Issuu

WILD AND BRILLIANT: AND POST WAR ART THE MARTHA JACKSON GALLERY

THE MARTHA JACKSON GALLERY

21215.indd 1

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.indd 2

10/14/21 1:40 PM

WILD AND BRILLIANT: AND POST WAR ART THE MARTHA JACKSON GALLERY

NOVEMBER 18 – DECEMBER 30, 2021 ESSAY BY JILLIAN RUSSO

21215.P03.04.05.19.29.63.indd 3

10/21/21 11:33 AM

REFLECTIONS OF MARTHA JACKSON GALLERY 4

As a recent college graduate from UC Berkeley, I wanted to come to New York City for a year to experience the art world and learned of a receptionist position at the Martha Jackson Gallery. I was told to wait in an office; Martha would come to interview me shortly. I sat there for about forty-five minutes while the phone rang continuously. Finally, Martha arrived frowning, sat down and said, “You can’t work here. You are not aggressive enough. I rang the phone many times and you did not pick it up.” I responded, “Well, I do not work here yet and thought it out of place for me to pick up the phone in someone else’s office.” Her next remark was, “We don’t pay the receptionist very much and many girls work here for nothing and they come from Sarah Lawrence and other great schools.” I said, “Well, I can’t be one of those girls. I need to make a living.” And so it went. Working at the Martha Jackson Gallery meant never quite knowing where things stood because she worked in unique and often oblique ways. You could feel great and appreciated or undervalued and insulted. She enjoyed and encouraged complicated psychodynamics among her team; it wasn’t always comfortable, but it was never boring.

21215.P03.04.05.19.29.63.indd 4

I grew to admire Martha’s outside-of-the-box thinking and her passion for art and her artists. She would include the staff in her exploration of new ideas such as loaning art to hotel rooms or having banks loan money to collectors so that it would not be her problem to collect monies due. She even loved the concept of a pawnshop for art. Martha was also willing to empower her staff. She gave me the opportunity to start a young collectors department using all the works on paper in portfolios that were just sitting unseen in storage. After she had me submit a business plan and budget, she enthusiastically supported my idea. Martha further gave me the opportunity to do studio visits with her. Quickly I began to understand that my role was to smooth over insensitive things she would say to artists. Those studio visits allowed me to form friendships with artists such as Joan Mitchell, Michael Goldberg, Norman Bluhm, Bob Thompson, and Lester Johnson. I became fast friends with them and remained so for many years even after Martha died and the gallery closed. I stayed with Joan in her great home outside of Paris and shared drunken evenings. In my twenties, I spent weekends with Norman and Cary Bluhm

10/21/21 11:33 AM

at their Millbrook house, had dinners often with Mike at Max’s Kansas City, and attended Bob’s crowded parties on the Lower East Side. The gallery was lively and exciting and welcoming to everyone who showed up. Rothko would stop by. Harold Rosenberg, Joseph and Olga Hirshhorn, Saul Steinberg and Hedda Sterne, and dealers from all over the world would appear. This all led to cocktails in Martha’s apartment on the top floor. The openings could be wild, crowded, and drunken. I have a vivid memory of Joseph and Bob standing in the middle of Bob’s show before the opening and bargaining. Joseph bought out most of the show.

Kathy Komoaroff Goodman has been an art dealer since the mid-1960s. She started her career at the Martha Jackson Gallery where she worked from 1964–1969. As co-owner of the James Goodman Gallery and owner of Katherine Komaroff Fine Arts, she specializes in Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, and Minimalism and has built impressive private collections.

A number of very important dealers, Harold Diamond and Ivan Karp to name two, worked at Martha Jackson Gallery and I had the privilege to be part of those rich and textured years. Martha really opened up the art world for many of us, and it would remain lifelong work and passion for all of us. I am so grateful to her. KATHY KOMAROFF GOODMAN

21215.P03.04.05.19.29.63.indd 5

10/21/21 11:33 AM

Martha Jackson Gallery, Winter 1968. Martha Jackson Gallery Archives, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, State University of New York at Buffalo

FIG. 1

21215.indd 6

10/14/21 1:40 PM

WILD AND BRILLIANT: THE MARTHA JACKSON GALLERY AND POST WAR ART 7

JILLIAN RUSSO

The history of post-war American art has typically been understood through the writing of male art critics. The important work women gallerists such as Peggy Guggenheim, Betty Parsons, Stable Gallery founder Eleanor Ward, and Martha Jackson has received far less attention. A native of Buffalo, New York, Martha Jackson opened her first gallery on 22 East 66th Street in 1953. From 1956 to 1976 the gallery occupied its most wellknown location at 32 East 69th Street (fig.1), today Hauser and Wirth. Although the Martha Jackson Gallery was a nexus of the New York art scene, involved with the development of second-generation Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Dada, and Op art, her name is less well-known today than her contemporaries. The fading of Jackson’s legacy, which was honored in exhibitions of her renowned collection at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 1975 and at the Smithsonian Institution of American Art in 1985, can be attributed in part to her unexpected death in 1969 at the relatively young age of sixty-two.1 One of Jackson’s ambitions was to exhibit American artists alongside their European contemporaries, challenging perceived boundaries between national and international trends. Over the course of her career, she presented the work of an impressive roster of American artists among them were Norman Bluhm, Fritz Bultman, Norman Carton, Willem de Kooning, Jim Dine, Claire Falkenstein, Sam Francis, Grace Hartigan, Hans Hofmann, John Hultberg, Michael Goldberg, Arshile Gorky, Adolph Gottlieb, Paul Jenkins, Alfred Jensen, Lester Johnson, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Larry Rivers, Richard

21215.indd 7

Stankiewicz, and Bob Thompson. Jackson also advanced the careers of many European artists including Karl Appel, Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana, and Antoni Tàpies. The gallery was a cultural force, on par with Leo Castelli Gallery, and introduced the Art Informel and the Gutai Group international movements to New York audiences. An artist-centered dealer who promoted the traditional French practice of providing artists with a stipend against sales, Jackson explained that when she opened the gallery, “I had made up my mind at that

