Charles DuBack
OFF THE WALL, THE EARLY YEARS 1950–1976
Eric Firestone Press 2023
Essay by Susan Danly
Off the Wall: Charles DuBack’s Early Work
by Susan Danly
Like many young artists in New York City during the 1950s and 1960s, Charles DuBack experimented with several seemingly contradictory approaches to contemporary painting. From formal color field abstractions to playful, folk art-inspired figural images, DuBack worked with unusually shaped geometric canvases and multifaceted polyptychs, as well as ordinary rectangular ones to which he applied low relief objects and collaged elements. These features are nowhere more evident than in his oversized, autobiographic self-portrait (pl. 20) in which he wryly shows himself smoking a corn cob pipe, holding a fishing rod fabricated out of wood and metal that has been affixed to the canvas, and wearing a favorite, well-worn, softly slouched hat. The background of color field stripes is a direct reference to his earliest works and his lifelong fascination with color relationships. The attached fishing rod is a reference to the artist’s growing interest in trompe l’oeil (trick of the eye) elements. This exhibition and accompanying essay explore the full range of DuBack’s experimentation, from his distinctive approach to color to his lighthearted use of the human figure and the visual impact of large, multipart canvases that occupy far more than the flat plane of the wall (fig. 1). DuBack often referred to the distinctive collaged elements attached to his paintings as “projections” and frequently varied the perspective in his multipart constructions so that the viewer is afforded variant perspectives.
DuBack’s early connections to other artists in the burgeoning New York gallery scene, his close friendship with those who were beginning to forge new relationships with New York and Maine, and his openness to vernacular subjects shaped his art in the late 1950s and 1960s. Although he grew up in suburban Connecticut; went to art schools in New Haven, Newark, and Brooklyn; and shared a studio building with other artists on 28th Street in Manhattan, it was his love of fly-fishing, sailing, vernacular architecture, and the rural landscape of Maine that eventually came to dominate his visual world.
Born in Fairfield, Connecticut, to Czechoslovakian immigrant parents, the eldest of ten children, DuBack joined the Navy at the end of World War II (1944–46) shortly after graduating from high school. With financial support from the GI Bill, Charlie (as he was known to family and friends) attended the Whitney School of Fine Arts in New Haven, the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art in New Jersey, and the Brooklyn Museum Art School in New York. The turning point in his early art training came during the summers of 1950 and 1951, which he spent at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. The combination of Skowhegan’s rural setting, its emphasis on both painting and sculpture, and DuBack’s contact with other up-and-coming New York artists would set the path for the remainder of his career.
Among the friends he made at Skowhegan were Alex Katz, Bernard Langlais, Lois Dodd, and Daphne Mumford, whom he married in 1953 (pl. 17). All of them would develop strong ties to Maine over the coming decades.1
Fig. 1 Charles DuBack in front of Up The Bowsprit with his leg propped on a panel of The Wall in his Maine studio, c. 1973. DuBack Archives
Dinner invitation with request to bring his Skill saw and extension cord.
During the early 1950s, Mumford and DuBack lived in a New York City studio building above a commercial lumber yard at 212 West 28th Street, sharing the building with Katz, who was on the second floor, and Langlais on the third. Not only did they mix their social lives and ideas about contemporary art (figs. 2–4), but they all joined the growing artist-run New York gallery scene that arose during this period in the nearby 10th Street neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. At that time, DuBack supported his painting career working as a framer for the Roko Gallery, where he had his first solo exhibition in 1955 (fig. 5).
In a review of that exhibition, the noted artist and critic Fairfield Porter compared DuBack’s paintings to those of Matisse and perspicaciously observed that:
[DuBack’s] point of view about painting is of the most radical use of color and value. To be radical it is necessary also to be accurate, and this he is, much more than most either abstract or realist painters. . . . Though his subject is recognizable, his accurate eye for relationships makes his work count most in its abstract aspect, and its realism is relatively unimportant. 2
Lois Dodd, DuBack’s Skowhegan colleague and neighbor on 29th Street in New York, was also a founding member of Tanager Gallery in 1952. The connection undoubtedly helped secure the artist’s second solo exhibition, held there in 1958. The same year, DuBack and some of his fellow Skowhegan friends—Tom Boutis,
Fig. 2 Postcard from Alex Katz and Lois Dodd to Charles DuBack and Daphne Mumford, 1958.
