its relationships, and was often singled out from the group in order to conduct one-on-one studies of color with Swain directly.

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1977 Over the summer, Gloria organizes the 10th Anniversary of the “10 Downtown” series. “10 Downtown” was an invitationonly series of open studios in lower Manhattan. In 1977, the series celebrated its 10th anniversary with an exhibit sponsored by MoMA. Lawrence Alloway wrote the catalogue essay and Gloria largely organized the participants. It opened on September 11. “Ten Downtown/Ten Years,” P.S.1., Long Island City, NY (Sept. 11- Oct. 2) On November 14, Gloria’s work was featured in one of the very rst Pattern & Decoration exhibits in New York, called “Pattern Painting,” at P.S.1. Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City. Artists included Valerie Jaudon, Joyce Kozloff, Robert Kushner, Miriam Schapiro and Arlene Slavin. Gloria exhibited one of her signature hatch-mark paintings. “Pattern Painting,” P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island, NY (Nov. 14 – Dec. 4) Gloria’s work is featured in the “Lesbian Artists” issue of Heresies, the feminist art journal, in the Fall.

Group Exhibitions: “16th Bradley National Print & Drawing Exhibition,” Bradley University School of Art, Peoria, IL (Feb. 25 – Mar. 20) “Whitney Counterweight: Another Vision” New York, NY (March 12 – April 1) “Drawing & Sculpture Show,” Sharadin Art Gallery at Kutztown State College, Kutztown, PA (May 8 - 29)

1978 On January 21, Gloria participates in “A Lesbian Show,” curated

by Harmony Hammond, exhibiting one of her signature hatch-

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Group Exhibitions: “Contemporary Re ections,” The Aldrich Museum, Ridge eld, CT “New York Artists,” University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Madison, WI

1976

Group Exhibitions: “Development in the Criss-Cross Group,” Alain Bilhaud Gallery, New York, NY (Feb. 10 – Mar. 7) “Criss-Cross Pattern Show,” 5 East 3 Street, New York, NY (April 24 – May 3) “Six Painters,” Organization of Independent Artists, New York, NY (Dec. 20, 1978 – Feb. 16,1979) “City Show,” Organization of Independent Artists, New York, NY “Museum’s Choice,” Lochhaven Art Center, Orlando, FL “Pattern Works on Paper,” Hillyer Art Gallery, Smith College, Amherst, MA “Artists’ Books, USA,” Independent Curators, Inc., New York, NY

In March, Gloria is interviewed by the sculptor Mary-Ann Unger for the March Issue of Criss-Cross Art Communications.

This is the artist’s only known interview of the 1970s and ‘80s.

1979

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In November of 1979, Gloria is given a solo exhibition, at Josef Gallery in New York City.

“Gloria Klein: Pattern Paintings,” Josef Gallery, New York, NY (Nov. 13 - 24)

Gloria participates in several Pattern & Decoration exhibits in 1978, including “Pattern on Paper” at Gladstone/Villani Gallery in October and “Decorative Art: Recent Works” at Douglass College Art Gallery at Rutgers. This will mark her nal exhibit with P&D, however, as her work was not included in any P&D exhibits after 1978. “Decorative Art: Recent Works,” Douglass College Art Gallery, Rutgers University, NJ (Nov. 20 – Dec. 8)

mark paintings. This collaborative event proved to be one of the seminal moments in the history of queer artists’ relevance.

“Because of the attitudes in this society towards lesbians,” Hammond wrote in the exhibit’s brochure, “there were some women who felt that they could not participate, and some were forced to withdraw. ....Hopefully, this exhibition will begin to dissolve the isolation of lesbian artists as well as give visibility to the work.” “A Lesbian Show - An exhibition of Visual Art, Performances and Readings by Lesbian Artists,” 112 Workshop, New York (Jan. 21 - Feb. 11)

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Group Exhibitions: “Development in the Criss-Cross Group,” Alain Bilhaud Gallery, New York, NY (Feb 10 - March 7) “Criss-Cross Pattern Show,” 5 East 3 Street, New York, NY (April 24 - May 3) “Gloria Klein & Buf e Johnson,” Gallery 700, Milwaukee, WI “The Criss-Cross Pattern Project,” Boulder Arts Center, Boulder, CO (Nov. 7 – Dec. 5) “118 Artists,” Landmark Gallery Inc., New York, NY (Dec. 15, 1979 – Jan. 3, 1980)