10/14/21 1:40 PM

Martha Jackson and Claire Falkenstein in front of Lever House in New York City, 1969. Photograph by Dorothy Breskind. Exhibition records of the Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art, 1943–1975, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

FIG. 2

time that I didn’t want to buy and resell. I wanted to show young artists and be a gallery the way the French do it when they represent artists and stick to these artists.”2 In particular, her support for women artists as a substantial part of her stable was exceptional for the era, paralleled only by Betty Parsons, whose roster included Dusti Bongé, Perle Fine, Anne Ryan, and Hedda Sterne. As a result of other galleries declining to exhibit Barbara Hepworth and Germaine Richier, Jackson explained: “I ended up showing the most famous women sculptors of the generation.”3 Jackson propelled Joan Mitchell’s career with major solo exhibitions in 1968 and 1972. In a review of the 1972 exhibition, organized in partnership with the Everson Museum of Art at Syracuse University, Peter Schjeldahl underscored Mitchell’s importance as “one of the best American painters not only of the fifties, but of the sixties and seventies as well.”4 Jackson also developed career-defining relationships with Falkenstein (fig. 2), Hartigan, and Nevelson and was a mentor to art dealer Kathy Komaroff Goodman, who worked at the Jackson Gallery during the 1960s. Other influential dealers who got their start at the Jackson Gallery included Ivan Karp and Harold Diamond. This exhibition’s title comes from Goodman’s description of Martha’s “wild and quite brilliant thinking, her thinking outside the box-ness, her courage to show what she believed.”5

Becoming Martha Jackson Jackson’s passion for art began with her involvement in Buffalo’s active art scene during the late 1930s. Born Martha Kellogg in 1907, Jackson was the daughter of distinguished Buffalo businessman Howard Kellogg, who was chairman of the Board of Spencer Kellogg & Sons, which operated flaxseed crushing plants. Her mother Cyrena Case, was also the daughter of another well-known businessman,

21215.indd 8

W. A. Case of W. A. Case & Son, a manufacturer of plumbing and heating fixtures. Cyrena was a “very active woman, showing horses, raising and training colts, and giving parties and dances” and Martha shared in many of her enthusiasms.6 As a young woman, Martha became an accomplished horseback rider until an accident resulted in a knee injury that left her with a permanent, pronounced limp. After attending Smith College, where she majored in English literature, she married John Anderson with whom she had a son David Anderson. In the late 1920s, Jackson organized a study group of married women interested in modern art. Her theory was that “you should begin with art at the present and work back . . . not begin with art of the past, which isn’t really related to today.” 7 In 1939 Jackson chaired the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s Grecian Ball gala, a major social event that re-engaged the museum with the city of Buffalo. This began a longstanding relationship with museum Board Chair Seymour H. Knox, who later credited Jackson for shaping his interests as a collector.8 That same year Martha divorced John Anderson and in 1940 married prominent attorney David Jackson. During World War II, while David was stationed near Baltimore, Martha attended a course in modern art at Johns Hopkins University taught by Adelyn Breeskin, the director of the Baltimore Museum of Art. One of the few women museum directors of the period, Breeskin inspired Martha to begin collecting and she purchased her first work, a gouache by Marc Chagall. The second piece she acquired was a painting by African-American artist Eldzier Cortor. After returning to Buffalo in 1944, Jackson studied painting and ceramics, joined an advisory board for the Albright-Knox, and made regular trips to New York City to see exhibitions and build her collection. She began to develop a superb eye by immediately

10/14/21 1:40 PM

selecting her top three picks each time she entered a room. She explained, “I gradually trained myself to pick very quickly. And then sometimes afterwards I would find that the painting I picked was reproduced in a magazine or bought by a famous museum. And I began to feel that one of the most important things about studying art is training people to choose.” Jackson financed several of her first purchases using stock dividend checks. She recalled that right after World War II, around 1946, “a lot of companies paid extra dividends. Suddenly a check for $2000 dropped out of the mail, and I just took it to New York to spend on art.”9 In 1949 Martha and David Jackson decided to divorce and Martha moved to New York City. She attended Hans Hofmann’s renowned art schools in Greenwich Village and Provincetown, Massachusetts and she and Hofmann became friends. At a party Hofmann pulled her aside and advised her not pursue painting further and encouraged her to open a gallery in New York City.10 Through Hofmann Jackson

21215.indd 9

met Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, John Marin, Franz Kline, and other members of the New York avant-garde. In April 1953 the Martha Jackson Gallery opened its doors with the exhibition 100 Years of American Watercolors. To get her enterprise started she relied on money she inherited from her grandmother. Betty Parsons and Eleanor Saidenberg offered Jackson frank advice on the challenges they had faced with their business. Jackson recalled, Parsons “was horrified that I would think of opening a gallery. She said it was such hard work, and she felt that she had chains on . . . Eleanor had just started her gallery. She told me that some people would be very mean to me and not to be surprised if people that I thought were friends suddenly undercut the gallery.”11 Not influenceable, Jackson forged ahead with her plans for a gallery that placed American artists in an international context.