DuBack Archives
pl. 9. DuBack
Fig. 3 From left to right: Helen Langlais and John Grillo, Shirley Soffer and Bernard Langlais, Daphne Mumford and Charles DuBack, and Sasson Soffer, New Year’s Eve, 1960. See
Archives
Fig. 4 Alex Katz and Jean Cohen in foreground with Shirley Bowman, Tom Boutis, and Charles DuBack seated at the table at a loft party on 28th Street in New York, c. 1951–53. DuBack Archives
Fig. 5 Alex Katz and Jean Cohen posing at a table with two unknown women, Tom Boutis, Bernard Langlais, and Shirley Bowman, c. 1951–53. DuBack Archives
Fig. 6 (Above, left) Poster for Area Gallery exhibition, 1960, showing the gallery space on 10th Street in New York City. DuBack Archives
Fig. 7 (Above, right) Area Gallery exhibition invitation to Collages , 1960. Exhibition included work by DuBack, Robert Rauschenberg, and Alex Katz, among others. DuBack Archives
Fig. 8 (Right) David Herbert Gallery exhibition catalogue for Modern Classicism, 1960. Detail with images of DuBack painting and Calder sculpture on facing pages. DuBack Archives
Joe Fiore, and Bernard Langlais—established their own cooperative exhibition space, Area Gallery, in the East Village (fig. 6). The gallery featured work by other up-and-coming New York artists, among them Robert Rauschenberg and Alex Katz, whose work in assemblage and collage, respectively, came to influence DuBack’s use of mixed media materials in his paintings (fig. 7).
In 1960, DuBack’s reputation continued to grow when the uptown David Herbert Gallery, at 14 East 69th Street, mounted a group show called Modern Classicism . The catalogue for the show featured an image of a DuBack color field painting juxtaposed with an Alexander Calder mobile (fig. 8). A series of solo shows, along with the inclusion of his work in numerous group exhibitions in the late 1950s and 1960s, combined to launch his career. He later noted the significance of these gallery shows, not only for his own work, but for those of his more prominent contemporaries:
Well, there was a spirit of discovery and how to really be a painter. . . . And a number of [artists] who were involved in the Tenth Street [scene] tried to gain access to galleries in the 57th Street area and so forth, but it just wasn’t to be at that time. So they all banded together in many ways and started these co-ops, which in turn were the fuel for the movement that was to become known as abstract expressionism. 3
DuBack went on to mention his favorite Abstract Expressionists at the time—Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko—as well as the importance of, as he put it, “individual expression” and “a very pluralistic type of approach to creativity.” These specific concepts would underlie his own experimental tactics in making art, as he moved through collage, color field, figuration, and finally, at the end of his life, a lighthearted, colorful, painterly, and abstract approach to landscape painting. Equally important in establishing DuBack’s early career were group shows at three museums: the Brooklyn Museum (1959), the Whitney Museum of American Art (1959), and the Museum of Modern Art (1962). One of his first paintings to draw critical attention among New York art reviewers was his portrait of Anne Waterhouse titled Black and White (pl. 9). Over the years, Waterhouse and her husband, Keith, would become avid collectors of DuBack’s drawings, watercolors, oils, and other works. 4 That portrait, first shown at Area Gallery in 1961, was in MoMA’s group exhibition Recent Painting USA: The Figure (fig. 9) the following year. A curated selection of 74 works from the 355 on view at MoMA were chosen by the museum’s director of collections, Alfred H. Barr Jr., to travel from New York to the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts in Ohio, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, the City Art Museum of St. Louis, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Fig. 9 Installation view of exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Recent Painting U.S.A.: The Figure, May 23, 1962–August 26, 1962.
Charles DuBack’s painting Black and White (left) at the Museum of Modern Art. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/ Licensed by SCALA/ Art Resource, NY.