1980 Group Exhibitions: “Group Show,” Hansen Galleries, New York, NY (Feb. 1 – 29) “Systemic Patterning,” Hansen Galleries, New York, NY (March 1 – 31) “Third Wave,” Hibbs Gallery, New York, NY “New York Pattern Show,” Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, IL

1981 Group Exhibitions: “Criss-Cross Multi-Disciplinary Event,” Millennium Film Workshop, New York, NY (Feb. 22) “Heresies 2nd Annual Art Bene t,” Grey Art Gallery, New York, NY (June 8 – 13) “Criss-Cross Artists Exhibition,” Chautauqua Park, Boulder, CO (Aug. 2 – 23) “Criss-Cross,” Yellowstone Art Center, Billings, MT (Nov. 6 – Dec. 31)

1982 Solo Exhibition: “Gloria Klein,” The Kendall Gallery, New York, NY (Dec. 16 - 29) Group Exhibitions: “The New Wave Splash,” White Plains Public Library, White Plains, NY “The Criss-Cross Group,” Alain Bilhaud Gallery, New York, NY “Heresies 3rd Annual Art Bene t,” Frank Marino Gallery, New York, NY (Sept. 21 – 25)

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Having felt shut out by the Pattern & Decoration movement, Gloria begins to exhibit more regularly with the Criss-Cross Art Collective out of Boulder, Colorado. Criss-Cross admired the democratizing effect of pattern painting, speci cally its reliance upon a non-hierarchical system. This was in line with their collective vision of a cooperative society, as well as their origins as a rural, hippie commune in 1963. Although Gloria never belonged to the commune, her work was often included with Criss-Cross because it was visually similar to those in their group, such as George Woodman, the husband of ceramicist Betty Woodman. They were friends, often receiving Gloria in their home.

1983

Group Exhibitions: “Systemic Art – Three Painters & One Sculptor,” Westchester Community College, Valhalla, NY (March 2 - 28)

1984 Group Exhibitions: “Paintings & Paintings,” Andre Zarre Gallery, New York, NY (June 15 – July 15) “Group Exhibition,” Edward Williams College, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Hackensack, NJ

1985 Solo Exhibition: “Gloria Klein Exhibit,” Center for Architecture, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, NY

1986 Solo Exhibition: “Gloria Klein,” Hudson Gallery, New York, NY Group Exhibitions: “Frames of Reference: Contemporary Abstract Painting & Sculpture,” Todd Capp Gallery, New York (April 18 - May 4) “New Paintings by Gloria Klein, Beatrice Riese, and Adrianne Wortzel,” Hudson Gallery, New York, NY (May 9 – June 7)

1988 Group Exhibition: “The Summer Exhibition 1988: Twenty-Two Artists,” Michael Walls Gallery, New York, NY (Aug. 10 - 27)

1989 Group Exhibition: “New York Kendall Gallery Art Show,” Kobe, Japan

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1993 Group Exhibition: “Over 100 Artists…,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (Dec. 1, 1993 - Jan. 8 1994)

1994 Group Exhibitions: “Group Exhibition,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (May 11 - 28) “Measure for Measure,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (July 9 – 30) “Signing,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (Jan. 15 – Feb. 19)

1995 Group Exhibition: “Kakejiku: Scrolling in New York,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (May 5 – June 1995)

1996 Group Exhibitions: “Group Exhibition,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (Jan. 19 – Feb. 17) “Kakejiku: Scrolling in New York,” Gallery Kawafune, Tokyo, Japan (Jan. 22 – Feb. 3) “Women Draw,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (April 24 – May 25) “Friends,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (Dec. 1 – 21)

1997 Group Exhibitions: “Material Girls: Gender, Process and Abstract Art Since 1970,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (Oct. 1 – Nov. 1) “Generation,” A.I.R., New York, NY (Oct. 21 – Nov. 15) “N.Y. X Japan,” Gallery Guute, Hiroshima and Gallery Marya, Osaka, Japan (Aug. 7 – 28) “Pieces,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (July 1 – 31)

1998 Group Exhibitions: “50:50,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (March 4 – April 4) “Freak of Nature,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (June 11 – July 2) “Pieces 2,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (July 8 – 31)

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“Local Color,” Henry Street Settlement, New York, NY (Oct. 16 – Nov. 22) “The Mind is Its Own Place,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (Dec. 4, 1998 – Jan. 3, 1999)

1999 “Past to Present,” Gallery 128, New York, NY “Universal Communicative,” Gallery 128, New York, NY “Pieces 3,” Gallery 128, New York, (July 8 – 31)