10/14/21 1:40 PM

Defining an International Perspective Bringing contemporary European art to New York required a bold approach and collaboration with several museums. For the gallery’s third exhibition, Jackson arranged to present a selection of oil paintings from the 1952 Carnegie International including a work by Spanish artist Antoni Tàpies. Impressed with Tàpies painting, Jackson reached out to the Art Institute of Chicago and Marshall Field’s department store and convinced them to send her the group of works currently on display in Marshall Field’s gallery. The arrangement led to Jackson’s first correspondence with Tàpies and the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York in October 1953. Jackson invited him to attend the opening and helped pay for and coordinate his travel from Spain. She wrote with excitement: “Your paintings are completely different from any we have had in New York City, and

21215.indd 10

as we are able to offer them at very good prices, your show should be sure to make a great hit. I am delighted to hear that you are planning to make the trip. The opening will be much more exciting for having you here, and I plan to introduce you to some of our young American painters.”12 This was the beginning of a long friendship and successful business relationship (fig. 3). Tàpies joined the gallery and exhibited regularly through 1978. Reviewing one of the artist’s last Jackson Gallery exhibitions in 1978, Hilton Kramer noted that his work “made an emphatic impression here from its first appearance” and “he was quickly established as one of the leading international painters of his generation.”13 In 1954 Jackson made her first trip to Europe, where she met American expatriate painters Sam Francis, Paul Jenkins, and Norman Bluhm, who were working with fluid and colorful gestural styles influenced by Tachisme (pls. 1, 2, and 4). Jackson showcased their

10/14/21 1:40 PM

FIG. 3

Martha Jackson and Antoni Tàpies discussing the artist’s exhibition in his Barcelona home, 1969. Photograph by Dorothy Breskind. Exhibition records of the Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art, 1943–1975, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

FIG. 4 Martha Jackson with Clare Boothe Luce and Paul Jenkins, 1969. Photograph by Syeus Mottel. Exhibition records of the Contemporary Study Wing of the Finch College Museum of Art, 1943–1975, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

work in a series of solo exhibitions beginning in 1956, which were instrumental in establishing their critical reputation with collectors and the New York avantgarde (fig. 4). To explain Jenkins’s painterly process of applying thinned acrylic to primed canvas and allowing the paint to flow over the surface, Jackson established a media company that she began to use to capture her artists at work and to introduce them to the public in a more accessible way. She named the company Red Parrot Films, after her beloved pet parrot “Chuckie.”

Rosenblum praised Hultberg’s “disquieting imagery” and “fascinating manipulation of shapes and space.”14 Cloud Drama (pl. 16), which was included in Hultberg’s 1963 retrospective at the Martha Jackson Gallery, is a superb example of his unique combination of cubist structure and gestural paint handling to create a sense of ominous tension. Hultberg said of Jackson: “She had integrity and respect for the individual and for the creative process. She was good at opening markets for her artists. Once she suggested that I try to paint smaller, brighter pictures, but did not persist in this.” He also recalled that the gallery had a magnetism and anyone might walk in the door including Lawrence Alloway, Alfred Barr, Walter Chrysler, Rosalind Constable, Dizzy Gillespie, Clement Greenberg, Peggy Guggenheim, Joseph Hirschhorn, Franz Kline, Alfonso Ossorio, Harold Rosenberg, Dorothy Sieberling, and James Johnson Sweeney.15

In Paris, Jackson also met American painter John Hultberg, who was among the first artists to join the gallery. An admirer of the School of Paris, Hultberg’s work combines aspects of Abstract Expressionism, Cubism, and de Chirco’s metaphysical painting to create imaginary landscapes, often featuring the presence of looming silhouetted figures. Critic Robert

In one of many efforts to forge of connections between the European and New York art scenes, Jackson invited Bluhm, Francis, Hultberg, and Jenkins to accompany her to the 1954 Venice Biennale and paid for their train tickets. As cultural historian Harry Rand observed: “She was the first American dealer to understand the potential of the Venice Biennale and to encourage others to attend.”16 At the Biennale’s Dutch pavilion Jackson purchased several paintings by Karel Appel and in December 1954 introduced his work in New York with a solo exhibition. Appel subsequently joined the gallery and continued to exhibit there through 1976. Jackson’s next international exhibition, in 1955, was German Painting Today, the first presentation of contemporary German art since World War II.17 Her willingness to explore the topic was characteristic of her fearlessness with taking aesthetic and conceptual risks. One of her greatest achievements was reframing the conversation about American abstract painting

21215.indd 11

10/14/21 1:40 PM

Lee Krasner, The Seasons, 1957, oil and house paint on canvas, 92 ¾ × 203 ⅞ inches. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Purchase, with funds from Frances and Sydney Lewis by exchange, the Mrs. Percy Uris Purchase Fund and the Painting and Sculpture Committee, 87.7

FIG. 5

to better reflect and encourage the international exchange of ideas among artists. She also expanded the traditional role of a gallery to include activities that have now become industry standards such as the establishment of an independent print department, the use of film as a marketing and educational tool, and the creation of a gallery library. Concepts Jackson had but never realized included a gallery with an auditorium for lectures and movies and a national chain of art movie theaters with a gallery above them.18

Abstract Expressionism: New Voices Jackson’s interest in Abstract Expressionism was multifarious and her exhibitions reflected her fascination with both the historical aspects of the movement and new directions being pursued. George Schneider, the son of Jackson’s psychoanalyst, Daniel Edward Schneider, described her as a “maverick” for her virtually single-handed support of secondgeneration Abstract Expressionism.19 Recognizing that

21215.indd 12

Gorky’s surrealist-biomorphic drawings and paintings of the 1930s had never been presented as a distinct body of work, in 1954 she organized Arshile Gorky Middle Period. Throughout the late 1950s and 1960s, Jackson featured new work by Adolph Gottlieb, Norman Carton, and Fritz Bultman, and organized major exhibitions by Lee Krasner, Louise Nevelson, and Grace Hartigan. The Jackson Gallery’s 1957 Gottlieb exhibition traced the artist’s transition from his imaginary landscape series through the development of his first “Burst” painting Black, Blue, Red (1956). The Burst paintings, which explore the symbolically laden imagery of an explosive orb hovering in space, became one of Gottlieb’s most significant themes (pl. 14) and within a few years attracted great critical acclaim. In 1958, Jackson presented a solo exhibition of Carton’s gestural, vibrantly colored abstractions. An American painter who had moved to Paris to study the color photography of European masterpieces, Carton had exhibited extensively at the Paris salons and the Sorbonne. His painting Cascade, circa 1955 (pl. 22)