Photograph by Soichi Sunami
Perhaps the most important gallery exhibitions to directly impact DuBack’s own work were the five solo shows of his work held at the Landmark Gallery during the 1970s. 5 The gallery, and its crowded openings, became the subject of some of his new, large-scale figural paintings (pls. 27, 28). These works combined DuBack’s longstanding interest in portraiture with a growing fascination with complex spatial relationships. Together these “landmark” paintings underscore the social energy and aesthetic significance that these small galleries had for many emerging New York artists. 6
The early work that most directly conveys Duback’s increasing fascination with complex spatial relationships is a large triptych entitled The Wall (pl. 26). The painting’s three panels unfold like a Japanese screen, each section depicting a separate wall set on a separate plane. The scenes are based on the interior space of his summer home in Tenants Harbor, Maine. The left-hand panel presents an oblique view of a French door through which the viewer sees a garden; the middle panel, set on another diagonal plane, depicts a wall hung with fishing waders, a winter sweater, and rubber boots, clothing often needed to traverse the Maine terrain in all seasons. The third panel is yet another trompe l’oeil scene with two doors, one closed and the other open to a stairway leading to a second floor. A cat lying at the bottom step further extends the painting into the viewer’s space.
The most direct historical precedent for such a masterful depiction/deception of interior space is Charles Willson Peale’s Staircase Group, 1795 (Philadelphia Museum of Art), which focuses on a similarly steep staircase leading upward from a narrow interior doorway. The trompe l’oeil effect in Peale’s work is enhanced by the life-sized portraits of his two artist sons, Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale, standing on the stairs. To further “fool the eye” of the viewer, C. W. Peale added a real step at the bottom of his doorway, much in the same way that DuBack added the projection of the step in The Wall.
DuBack’s Danny (pl. 19) is also filled with trompe l’oeil elements—painted stars, along with the assemblage elements of the tie, collar, and dresser drawers—that frame the sitter’s head and torso, and make this image a double portrait of the sitter both posed within the frame and reflected in a mirror. Direct references to such canonical works in American art history are rare in DuBack’s oeuvre, but can be inferred from other paintings, such as Wild Swan (pl. 18), with its female nudes arrayed on the deck of a boat much as Thomas Eakins first photographed and then painted male nudes for his iconic work Swimming, 1884–85 (Amon Carter Museum of America Art). In that painting, Eakins himself climbs out of the water to join his friends and students on the land.
DuBack’s playful use of patterned fabrics, both real and trompe l’oeil, is also a distinctive feature of his work
Fig. 10 Charles DuBack in front of The Coopers, 1970, currently in the Portland Museum of Art, Maine. DuBack Archives
during this period. While some of his contemporaries, like Rauschenberg, freely used assemblage elements to construct abstract compositions, DuBack in the late 1960s and 1970s began to use fabric as a means to further complicate the hyperrealist trompe l’oeil effect in his more representational paintings, such as Tights and Life, 1969, Two Nudes, 1970s, and Up the Bowsprit, 1970 (pl. 22). The viewer must sort out what is painted and what is collaged, what creates the illusion of three dimensions and what is actually a three-dimensional object, what is flat and what is in relief. This confounding of pictorial elements reaches an apogee in two large group portrait compositions: The Coopers from 1970 (fig. 10 and pl. 21) and another untitled scene with members of an old-time brass band, painted around 1969. Based on a small, 19th-century daguerreotype that DuBack discovered in a barn in Maine, The Coopers is nominally a life-sized group portrait of barrel makers, rigidly posed as they confront a camera lens. The seriousness of their expressions is undermined by the bits of real work clothes (from DuBack’s own closet) and the dainty, three-dimensional paper poppies that they hold, along with the painted wooden tools of their trade.
The larger, three-panel painting (18 feet wide by 6 feet high), depicting a brass band, is a group portrait that similarly defines its historic subject by the figures’ distinctive clothing and the instruments that they hold (pl. 10). The figures are arranged along the front plane of the picture, with a flat background that recalls DuBack’s earlier color field abstractions. When this picture was first displayed at Maine Coast Artists in 1969 (now the Center for Contemporary Art [CMCA] in Rockland, Maine), DuBack also included two other freestanding, cut-out figures, dressed in street clothes and seated on a set of speakers placed on the floor in front of the painting. The speakers emitted band music and a contemporary newspaper account mentions that an added element of motion further enhanced the realism of the scene.7
Founded in 1952, CMCA remains a leading exhibition space for contemporary art in Maine and, over the years, it has consistently featured DuBack’s work in its annual group summer shows. This increasing involvement with CMCA coincided with a more permanent relationship with the state. DuBack and Daphne Mumford had first purchased a house in North Waldoboro in 1954 and then a
larger home on the water in Tenants Harbor in 1965. Originally these were summer residences, but by the 1990s DuBack had abandoned his New York studio and begun to divide his time between Maine and Florida. Along with numerous gallery shows in Maine from the 1960s until his death in 2015, his work has been featured in several museum exhibitions, including a retrospective at CMCA in 2003 and a solo show at the Portland Museum of Art in 2008, both of which focused on his early paintings and collaged works on paper from the 1950s.
