GARY FAIGIN The Age of Steam
September 2021
GARY FAIGIN The Age of Steam September 2021 “The Age of Steam” is an exhibition of new paintings by Gary Faigin. Faigin, a Northwest artist and leading proponent of realist painting, focuses on the steam engine as the quintessential symbol of the Industrial Revolution. He depicts trains in a myriad of landscapes and fictional narratives, that beckon the train’s history as a fearsome and immensely powerful agent of change that linked coasts, devastated forests and buffalo herds, and even standardized time. The networks that railroads created were an earlier, physical version of today’s high-speed internet, changing the world’s concept of distance, and linking the formerly separate, like America’s East and West coasts. And yet, unlike the invisibility of the cyber world, the train has a dramatic and even theatrical physical presence, with all of its force and moving parts in plain view. Faigin’s paintings explore the two sides of this critical machine – its identity as an enormous mechanical sculpture which we cannot help but admire, while at the same time recognizing its capacity to forever alter the landscapes and people it encounters. The artist treats the train engine as a signal for the chain of man-made interventions stretching from the industrial revolution to our present day, whose linkages bring us to the current crisis of climate change. Engines with billows of ominously colored smoke trace through arctic landscapes, skirt coastal waterways, thread eroded canyons, and cut through mountainsides. Faigin doesn’t steer clear of its presence in our changing environment.
1915 First Avenue, Seattle, WA, 98101 www.harrisharveygallery.com, (206) 443-3315, staff@harrisharveygallery.com
Ed’s Express oil on panel 24 x 48 in.
Storm Warning oil on panel 30 x 40 in.
Panorama oil on panel 30 x 40 in.
Well Worn Path oil on panel 30 x 40 in.
Matterhorn oil on panel 40 x 30 in.
Shadow Play oil on panel 30 x 40 in.
Smoke Signal oil on panel 30 x 40 in.
According to Plan oil on panel 40 x 30 in.
Interruption oil on panel 30 x 40 in.
Exit Plan oil on panel 40 x 30 in.
Last Act oil on panel 30 x 60 in.
Steam Heat oil on panel 30 x 36 in.
Lower Level oil on panel 30 x 40 in.
Night and Day oil on panel 24 x 60 in.
Way Out oil on panel 30 x 40 in.
Owning the Night oil on panel 30 x 40 in.
Making an Entrance oil on panel 24 x 48 in.
Thin Ice acrylic on canvas 40 x 30 in.
Studies / Sketches
Light Fantastic oil on paper 22 x 30 in.
Study for Panorama oil on paper 22 x 30 in.
Study for According to Plan oil on paper 30 x 22 in.
Study for Cutting It Close oil on paper 22 x 30 in.
Study for Exit Plan oil on paper 30 x 22 in.
Study for Interruption oil on paper 22 x 30 in.
Study for Last Act oil on paper 12.75 x 23.5 in.
Study for Night and Day oil on paper 18 x 30 in.
Study for Shadow Play oil on paper 22 x 30 in.
Study for Storm Warning oil on paper 22 x 30 in.
Study for Way Out oil on paper 22 x 30 in.
Study for Well Worn Path oil on paper 22 x 30 in.
Terraces with a View oil on paper 22 x 30 in.
Under Construction oil on paper 22 x 30 in.
Upscale oil on paper 22 x 30 in.
Urban Fantasy oil on paper 30 x 22 in.
GARY FAIGIN BIO Gary Faigin, co-Founder and Artistic Director of Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, trained at the Art Students League of New York and at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. While living in New York (1976-1991), Faigin taught figure drawing upon the retirement of his teacher, Robert Beverly Hale, at the Art Students League, a program he presented continuously over the next decade. Concurrently, he taught Perspective and Portrait Drawing at the newly founded New York Academy of Art, as well as being a visiting instructor at the National Academy School of Design, the School of Visual Art and Parsons School of Design. Faigin has exhibited widely, with solo exhibitions in Seattle and Santa Fe, including a retrospective of his work at Seattle’s Frye Art Museum and the Coos Museum of Art in Oregon. A master of drawing and painting, his images typically explore his two favorite themes: altering one’s perception of the commonplace and developing mood through intense contrasts of light and dark. As a promoter and observer of historic and contemporary art in the Northwest, Faigin serves on the Board of Directors of the Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds, and has written over 125 art reviews for both KUOW and the Seattle Times. He is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of the Gage Academy of Art, now celebrating its 31st anniversary at its campus on Capitol Hill. BORN: 1950 Detroit, MI EDUCATION: 1978-1979 1977-1978 1976-1978 1968-1970
École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris, Etudiant-Libre – Painting studies School of Visual Arts, Parsons School for Design & National Academy School of Fine Art, New York, Drawing & painting studies Art Students League, New York, Drawing studies under Robert Beverly Hale University of Michigan, Residential College, Ann Arbor, Liberal arts studies