10/21/21 11:59 AM

FIG. 6 Installation view of Louise Nevelson: Sky Columns Presence, Martha Jackson Gallery, 1959. Martha Jackson Gallery Archives, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, State University of New York at Buffalo

harmonizes contrasting tones, from deep royal blue to bright white and yellow, reflecting his reputation as masterful colorist. In 1959, Jackson introduced another artist who had spent the early 1950s working abroad. A student of Hofmann and friend of Morris Graves, Fritz Bultman had exhibited with many members of the New York School in the late 1940s. However, he missed the opportunity to be in the iconic “The Irascibles,” photo published in Life magazine in 1951 because he was studying sculpture in Italy. Following a period of several years when he stopped working, his Jackson Gallery solo gave him the opportunity to present a new series of paintings and sculpture at a crucial moment in his career. His slightly rough, intense, and fluid handling of paint, evident in the Delta— The Lame Tramp, 1959 (pl. 9) has been interpreted as reflective of his Southern heritage. Irving Sandler commented in a review of the exhibition that “Bultman seems to measure the temperature of childhood memories of New Orleans and to transfer the heat (and humidity) to his canvases.”20 This small painting

shares some compositional similarities with a larger work, The Delta, 1959, now in the Martha Jackson Memorial Collection at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Krasner’s 1958 solo exhibition at the Jackson Gallery, which opened a year and half after Jackson Pollock’s death, also came at a pivotal moment in her career. She presented her Earth Green series, which included the monumental painting The Seasons (fig.5) as well as Listen, Earth Green and Birth. Krasner spoke about processing her grief through the creation of Listen, “While I was painting it, I almost didn’t see it, because tears were literally pouring down.”21 The show was a critical success, leaving New York Times critic Stuart Preston admiring “the sheer energy that Miss Krasner manages to generate on her picture surfaces.”22 The exhibition brought Krasner out from under Pollock’s shadow and she received a new level of international attention when The Seasons was featured in International Art of a New Era, an exhibition curated by Jackson’s friend, French critic Michel Tapié at the Osaka Art Festival. Jackson continued to push boundaries with Nevelson’s 1959 solo Sky Columns Presence, which transformed the gallery into a complete environment of dramatically-lit black boxes and freestanding sculptural columns. (fig. 6). Dore Ashton noted that with this installation Nevelson had “surpassed everything she had done before.” The “black vertical boxes with their cryptic contents form an entire wall of the exhibition. Facing them are the columns—tall, totemic forms richly adorned with detail and thrown into lunar shadows.”23 While working on Sky Columns Presence, Nevelson was also creating the all-white sculpture Dawn’s Wedding Feast for the exhibition Sixteen Americans at the Museum of Modern Art, and these two major pieces were conceived in dialogue. Jackson was attentive to the exhibitions being organized by

21215.indd 13

10/14/21 1:40 PM

FIG. 7 Installation view of Grace Hartigan: Eight Oils, Martha Jackson Gallery, 1962. Martha Jackson Gallery Archives, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, State University of New York at Buffalo

21215.indd 14

the New York museums and aligned her programming smartly. She was also able to negotiate MoMA’s acquisition of two works from Dawn’s Wedding Feast with the support of Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller. Jackson and Nevelson celebrated their successes with a vacation in Jamaica.24

that moment of transformation from junk to precious object. Nevelson said of Jackson: “She believed in her artists, protected them, and worked out a kind of grant to assist them especially before they became well-known. She had compassion and loyalty to her artists and I appreciated her insight.”26

Nevelson’s second solo exhibition at the Jackson Gallery in 1961 featured the Royal Tides gold sculptures, a striking departure from her typical black and white palette. Her first gold sculpture had been introduced as part of Jackson’s groundbreaking exhibition New Forms—New Media in June 1960. Biographer Laurie Wilson notes that “whether she was conscious at the time of the connection, it seems highly likely her work in gold was related to her representation by Martha Jackson and the new-found prosperity that came with it.”25 Nevelson relished her ability to make art out of anything, such as the cardboard and scraps of wood featured in Collage, 1974 (pl. 8). Her use of gold paint heightens

Throughout the 1960s, Jackson formed a productive and supportive relationship with Grace Hartigan. After receiving significant press for her painterly abstractions of the 1950s, and being deeply enmeshed in the New York scene. Hartigan had recently moved to Baltimore, and her painting was evolving in a new direction as she began working with thinner washes of paint and imagery more closely related to nature and popular culture, while retaining her distinctive, gestural lines. Her 1962 exhibition at the Jackson Gallery featured several masterpieces from this period including The Phoenix, William of Orange (Baltimore Museum of Art), and The Dream (Figge Art Museum).

10/14/21 1:40 PM

Parson Brown (pl. 11), a joyous painting celebrating the popular brand of sweet orange, was a focal point of the installation (fig. 7). The tangerine and plum hued composition features two sensual floating orange orbs, the central one playfully inverted, and evokes a walk through a grove of fruit trees on hot summer day. Oranges were a recurring motif in Hartigan’s painting going back to her twelve-painting Oranges series, a collaboration with poet Frank O’Hara in the early 1950s. Her meditation on oranges in Parson Brown captured her hopeful outlook. She wrote in the catalogue, “I now hope to triumph; to bring to each painting as much clarity, beauty and even ecstasy as I am able. The scream has become a song.”27 Over the next few years, Hartigan’s viewpoint became more critical. She was working on a new series that addressed issues of femininity, which she discussed in detail with Martha. She explained, her paintings “‘Salome,’ ‘Jolie,’ and ‘Joy’ are all based on covers of ‘girlie’ magazines. This theme I guess could be called the depersonalization of sex . . . Both ‘Duchess of Alba’ and ‘Mountain Woman’ began with Marilyn Monroe’s tragedy, ended up being about two kinds of women who would not be destroyed.”28 It is telling that Hartigan conceived these works while represented by Jackson. Hartigan and Jackson were both exceptionally strong, unconventional women, who had walked away from accepted feminine roles to devote themselves to art. Jackson was critical of marriage, as neither of her relationships had offered her the freedom or the independence needed to pursue her interests. Her complete devotion to the gallery, however, at times lead to an acute loneliness. Katherine Goodman recalled that Martha dreaded the end of the day, when the staff went home. She would often initiate new tasks right around closing time or would persuade Goodman to join her for a drink and a grilled cheese sandwich in her apartment above the gallery.29