It was during the early decades of his career, when DuBack split his time between New York City and coastal Maine, that his art was at its most experimental and challenging. It can be argued that his mature work emerged during this time from the tensions between urban and rural, between realism and abstraction, and between the intellectual life of New York’s vibrant and informal cooperative gallery scene and the rise of establishment “art stars” promoted by uptown dealers. In the end, DuBack opted for the former, creating a body of work that was inventive, challenging, and more often than not filled with humor and lively visual conversations about the American art scene—both past and present.
Notes
1. For a recent discussion of the importance of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture for New York artists who developed lasting ties to the state, see the exhibition catalogue Slab City Rendezvous (Rockland, ME: The Rockland Museum of Art, 2019).
2. The exhibition was reviewed in Art News in 1955. For a selection of other exhibition reviews, see the DuBack Archives, www.charlesduback.com. Also cited in the gallery brochure DuBack’s Odyssey Review (Rockland, ME: Center for Maine Contemporary Art, 2003), 5. In a brief summary of his career, DuBack later remarked on Porter’s early comments, saying, “This quote holds as true today as it did then.” Letter from Charles DuBack to the author, July 31, 2008.
3. See transcription of interviews with Susan Larsen and Charles DuBack on December 17, 2004, and May 18, 2005. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/ charles-s-duback-papers-7601.
4. Letter from Charles DuBack to the author, July 31, 2008.
5. See DuBack Archives for a selection of exhibition announcements of the artist’s exhibitions at the Landmark Gallery, where he frequently showed his work in the 1970s.
6. See Melissa Rachleff, Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City (1952–1965) (New York: DelMonico Books/Grey Art Gallery, 2017).
7. Undated clippings from Rockland, Maine, newspaper with a detailed description of Maine Coast Artists 1969 installation of the work that mentions both the added elements of sound and movement, DuBack Archives.
SUSAN DANLEY is an independent curator from Gorham, Maine.
2
HORSE PULL, UNION FAIR C. 1955
OIL ON CANVAS
52 X 48 INCHES
AMANDA
4 1, 2, 3 GOLDENROD 1959
OIL ON CANVAS
52 X 52 INCHES
83 X 67 INCHES
BLACK AND WHITE (ANNE WATERHOUSE) 1960
OIL ON CANVAS
DAPHNE 1960
OIL ON CANVAS 20¾ X 16 INCHES
8 MODEL 1963
OIL ON CANVAS
58½ X 45 INCHES
OIL ON CANVAS
63 X 75¾ INCHES
COLLECTION OF THE COLBY COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART
BAND C . 1968
THE
OIL ON CANVAS WITH APPLIED GOLD LEAFED STYROFOAM, WITH SOUND 96 X 216 INCHES OVERALL, 96 X 72 INCHES EACH
The Band shown complete with accompanying sculpture at Maine Coast Artists Gallery Rockport, Maine, 1969 group exhibition.