2000 Solo Exhibition: “Structural Madness: Gloria Klein Paintings and Drawings,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (Oct. 4 – 28) Group Exhibitions: “Fast Forward,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (Jan. 5 – 30) “Local Papers,” Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, Brooklyn, NY (Feb. 5 – 27) “Pieces 4,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (June 7 – July 29) “Galaxy 128,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (Dec. 19, 2000 – Jan. 14, 2001)

2001 Solo Exhibition: “Paradise Found: Gloria Klein Drawings,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (April 25– May 19)

2002 Group Exhibitions: “New Work/New Year,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (Jan. 4 – 31) “Three on a Match,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (May 1 – 25)

2003 Solo Exhibitions: “Color Geo-Matrix,” Gallery 128, New York, NY “Gloria Klein: Patterns on Paper,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (Nov. 5 – 29)

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2005 Group Exhibitions: “The Halpert Biennial Exhibition,” Catherine J. Smith Gallery, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC (June 6 - Sept. 16) “New Directions ’05,” The Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY (Oct. 22 – Nov. 19)

2007 Group Exhibition: “GeoMetrics,” Gallery 128, New York, NY

2009 Group Exhibition: “GeoMetrics II,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (March 18 – April 18)

2010 Group Exhibition: “Geometric Themes & Variations,” Gallery 128, New York, NY (March 17 – April 10)

2017 Solo Exhibition: “Gloria Klein: Pattern Painting 1975-1983,” David Richard Gallery, Santa Fe, NM (Sept.

4 - Oct 2)

2018 Group Exhibition: “Systemic Patterning: Artists of the Criss-Cross Cooperative,” David Richard Gallery, New York, NY (Sept. 9 - Oct. 13)

2019 Solo Exhibition: “Gloria Klein: On Paper,” Kustera Projects, Brooklyn, NY (Feb. 14 - April 20)

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2020 Group Exhibition: “Expanding Abstraction: Pushing the Boundaries of Painting in the Americas, 1958-1983," Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, TX (Oct. 4, 2020 - Jan. 10, 2021)

Selected Bibliography 1975 Works on Paper – Women Artists, exh. cat., The Brooklyn Museum and Women in the Arts Inc., New York, 1975.

1977 April Kingsley, “Opulent Optimism," Village Voice (November 28, 1977), p. 76.

Gloria Klein, et al. “Lesbian Art & Artists: Visual Art Portfolio,” Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Fall 1977), p. 77.

John Russell, “Artists in School for ‘10 Downtown,’” The New York Times (September 16, 1977) p. C5.

1978 Lawrence Alloway, 10 Downtown 10 Years, exh. cat., PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, 1978.

Gloria Klein and Mary Ann Unger, “Interview with Gloria Klein,” Criss-Cross Art Communications, No. 6 (March 1978), pp. 8-11.

Gloria Klein, et. al., “Statements by Lesbian Artists,” exh. cat., 112 Workshop, New York, 1978.

“Lesbian Art,” The SoHo Weekly News (February 2, 1978), p. 20.

J.M. Saslow, “‘A Lesbian Show’ Catalogs Current Art Trends,” GaysWeek (February 13, 1978) p. 11.

Amy Whitney, “Gloria Klein,” in Decorative Art: Recent Works, exh. cat., Douglass College Art Gallery, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 1978, pp. 20-23.

Ann Woolfolk, "Douglass Presents 'Lush Display' of 11 Artists’ Work," Time Off, November 22-23, 1978, pp. 12-13.

1979 Michael Bonesteel, “Reviews: Gloria Klein & Buf e Johnson,” The New Art Examiner (June 1979), p. 5.

“Flower Power,” Milwaukee Journal Review (May 20, 1979).

Peter Frank, “Guerrilla Gallerizing,” Village Voice (May 7, 1979), p. 95.

Gloria Klein, “The Criss-Cross Pattern Project: Gloria Klein,” Criss-Cross Art Communications, Vol. 10 (1979), p. 18.

John Perrault, “Canvassing,” The SoHo Weekly News (December 13, 1979), p. 45.

1980 “Lesbian Lessons,” The SoHo News (September 10, 1980), p. 57.

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1981 Robin Bretano and Mark Savits, 112 Workshop/112 Greene Street: History, Artists and Artworks, New York: NYU Press, 1981.

Barbara Colin, “Gallery Reviews,” New York Art Journal, Vols. 25-26 (1981), pp. 47–48.

Ellen Lubell, Systemic Patterning, exh. cat., Hansen Galleries, New York, 1981.