21215.indd 15

Fascination with the Figure

Beginning with her interest in Willem de Kooning’s Women paintings, Jackson was fascinated by artists who integrated figurative and representational elements. She vividly recalled the day that “Hans Hofmann took me to see Bill’s Women paintings, and they shocked me. I just couldn’t get over it. These were the first women paintings that were shown at the Janis Gallery.”30 When Janis declined to exhibit de Kooning’s Women paintings of the mid-1950s, Martha purchased a selection and presented them in 1955. The cover of the catalogue featured WomanOchre, one of de Kooning’s commanding and aggressive nudes distinguished by a palette of fiery red, yellow, and fleshy pink tones. Jackson initially retained the painting as part of her collection but ultimately sold it to a collector who donated it to University of Arizona Museum of Art. In 1985 the work was stolen in an infamous art heist, but was thankfully recovered in 2017 and is currently undergoing restoration. Jackson was one of the few dealers at the time who was interested in figurative expressionism, such as Lester Johnson’s, sketchy, textured silhouettes, exemplified by his Self Portrait (Red & Blue), 1967 (pl. 21) or Michael Goldberg’s quirky and charming semi-abstract still-lifes such as Lamp and Vase, 1963 (pl. 13). Johnson recalled: “A nice part of being in her gallery was the feeling that she was committed to my work and supported it wholeheartedly at a time when people were not ready for figurative expressionism.”31 Goldberg, who had been introduced to Martha through Norman Bluhm explained: “She was a phenomenon. There was nobody like her. She was not the most glamorous woman in the world, but boy she was a force.”32 Confident of her own eye and her ability to assess an artist to “see if they have fire, or if the idea is one note” Jackson showed artists she admired

10/14/21 1:40 PM

FIG. 8 Bob Thompson, Descent from the Cross, 1963, oil on canvas, 84 × 60 inches. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David K. Anderson, Martha Jackson Memorial Collection, 1977.16 FIG. 9 Bob Thompson in the garden of the Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, 1965. Photograph by Dorothy Breskind. Bob Thompson papers, 1949–2005, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

when nobody else would.33 Early on she recognized the importance of African-American painter Bob Thompson’s colorful, expressive compositions, which brought together elements of Abstract Expressionism, Old Master painting, jazz, and folklore (fig. 8). Jackson featured Thompson in solo exhibitions in 1963 and 1965, the second organized only a year before his death at age twenty-nine (fig. 9).

Radical Experimentations: The Gutai Group and New Forms— New Media Jackson’s wide-ranging interests spanned painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, installations and performance. In 1958 she collaborated with Michel Tapié to bring the section of his International Art of a New Era that featured the Gutai Group to the Jackson Gallery. The exhibition took up both floors of the gallery and included seminal works such as Jiro Yoshihara’s White Painting, 1958 (fig. 10) and Kazuo Shiraga’s, striking red and black abstraction Work II, 1958 which he painted with his feet. At the opening, Paul Jenkins, who had met Tapié in Paris the previous year, was introduced to Yoshihara for the first time and he invited Jenkins to visit Japan. This resulted in a 1964 collaboration between Jenkins and the Gutai Group, who hosted him as an artist-in-residence at the newly established Gutai Pinacotheca museum space in Osaka. Although the exhibition spurred an inspiring cross-cultural exchange between artists, the New York critics missed the point. They viewed the Gutai work as derivative of Abstract Expressionism rather than experimental, because it did not align with their stereotypical expectations of traditional Japanese art.34 Regardless of the critical response, Jackson did not hesitate to continue showing radical work that

21215.indd 16

10/14/21 1:40 PM

Jiro Yoshihara, White Painting, 1958, oil on canvas, 64 × 51 ½ inches. Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, James M. Bovard Fund, 58.69

FIG. 10

challenged aesthetic expectations. This led to a series of exhibitions in 1960–1961, entitled New Forms—New Media and Environments, Situations, Spaces, which introduced Neo-Dada, junk, and performance art. Opening in the fall of 1960, New Forms—New Media featured more than seventy-two works by sixty artists including historical examples by Kurt Schwitters, Jan Arp, and Joseph Cornell, paired with works by contemporary artists including Lee Bontecou, Alberto Burri, John Chamberlain, Jim Dine, Claire Falkenstein, Jasper Johns, Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, Arnaldo Pomodoro (pl. 18), Robert Rauschenberg, and Richard Stankiewicz (pl. 15). In a review of the exhibition for Art International, Irving Sandler defined the Neo-Dada movement: “The Neo-Dadas look upon the city as their landscape—

21215.indd 17

dump would be more accurate. The junk material that they use suggests urban forms and images, metaphors for both the poverty and the richness of city life, its terror and anxiety as well as its particular spectacle and rhythm.”35 This exhilarating approach to material took a variety of forms, from Falkenstein’s integration of metal and glass, to Pomodoro’s textured hallowing out of bronze columns, to Rauschenberg’s combines. The massive successive of New Forms— New Media in the spring of 1960 prompted Jackson to reinstall the exhibition in the fall as New Forms— New Media II. In 1961 Jackson mounted Environments, Situations, Spaces, which was comprised of several installations including Jim Dine’s Spring Cabinet, Allan Kaprow’s