Charles DuBack in his studio at 304 Bowery, New York, NY, c. 1970. Photo by Arthur Christie
NORTH BROTHER 1960
OIL ON CANVAS
75 X 83 INCHES
RIP 1961
OIL ON CANVAS
82 X 48 INCHES
FIRST BORN C. 1966
OIL ON CANVAS WITH APPLIED WALLPAPER, WOOD, AND CLOTH 58 X 47 INCHES
HELLO C. 1968
OIL ON CANVAS AND WOOD
98 X 60 INCHES
82 X 72 INCHES
DAPHNE SAILING 1970
OIL AND WOOD ON CANVAS WITH APPLIED SAILCLOTH AND ROPE
DuBack in front of Daphne Sailing in his studio at 304 Bowery. Photo by Daphne Mumford, DuBack Archives
93 INCHES
WILD SWAN C. 1970
OIL AND WOOD ON CANVAS WITH APPLIED STYROFOAM, ROPE, METAL, AND CLOTH
72 X
OIL ON CANVAS WITH APPLIED MIXED MEDIA
52 X 70 INCHES
DANNY (YALE) 1965
OIL ON LINEN AND BOARD WITH APPLIED FABRIC
66¾ X 62¼ INCHES
SELF PORTRAIT C. 1966
21 THE COOPERS 1970
OIL ON CANVAS WITH APPLIED FABRIC, WOOD, PAPER, ROPE, AND CARDBOARD 94 X 126 INCHES
COLLECTION OF THE PORTLAND MUSEUM OF ART, PORTLAND, ME
PRIVATE COLLECTION, PROMISED GIFT ON LONG-TERM LOAN TO THE MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ART
JIMMY AND THE AREA C. 1969
OIL ON LINEN WITH COLLAGE, PAPER, AND FELT
X 79 INCHES
TWO NUDES C. 1974
OIL ON CANVAS
THE WALL (THREE PANELS) 1973
ACRYLIC ON CANVAS WITH WOOD, CLOTHING, AND WOOD PROJECTIONS
94 ½ X 160 INCHES OVERALL, 94½ X 22, 94½ X 66, 94½ X 72 INCHES EACH
OIL ON CANVAS WITH APPLIED STYROFOAM AND WOOD 72 X 80 INCHES
PORTRAIT (TOPSY) 1967
OIL ON CANVAS WITH APPLIED MIXED MEDIA
40 X 38½ INCHES
SMILE C. 1968
OIL ON CANVAS WITH APPLIED FABRIC
X 48 INCHES
AMANDA C. 1969
OIL ON CANVAS
78 X 72 INCHES
ADAM AND EVE 1970
ACRYLIC, WOOD, AND FELT ON CANVAS 96 X 120 INCHES
Installation view of studio at 304 Bowery in New York for Ten Downtown, 1970. Paintings from left to right: Adam and Eve, and Wild Swan, 1970. Photo by Charles DuBack/DuBack Archives
Charles DuBack
b. Fairfield, Connecticut, 1926;
d. Tenants Harbor, Maine, 2015
EDUCATION
Whitney School of Fine Arts, New Haven, CT
Newark School of Fine & Industrial Arts, Newark, NJ
Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME
Brooklyn Museum Art School, Brooklyn, NY
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2015 Granite Gallery, Tenants Harbor, ME
Charles DuBack: Modern Master, Keefe House Gallery at the Woodman, Dover, NH
2013 Yvette Torres Fine Art, Rockland, ME
2011 Abstraction , Mars Hall Gallery, Martinsville, ME
We the People , Mars Hall Gallery, Martinsville, ME
Drawing Show, Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland, ME
2010 Miriam Ferrandes Gallery, Miami, FL
2009
Mars Hall Gallery, Tenants Harbor, ME
Charles DuBack: Coming to Maine , Portland Museum of Art, ME
Aarhus Gallery, Belfast, ME
Various Times , June Fitzpatrick Gallery, Portland, ME
Lines , Widgeon Cove Gallery, Harpswell, ME
2008 Jameson Modern, Portland, ME
2006 Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
2004 Nature, the Master Teacher, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME
Re: Working the Landscape: Charles DuBack and John Imber, Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
2003 Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
Maine Collages , Round Top Center for the Arts, Damariscotta, ME
Ernden Fine Art Gallery, Provincetown, MA
Nature, the Master Teacher, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME
2001 O’Farrell Gallery, Brunswick, ME
1999 Watercolor Notes , Maine Art Gallery, Wiscasset, ME
1998 Frick Gallery, Belfast, ME
Petrucci Gallery, Saugerties, NY
1989 Paintings and Watercolors , Petrucci Gallery, Saugerties, NY
1988 Seraphim Gallery, Englewood, NJ
1987 Bell Gallery, Rhinebeck, NY
1986 Anne Weber Gallery, Georgetown, ME
1985 Camino Real, Boca Raton, FL
1983 Suzanne Gross Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1982 Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
1981 Drawings , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
1979 Charcoal Drawings , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
Jorgensen Gallery, University of Connecticut Drawings , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
Recent Work , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
1977 Pipe Variations , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
1976 Carlson Gallery, Arnold Bernhard Arts & Humanities Center, Bridgeport, CT
Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
1975 Watercolors , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
1973 Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
1971 Smallwork , Green Mountain Gallery, New York, NY
Watercolors , Horizon Gallery, New York, NY
1970 Horizon Gallery, New York, NY
1962 Recent Paintings, Louis Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
1961 Area Gallery, New York, NY
1959 Area Gallery, New York, NY
1958 Tanager Gallery, New York, NY
1955 Roko Gallery, New York, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 13 American Artists: A Celebration of Historic Work , New York, NY
2019 Shape, Rattle & Roll , Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, NY
2008 Landing Gallery, Rockland, ME
2007 Up from New York , Gallery 170, Damariscotta, ME
Downtown Gallery, Washington, ME
2006 Audubon Society, Falmouth, ME
National Academy, New York, NY
Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
2005 Maine Discovery Museum, Bangor, ME
Round Top Gallery, Damariscotta, ME
The 10th Annual Holiday Show, Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
2004 Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME
River Tree Gallery, Kennebunk, ME
2002 Past—Present—Future , Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME
Finn Gallery, Greenwich, CT
Ernden Fine Art Gallery, Provincetown, MA
2001 Maine Coast Artist , Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME
2000 Maine & The Modern Spirit , Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY
Maine Mountain Group Show, O’Farrell Gallery, Brunswick, ME
1998 The Fine Arts of Summer, Round Top Center for the Arts, Damariscotta, ME
1997 The Figure Exhibition , Maine Art Gallery, Wiscasset, ME
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME
1996 The Maine Legacy, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
1994 Maine Coast Artist , Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME
1993 Maine Coast Artist , Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME
1992 167th Annual Exhibition , National Academy of Design, New York, NY
1990 National Academy of Design, New York, NY
1989 National Drawing Show, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN (Took Purchase Prize)
Hobe Sound Gallery, Portland, ME
1987 National Drawing Show, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN (Took Purchase Prize)
Hobe Sound Gallery, Portland, ME
3rd Annual Wildlife & Sporting Art Show, Augusta, ME
Maine Nuclear Referendum CT, Portland, ME
Farnsworth Museum Auction, Rockland, ME
Group Show, Art Fellows Gallery, ME
1986 Ingber Gallery, New York, NY
Betsy Marden Gallery, New York, NY
Marden Fine Arts, New York, NY
The Artist Native , Contemporary Images, New York, NY
1985 Gallery Camino Real, Boca Raton, FL
A Family of Portraits , Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland, ME
Art in Embassies , Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa
5th Artfellows Summer Invitational , Artfellows, Belfast, ME
1984 Kornbluth Gallery, New York, NY
1983 6 Artists in Maine , William A. Farnsworth Art Museum and Library, Rockland, ME
1982 National Academy of Design, New York, NY
Tenth Anniversary Exhibition , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
The Chair Show, Thorpe Intermedia Gallery, Sparkill, NY
Drawings , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
1981 The Chair Show, Thorpe Intermedia Gallery, Sparkill, NY
New Dimensions in Drawing , The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2nd Artfellows Summer Invitational , Artfellows at the Oddfellows, Belfast, ME
Drawings , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
Eight with Nature , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
1980 Drawings , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
1979 Drawings , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
Sculpture , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
1978 A View from the Center, Bayonne Jewish Community Center, Bayonne, NJ
Painting and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN
Drawings: Works on Paper by Young and Established Masters , Marie Pellicone Gallery, New York, NY
Tenth Street in 1977, Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
1977 10 Painters of Maine , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
Drawings , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
Maine Coast Artists , Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, Maine
10 Downtown , P.S.1., Institute of Art and Urban Resources, Queens, New York
10 Downtown 10 Years , 112 Workshop, Inc., New York, NY; Hadassah, Westwood, NJ
1976 Drawings , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
118 Show, Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
Verle #2, Hartford, CT
Ouvrez la Fenêtre!, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
1975 Subject Matter, Landmark Gallery, NY
118 Show, Landmark Gallery, NY
Drawing Show, Landmark Gallery, NY
Works on Paper, Weatherspoon Gallery, Greensboro, NC
1974 A Soho Sampler, 63rd Annual Contemporary American Painting Exhibition, Randolph Macon Woman’s College, Lynchburg, VA
Soho a So , 20th Annual Contemporary American Painting Exhibition, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA
Maine Coast Artists , Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME
1973
Kenneth Campbell and Charles DuBack , Landmark Gallery, New York, NY
Childe Hassam Fund Purchase Exhibition , Academy Art Gallery, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
1971 Tanager 1952–62 , Roko Gallery, New York, NY
1970 Print Show, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Ten Downtown , New York, NY
1969 Main Coasts Gallery, New York, NY
1968 Horizon Gallery, New York, NY
1967 Four Directions , Carlsson Gallery, NY
1966 Group Show, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, New York, NY
1962 Louis Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
Out of Doors: Landscape , Kornblee Gallery, New York, NY
Recent American Drawings , Louis Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
Recent Painting U.S.A.: The Figure , Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
1961 Area Invitational , Area Gallery, New York, NY
Holiday Exhibition, Louis Alexander Gallery, New York, NY
Member’s Show, Area Gallery, New York, NY
1960 Brooklyn and Long Island Artists Biennial Exhibition , Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Modern Classicism, David Herbert Gallery, New York, NY
Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting , Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Roko Gallery, New York, NY
Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York, NY
SPRING Area Gallery, New York, NY
1959 Area Xmas Show, Area Gallery, New York, NY
Twentieth Biennial International Watercolor Exhibition, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Two Members Show, Area Gallery, New York, NY
Collage and Construction, Union College, Schenectady, NY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Painting . Exh. Cat., The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1959.