Beverly Talbot, Ocular, Summer Quarterly (June 1, 1981).

1982 John Caldwell, “Taking a Local Look at ‘SoHo’,” The New York Times (May 23, 1982).

1998 Harmony Hammond, Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History, New York: Rizzoli, 1998.

2001 Holland Cotter, “Art Guide Reviews,” The New York Times (May 11, 2001).

2013 Tara Burk, “In Pursuit of the Unspeakable: Heresies’ “Lesbian Art & Artists” Issue, 1977, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Vol. 41 (Fall 2013), pp. 63–78.

2019 Glenn Adamson, “Pattern Recognition,” ArtNews, September 2019.

With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art, 1972-1985, exh. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (October 2019-May 2020), p. 116, Red Diamond illustrated in color.

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Photography Credits: © Geoffrey Biddle. Photograph by Geoffrey Biddle: p. 3 (Artwork © Gloria Klein 2021) Courtesy David Richard Gallery, New York: p. 5 (Artwork © Gloria Klein 2021) © Geoffrey Biddle. Photograph by Geoffrey Biddle: p. 6 (Artwork © Gloria Klein 2021) © Gloria Klein 2021: p. 7, upper image (Gloria Klein, Magenta Divisor, c 1976) © 2021 The Easton Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York: p.7, lower image. (Louise Bourgeois, Insomia, 1996. Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY) © Gloria Klein 2021: p. 8 (Gloria Klein, Untitled (NYC 06), 1975, detail) © Geoffrey Biddle. Photograph by Geoffrey Biddle: p. 9 © Ellsworth Kelly, courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery: p. 10, upper right © Robert Swain, courtesy Robert Swain, New York. Photograph by Yau Zu Lu: p. 10, lower left Courtesy David Richard Gallery, New York: p. 11 (Artwork © Gloria Klein 2021) Courtesy Rule Gallery, Denver & Marfa: p. 12, upper right © Gloria Klein 2021: p. 12, lower left (Gloria Klein, Untitled (NYC 14), 1981) © Gloria Klein 2021: p. 13 (Gloria Klein, Untitled, 1979) © YAYOI KUSAMA: p. 14, lower right © Geoffrey Biddle. Photograph by Geoffrey Biddle: p. 15 (Artwork © Gloria Klein 2021) Courtesy the family of Gloria Klein: p. 48. © Gloria Klein 2021 Courtesy The Gloria Klein Archives: p. 49 (Works on Paper: Women Artists) Courtesy The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridge eld, CT: p. 50, top image (Contemporary Re ections) Courtesy The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York: p. 50: middle image (10 Downtown 10 Years) Courtesy The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York: p. 50: lower image (Pattern Painting pins) Courtesy The Gloria Klein Archives, New York: p. 51: upper and lower images (Statements by Lesbian Artists & Douglass College brochure cover) All Gloria Klein Artwork © Gloria Klein 2021

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Special Thanks: RACHEL BEAUDOIN GEOFFREY BIDDLE TRACY BOYD ABBY BRESLER ERIN BUCZYNSKI AT BRADLEY UNIVERSITY GALLERIES IN PEORIA, IL HALEY COHEN VICKI COOKSEY AT BRADLEY UNIVERSITY IN PEORIA, IL PAMELA EATON SARA FRIEDLANDER CLAIRE HOWARD, VERONICA ROBERTS & CARTER E. FOSTER AT THE BLANTON MUSEUM OF ART IN AUSTIN, TX MARY KENEALY AT THE ALDRICH CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM IN RIDGEFIELD, CT. MEG MINER AT THE AMES LIBRARY IN BLOOMINGTON, IL. THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART ARCHIVES, NEW YORK TAYLOR NEMETZ DAVID RICHARD GALLERY, NEW YORK & SANTA FE VALERIE SANTERLI AT RULE GALLERY, MARFA & DENVER RYAN SPETH ROBERT SWAIN

MOST SINCERE AND HUMBLE THANKS TO GLORIA KLEIN AND HER FAMILY FOR SHARING HER LIFE’S WORK WITH US

CATALOGUE RESEARCH & DESIGN BY APRIL RICHON JACOBS

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MAKING MARKS, MARKING TIME VIEWING SCHEDULE THURSDAY JUNE 17 2021 THRU WEDNESDAY JUNE 30 2021 HOURS Monday - Friday 10am - 5pm TICKETS MUST BE RESERVED IN ADVANCED VIA THE FOLLOWING LINK:

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