10/14/21 1:40 PM

FIG. 11 Lucas Samaras and Allan Kaprow in Allan Kaprow’s Yard, performed in Environments, Situations, Spaces at the Martha Jackson Gallery, May 25–June 23, 1961

Yard (fig. 11) and a recreation of Oldenburg’s Store (fig. 12). Spring Cabinet was intended to capture the creation of a painting using paint that dripped from buckets hanging from the ceiling and was distributed by several fans. In order to protect the audience from getting sprayed, Dine conceded to dripping the paint in advance. In Yard, Kaprow filled the sculpture garden behind the gallery with used tires and objects wrapped in tar paper, which he invited visitors to jump and climb on. Martha recalled that she was afraid that women would trip while walking on the tires in their high heels. While she was in Europe that summer a discontented neighbor called the fire department with a complaint about the tires that resulted in a hefty fine.36 The free-spirited transgressive quality of the “happenings” appealed to Jackson from the outset. When Dine was twenty-years old, she offered him a $4000 stipend to stop teaching and focus entirely on his art. He paid homage to her support with his painting The Valiant Red Car, 1960 (fig. 13), a portrait of Jackson’s Red Valiant. He conceived the work as part of his Car Crash performances, which were inspired by a recent, traumatic automobile accident. Dine explained that “it was a way for me to depict our relationship without giving up my own iconography.”37 Jackson organized Dine’s first uptown solo exhibition in 1962.

Hard-Edge Abstraction and Op Art Despite her substantial involvement with Neo-Dada and early Pop art, Jackson disliked Andy Warhol’s work and never embraced the more commercial side of the Pop art movement.38 In the late 1960s, she exhibited hard-edged abstract painters such as Sven Lukin, Alfred Jensen, and Julian Stanczak. Exploring the full architectural potential of the shaped canvas, Lukin’s compositions often playfully

21215.indd 18

enter into the surrounding space. A major work from his 1962 solo exhibition Broken Heart (Open Form) (fig. 14 and pl. 19), has a slightly curved upper edge which gently presses the symmetrically divided heart form upward, almost encompassing the viewer. Jensen’s vivid checkboard patterns and Stanczak’s use of contrasting colors and thin lines to create the illusion of vibration in the picture surface, reflected a new, more conceptual approach to color. Jensen’s works were informed by a variety of sources including Goethe’s color theory, the structure of calligraphy, Greek architecture, and the I-Ching, making his paintings difficult for critics to categorize. When introducing Stanczak’s paintings in 1964, Jackson titled the exhibition Julian Stanczak: Optical Paintings, a term Stanczak hated. He tried to convince her several times to change it but she refused. He recalled she reassured him: “This is only something for the critics to chew on.” 39 The resulting reviews coined the term “Op art.”

10/14/21 1:40 PM

FIG. 12 Claes Oldenburg with his work as installed in Environments, Situations, Spaces at the Martha Jackson Gallery, May 25–June 23, 1961 FIG. 13 Jim Dine, The Valiant Red Car, 1960, oil on canvas, 52 ⅛ × 128 ⅞ inches. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David K. Anderson, Martha Jackson Memorial Collection, 1980.137.22

21215.P03.04.05.19.29.63.indd 19

10/21/21 11:38 AM

Installation view of Works by Sven Lukin, Martha Jackson Gallery, 1962. Martha Jackson Gallery Archives, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, State University of New York at Buffalo

FIG. 14

As Stanczak’s story suggests, Jackson could be stubborn, courageous, and domineering. At times she could also be outlandish, abrupt, and unconcerned with social graces. She often hosted dinner parties, but was not an experienced cook and ushered people to leave at the end of the evening by releasing her parrot. Chuckie was known to be aggressive and in one instance bit Michael Goldberg’s ear.40 Having grown up in a socially prominent family, Jackson was certainly aware of social expectations, especially for women, and made a decision to ignore them. Her family was not supportive of the gallery, and she found it “very hard to convince my father that a woman is any good in business.”41 Her self-assuredness and her ability to think beyond conventions and norms was both required and defined her approach. Jackson’s grandson, Reed Anderson, describes her as “a visionary.”42 In an interview a few months before her death Jackson reflected: “I wanted to give the artists, through the example of my gallery, a business situation that worked. I wanted to prove that you

21215.indd 20

could take younger artists and have it work out for the gallery. . . I probably should have had more experience or the advice of a critic. I didn’t know any of those things. . . At least the gallery never closed. That’s one good thing.”43

JILLIAN RUSSO is a Brooklyn-based curator and art historian. She received her PhD in American art from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her areas of interest span post-war to contemporary art with a focus on unrecognized artists.

10/14/21 1:40 PM

ENDNOTES 1. Following Jackson’s death, the Martha Jackson Gallery was managed by Martha’s son David Anderson and from 1976–1979 was located at 521 West 57th Street. Fortunately, Jackson’s story has been preserved through the University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery’s Martha Jackson Archives and Oral History Project. Hollis Taggart is grateful to Anderson Gallery Director Bob Scalise and Registrar Nicholas Ostness for their collaboration in the creation of this exhibition, which brings together archival material with artworks by the eclectic group of artists that formed Jackson’s stable. I hope it will bring renewed attention to her pioneering role in the development of the art scene of 1950s and ’60s.

14. Robert Rosemblum, “John Hultberg,” Art Digest 29 (April 1995): 22, quoted in Rand, The Martha Jackson Memorial Collection, 11.

2. Martha Jackson, “Oral History Interview with Martha Jackson” interview by Paul Cummings, May 23, 1969, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 19.