Ashton, Dore, “Group Shows and One-Man Exhibitions Offer Various Rewards in Painting,” The New York Times , February 24, 1958.
Bernitz, Jacqueline, “Ten Downtown 1970,” ARTS Magazine , p. 67.
B.O.D., “Summary of Recent Art Show Openings,” The New York Times , November 10, 1962, p. 16.
Brooklyn and Long Island Artists . Exh. Cat., The Brooklyn Museum, New York, January 1960.
Burkhardt, Edith, review of Charles DuBack at Area Gallery, ARTNews , November 1959, p. 63.
Burkhardt, Edith, review of group show at Tanager Gallery, ARTNews , April 15, 1955, p. 66.
C.B., “DuBack at RoKo,” New York Herald Tribune , April 30, 1955, p. 9.
C.L.F., Review of DuBack at Roko Gallery, Arts Digest , May 1, 1955, p. 24.
“CMCA presents lectures by DuBack and Katz,” The Courier-Gazette , June 26, 2003.
Cotter, Holland, “Charles DuBack,” ARTS Magazine , November 1977, p. 17.
Cotter, Holland, Charles DuBack . Exh. Cat., Landmark Gallery, New York, March 1982.
Crahan, Hubert, review of group show at Roko Gallery, ARTNews , Summer 1960, pp. 18–19.
Dunsterville, Hilary, “Art Reviews,” The Villager, November 12, 1959.
Faunce, Sarah C., review of Charles DuBack at Louis Alexander Gallery, ARTNews , December 1962, p. 56.
“Exhibitions Cross-country,” ARTNews , April 1970, p. 6.
Isaacson, Philip, “Pondering the connection, artist to artist, husband to wife,” Maine Sunday Telegram , July 20, 2003.
Isaacson, Philip, “Tonic for the Times,” Maine Sunday Telegram , November 15, 2009.
Keyes, Bob, “Unapologetic modernist goes for pure essence,” Maine Sunday Telegram , March 2, 2003.
Kramer, Hilton, “Art: David Smith, Master Draftsman,” with review of Charles DuBack at Landmark Gallery, The New York Times , December 7, 1979, p. C17.
Last, Martin, review of Charles DuBack at Horizon Gallery, ARTNews , April 1970, p. 18.
Little, Carl, “Charles DuBack at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art,” Art in America , March 2004, p. 134.
Little, Carl, “Charles DuBack: Coming to Maine,” Art New England , December 2009.
Maine and the Modern Spirit . Exh. Cat., Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY, January 2000.
May, Stephen, review of Charles DuBack at Greenhut Galleries, ARTNews , October 2006, p. 189.
McKown, Rich, “Charles DuBack: Nature, the Master Teacher,” Art New England , December 2003/January 2004, p. 23.
Modern Classicism . Exh. Cat., David Herbert Gallery, New York, February 1960.
O’Beil, review of Charles DuBack at Landmark Gallery, ARTS Magazine , March 1978, p. 30.
On the Edge: Forty Years of Maine Painting 1952–1992 . Exh. Cat., Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, ME.
Perreault, John, “Tenth Street Daze,” The Soho Weekly News , January 5, 1978, p. 22.