SOLO PERSON EXHIBITIONS: 2021 2019 2017 2014 2012 2010 2008 2007 2004 2002 2001 1999 1997 1995 1993 1992 1991
The Age of Steam, Harris Harvey Gallery, Seattle, WA The Age of Steam, Arts Festival Gallery, Edmonds, WA Inside Out: Trains, Towers & Power Plants, BONFIRE Gallery, Seattle, WA Concentrated: New Paintings by Gary Faigin, Linda Hodges Gallery, Seattle, WA Birth is a Beginning: A Jewish Year, 16’ Mural, Temple Beth Am, Seattle, WA Compression Fittings, Linda Hodges Gallery, Seattle, WA Reality Check: Envisioning the Still Life, Coos Art Museum, Coos Bay, OR Face Backward: Gary Faigin, Seattle Academy of Fine Art, Seattle, WA Five by Faigin, Woodside/Braseth Gallery, Seattle, WA The Secret Lives of Still Lifes, Woodside/Braseth Gallery, Seattle, WA Moving Pictures, Woodside/Braseth Gallery, Seattle, WA Tradition & Contradiction (retrospective), Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA City of Billboards, Woodside/Braseth Gallery, Seattle, WA Beyond the Still Life, Woodside/Braseth Gallery, Seattle, WA Real Life/Still Life, Woodside/Braseth Gallery, Seattle, WA Santa Fe Observed, Frank Croft Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM A Sense of Light, Frank Croft Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM Small Works, Realist Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1990 1987 1985
The Art of Facial Expressions, Art Students League Gallery, New York, NY Sleep/Sleeplessness, Realist Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Recent Works, Frank Croft Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS: 2021 2019 2016 2014 2011 2010 2009 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2000 1998 1997
Fall Perspectives - A Group Exhibition, Harris Harvey Gallery, Seattle, WA Portraits & Self Portraits by NW Artists, Cascadia Art Museum, Edmonds, WA American Painting Today, V2 Arts Center, Seattle, WA Gage Instructors on Exhibition, Rainier Club, Seattle, WA The Human Figure or Parts Thereof, Prographica Gallery, Seattle, WA Gary Faigin & the Eli Levin Drawing Group, Argos Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Summer Selections, Linda Hodges Gallery, Seattle, WA Celebrating Realism, Museo Gallery, Langley, WA West Coast Drawings, Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Culver City, CA Faces, Tempe Center for the Arts, Tempe, AZ Neddy Artist Fellowship Exhibition, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA Objects of our Attention, Fountainhead Gallery, Seattle, WA Yelling at Your Environment, Harrington Arts Gallery, San Francisco, CA Committed to Ink, Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA From Barbizon to Santa Fe: 100 Santa Fe Etchers, Argos Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Works by Harriet Goode & Friends, Dalton Gallery, Rock Hill, SC New High Renaissance, Portland Art Center, Portland, OR Artistically Engaged, WA State Convention Center, Seattle, WA Small Works, Seattle Academy of Fine Art, Seattle, WA Grand Opening Group Show at Meyer Gallery, Meyer Gallery, Jackson, WY Grand Re-Opening Group Show, Woodside/Braseth Gallery, Seattle, WA Art Students League Invitational, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York, NY Art at the Port Invitational, Anacortes Arts Festival, Anacortes, WA SAFA Instructor Invitational, Seattle Art Museum Rental/Sales Gallery, Seattle, WA 5th Annual Realism Invitational, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2002 4th Annual Realism Invitational, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2001 3rd Annual Realism Invitational, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, CA National Realism Invitational, Van de Griff Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Interior Visions, Maryhill Art Museum, Goldendale WA In the Spirit of Spring , Guadalupe Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Leonardo Lives, Seattle Art Museum Rental/Sales Gallery, Seattle WA 1991 Group Show, Gentry Gallery, Nashville, TN
AWARDS: 2015-2018 2009 2007 1998 1987 + 1988
Honorary Arts Fellow, The Rainier Club Neddy Artist Fellowship Finalist, Behnke Foundation Washington Governor’s Art Award for Gage Academy of Art Seattle Mayor’s Small Business Award for Academy of Realist Art Arthur M. Bell Printmaking Award, Santa Fe; “1% for Art” 1984 Purchase Award, City of New York
SELECTED ART COLLECTIONS: Boeing Corporation, Seattle, WA John & Charlotte Behnke, Seattle, WA
SELECTED ART COLLECTIONS CONTINUED: Jeffrey & Susan Brotman, Boeing Corporation, Seattle, WA John & Charlotte Behnke, Seattle, WA Jeffrey & Susan Brotman, Bellevue Cascadia Art Museum, Edmonds, WA City of New York, New York Centris Corporation, Seattle, WA Continental Mills Inc., Seattle, WA Emilio Estevez & Martin Sheen, Malibu, CA Immunex Corporation, Seattle, WA Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM NM Merrill Lynch, Seattle, WA Pocock Rowing Center, Seattle, WA
GaryGary FaiGAr
Gary Faigin in his Studio, 2019
1915 First Avenue, Seattle, WA, 98101 www.harrisharveygallery.com, (206) 443-3315, staff@harrisharveygallery.com