19. George Schneider, conversation with the author, August 26, 2021.

3. Jackson, “Oral History Interview,” May 23, 1969, 46. 4. Peter Schjeldahl, “Joan Mitchell: To Obscurity and Back,” The New York Times, April 30, 1972, D23. 5. Katherine Goodman, interview by Mary Berlow, June 30, 2008, in New York, Martha Jackson Oral History Project, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, New York. 6. Martha Jackson, “Autobiography,” Martha Jackson Gallery Archives, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 1. 7. Jackson, “Oral History Interview,” May 23, 1969, 5. 8. Quoted in Harry Rand, The Martha Jackson Memorial Collection (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985), 2. 9. Jackson, “Oral History Interview,” May 23, 1969, 1–3. 10. David Anderson, interview by Tacey A. Rosolowski, January 31, 2007 in Port Colborne, Canada, Martha Jackson Oral History Project, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, New York. 11. Jackson, “Oral History Interview,” May 23, 1969, 19. 12. Martha Jackson letter to Antoni Tàpies, September 16, 1953, Antoni Tàpies Correspondence 1953–1955, Martha Jackson Gallery Archives, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, New York. 13. Hilton Kramer, “Tàpies Gifted Yet Easy Victories,” The New York Times, April 23, 1978, D29.

21215.indd 21

15. John Hultberg, “Looking Back at an Art Pioneer: A View of the Martha Jackson Gallery and the Woman Who Created It” interview by Elaine Weschler, August 29, 1987, 5, 7–8. 16. Rand, The Martha Jackson Memorial Collection, 13. 17. Rand, The Martha Jackson Memorial Collection, 13. 18. Jackson, “Oral History Interview,” May 23, 1969, 54–55.

20. Irving Sandler, “Reviews,” Art News 57 (February, 1959), 13, quoted in Harry Rand, The Martha Jackson Memorial Collection, 22. 21. Quoted in Gail Levin, Lee Krasner: A Biography (New York: Harper Collins, 2011), 323–24. 22. Quoted in Levin, 324. 23. Dore Ashton, “Art: Worlds of Fantasy: Louise Nevelson Sculpture at Jackson Gallery,” The New York Times, October 29, 1959, 44. 24. Laurie Wilson, Louise Nevelson: Light and Shadow (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2016), 205. 25. Wilson, Louise Nevelson: Light and Shadow, 207. 26. Quoted in “Martha,” Martha Jackson Biography, Martha Jackson Gallery Archives, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 2.

32. Michael Goldberg, interview by Sandra Olsen, April 22, 2006, Martha Jackson Oral History Project, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, New York.

33. Goodman, interview by Mary Berlow, June 30, 2008. 34. Ming Tiampo, “Under Each Other’s Spell”: Gutai and New York (New York: State University of New York at Stonybrook/Pollock Krasner House and Study Center, 2009), 7–8. 35. Irving Sandler, “Ash Can Revisited, A New York Letter,” Art International 4, no. 8 (October 25, 1960): 28–30. 36. Jackson, “Oral History Interview,” May 23, 1969. 37. Quoted in Rand, The Martha Jackson Memorial Collection, 31. 38. Goldberg, interview by Sandra Olsen, April 22, 2006. 39. Quoted in Rand, The Martha Jackson Memorial Collection, 48–49. 40. Katherine Goodman, interview by Mary Berlow, September 17, 2006, in New York, Martha Jackson Oral History Project, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, New York; and Michael Goldberg, interview by Sandra Olsen, April 22, 2006. 41. Jackson, “Oral History Interview,” May 23, 1969, 31. 42. Reed Anderson, conversation with the author, September 23, 2021. 43. Jackson, “Oral History Interview,” May 23, 1969, 31.

27. Grace Hartigan, “Artist Statement,” Hartigan: Eight Oils (New York: Martha Jackson Gallery, 1962), 1. Exhibition catalogue. 28. Grace Hartigan, Letter to Martha Jackson, May 26, 1964, Grace Hartigan Correspondence 1960s, Folder 3, Martha Jackson Gallery Archives, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, New York. 29. Goodman, interview by Mary Berlow, June 30, 2008. 30. Jackson, “Oral History Interview,” May 23, 1969, 14. 31. Quoted in Rand, The Martha Jackson Memorial Collection, 42.

10/14/21 1:40 PM

PLATES

21215.indd 22

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.indd 23

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.indd 24

SAM FRANCIS (1923–1994)

Untitled, 1959 Watercolor on paper, 30 × 20 inches (76.2 × 50.8 cm)

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.indd 25

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.indd 26

PAUL JENKINS (1923–2012)

Phenomena Ever Cross Over, 1969 Acrylic on canvas, 34 × 33 inches (86.4 × 83.8 cm)

10/21/21 11:59 AM

21215.indd 27

HANS HOFMANN (1880–1966)

Shangri-La, 1961 Oil on canvas, 38 × 30 inches (96.5 × 76.2 cm)

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.indd 28

NORMAN BLUHM (1921–1999)

Green, 1956 Oil on canvas, 32 ⅛ × 39 ½ inches (81.6 × 100.3 cm)

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.P03.04.05.19.29.63.indd 29

10/21/21 11:33 AM

21215.indd 30

WILLEM DE KOONING (1904–1997)

Woman II, 1952 Graphite on paper, 11 ¾ × 8 ½ inches (29.8 × 21.6 cm)

10/22/21 2:16 PM

21215.indd 31

JIM DINE (B. 1935)

My Yellow Car Has 2 Mouths for Fenders, 1960 Gouache and ink on paper, 24 × 36 inches (61 × 91.4 cm)

10/22/21 2:16 PM

21215.indd 32

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.indd 33

ARSHILE GORKY (1904–1948)

Untitled [after Picasso’s “Carnet Dinard”] [Double-sided], circa 1931–33 India ink on paper, 10 × 13 inches (25.4 × 33 cm)

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.indd 34

LOUISE NEVELSON (1899–1988)

Collage, 1974 Black paint, paper, and cardboard on wood board, 36 ½ × 24 × 1 inches (92.7 × 61 × 2.5 cm)

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.indd 35

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.indd 36

FRITZ BULTMAN (1919–1985)