Porter, Fairfield, review of Charles DuBack at Roko Gallery, ARTNews , Summer 1955, p. 60.
Ratcliff, Carter, review of Charles DuBack at Horizon Gallery, ARTNews , December 1971, p. 14.
Recent Painting U.S.A.: The Figure . Exh. Cat., Museum of Modern Art , New York, May 1962.
Ries, Martin, “Charles DuBack,” ARTS Magazine , March 1982, p. 2.
Schuyler, James, review of Charles DuBack at Tanager Gallery, ARTNews , February 1958, p. 13.
Slab City Rendezvous . Exh. Cat., Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME, April 2019.
Smith, Corinna, “A Sentimental Journey,” The Villager, April 15, 1976. The Villager, February 13, 1958.
Thorp, Charlotte, review of Charles DuBack at Landmark Gallery, ARTS Magazine , June 1976, p. 33.
Twentieth Biennial International Watercolor Exhibition . Exh. Cat., The Brooklyn Museum, New York, April 1959.
Van Baron, Judith, review of Charles DuBack at Landmark Gallery, ARTS Magazine , January 1974, p. 64.
Ventura, Anita, review of Charles DuBack at Area Gallery, ARTS Magazine , November 1959, p. 64.
Ventura, Anita, review of Charles DuBack at Tanager Gallery, ARTS Magazine , February 1958, pp. 55–56.
Wolmer, Bruce, review of Charles DuBack at Green Mountain Gallery, ARTNews , February 1971, p. 18.
Young, Vernon, “Old and New Talent,” ARTS Magazine , June 1955, p. 52.
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Corcoran Legacy Collection, American University Museum, Washington, DC
Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME
New Britain Museum, Hartford, CT
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC
The Butler Museum of American Art, CT
New York City Center Gallery, New York, NY
Art in Embassies Program, Washington, DC, and abroad
Boston Mutual Life Insurance Company, Canton, MA
Junior College of Albany, Albany, NY
Emory Collection, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Prudential Insurance, Newark, NJ
Port Authority, New York, NY
Citibank, New York, NY
AT&T, New York, NY
University of West Virginia, Morgantown, WV
Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN
Westchester University, Westchester, PA
International Nickel Co., New York, NY
Acknowledgments
We thank the family of Charles DuBack, and especially his grandson Noel Camardo, for their assistance in making this exhibition catalog possible. Noel Camardo served as the primary researcher and editor for this volume, and tirelessly organized the artist’s archives, providing detailed historical information, archival content, and feedback to the gallery and the essayist at every stage of production. Thank you to Susan Danly, art historian and former Curator of the Portland Museum of Art, for her insightful essay and enthusiasm for the paintings of DuBack. Thank you to Emily Handlin, Katonah Museum of Art; and Diana Edkins from Art Resource, Museum of Modern Art for their help with archival exhibition images from the Katonah Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art. Thank you also to the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, and the Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, both Maine, for sharing images of the DuBack works in their collections.
I would like to personally thank the entire gallery staff for their tireless work to produce this exhibition catalog. None of this would be possible without them!
Eric Firestone
CHARLES DUBACK: OFF THE WALL, THE EARLY YEARS 1950–1976
ISBN: 979-8-218-22514-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023911711
Cover: Daphne Sailing, detail, 1970 (see pl. 17)
Inside Front Cover: Charles DuBack, c. 1962, DuBack Archives
Frontispiece: Charles DuBack, Walter Rosenblum Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Indside Back Cover: Charles DuBack in his studio at 304 Bowery, New York, NY, c. 1970. Photo by Arthur Christie
Back Cover: First Born , c. 1966 (see pl. 15)
Publication copyright © 2023 Eric Firestone Press
Essay copyright © 2023 Susan Danly
All artwork © Estate of Charles DuBack
Reproduction of contents prohibited
All rights reserved
Published by Eric Firestone Press
4 Newtown Lane East Hampton, NY 11937
Eric Firestone Gallery
40 Great Jones Street New York, NY 10012
646-998-3727
4 Newtown Lane East Hampton, NY 11937
631-604-2386
ericfirestonegallery.com
Principal: Eric Firestone
Director: Jennifer Samet
Managing Director: Kara Winters
Principal Photography and Image Restoration: Noel Camardo
Copyeditor: Natalie Haddad
Design: Russell Hassell, New York
Printing: Puritan Capital, New Hampshire