Delta—The Lame Tramp, 1959 Oil on canvas, 18 × 14 inches (45.7 × 35.6 cm)

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.indd 37

KAREL APPEL (1921–2006)

Composition, circa 1960 Acrylic on canvas, 18 ¼ × 21 ¾ inches (46.4 × 55.2 cm)

10/21/21 12:00 PM

21215.indd 38

GRACE HARTIGAN (1922–2008)

Parson Brown, 1962 Oil on canvas, 72 × 72 inches (182.9 × 182.9 cm) The Perry Collection

10/14/21 1:40 PM

21215.indd 39

10/22/21 2:16 PM

21215.indd 40

CLAIRE FALKENSTEIN (1908–1997)

Fusion, circa 1965 Copper and glass, 8 ½ × 22 ½ × 14 ⅜ inches (21.6 × 57.1 × 36.5 cm)

10/14/21 1:41 PM

21215.indd 41

MICHAEL GOLDBERG (1924–2007)

Lamp and Vase, 1963 Oil and paper collage on canvas, 28 × 30 inches (71.1 × 76.2 cm)

10/22/21 2:16 PM

21215.indd 42

ADOLPH GOTTLIEB (1903–1974)

Untitled, #30, 1970 Acrylic on paper, 23 ¾ × 18 ¾ inches (60.3 × 47.6 cm)

10/14/21 1:41 PM

21215.indd 43

10/14/21 1:41 PM

21215.indd 44

RICHARD STANKIEWICZ (1922–1983)

Untitled, 1957 Welded iron and found metal, 10 × 6 × 6 ⅝ inches (25.4 × 15.2 × 16.8 cm)

10/14/21 1:41 PM

21215.indd 45

JOHN HULTBERG (1922–2005)

Cloud Drama, 1962 Oil on canvas, 39 × 50 inches (99.1 × 127 cm)

10/14/21 1:41 PM

21215.indd 46

ALFRED JENSEN (1903–1981)

Tun, 1959 Oil on canvas, 46 × 40 inches (116.8 × 101.6 cm)

10/14/21 1:41 PM

21215.indd 47

10/22/21 3:50 PM

21215.indd 48

ARNALDO POMODORO (B. 1926)

Successioni n. 2, 1962 Bronze, mounted on painted steel base, 64 ¾ × 25 × 8 ½ inches (164.47 × 63.5 × 21.59 cm) (with base) Edition of 2

10/14/21 1:41 PM

21215.indd 49

10/21/21 12:00 PM

21215.indd 50

SVEN LUKIN (B. 1934)

Broken Heart (Open Form), 1962 Oil on canvas construction, 92 × 43 × 6 inches (233.7 × 109.2 × 15.2 cm)

10/14/21 1:41 PM

21215.indd 51

10/22/21 3:50 PM

21215.indd 52

BOB THOMPSON, (1937–1966)

The Ascension, 1963 Oil on canvas, 17 × 13 inches (43.2 × 33 cm) Collection of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York

10/21/21 12:00 PM

21215.indd 53

LESTER JOHNSON (1919–2010) Self Portrait (Red & Blue), 1967 Oil on canvas, 30 × 28 inches (76.2 × 71.1 cm)

10/14/21 1:41 PM

21215.indd 54

NORMAN CARTON (1908–1980) Cascade, circa 1955 Oil on canvas, 74 × 54 inches (188 × 137.2 cm)

10/14/21 1:41 PM

21215.indd 55

10/22/21 3:51 PM

SELECTED EXHIBITION HISTORY 56

The Martha Jackson Gallery was located at 22 East 66th Street from 1953 through 1955. By 1956, the Jackson Gallery relocated to 32 East 69th Street.

1953

100 Years of American Watercolors, March 24–April 28 Lewis Kimball: Recent Oils and Watercolors, April 28–May 9 Selected Oils from the 1952 Carnegie International, May 12–28 Reginald Marsh: Recent Drawings, June 2–26 Paintings from the Martha Jackson Gallery Collection, July 1–September 1 Women, September 15–October 3 William Getman: Oils and Collages from Mexico, October 8–24 Antoni Tàpies, October 28– November 14

Rebecca Salisbury James: Paintings on Glass, September 21–October 9 British Artists: Hepworth–Bacon– Scott, October 21–November 9 Rudy Pozzatti, November 8– December 4 Karel Appel, December 6–31

1955

Marsden Hartley: The Berlin Period, 1913–1915, January 3–29 German Painting Today, January 31– February 26 Robert Cato and Lawrence Kupperman: Experiments in New Techniques, February 28–March 19 Seymour Boardman, March 21–April 9 John Hultberg, April 11–30 Grace Borgenicht, May 2–14

Louise Kruger: Sculpture, March 6–31 Paul Jenkins, March 30–April 7 Seymour Boardman: Recent Paintings, April 3–21 Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, June 5–29 Salute to Modern Art USA, October 1–17 William Getman: Collages from Old Mexico, October 2–27 Barbara Hepworth: Carving and Drawings, 1937–54, 1955–56 William Scott: Paintings and Drawings, October 29–November 17 Sophy Regensburg, November 13– December 1 Harry Jackson: Paintings and Drawings, November 26–December 15 Art for Christmas, December 1–31

1957

Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture, Paintings, Drawings, January 19–26

Seymour Drumlevitch: Paintings of Italy, 1950–52, November 18– December 5

Eight New Decade Painters, May 16– June 11 Paul Heller Jones, June 13–30

Adolph Gottlieb, January 29– February 23

Carl Ruggles: A Composer Paints, December 9–26

Lawrence Calcagno, September 27– October 15

Antoni Tàpies: Recent Paintings, February 21–March 14

Potpourri of Pictures: Art for Christmas, December 10–January 9, 1954

Marino Marini, October 17– November 5

Paul-Emile Borduas: Paintings, 1953–56, March 18–April 6

1954

Willem de Kooning, November 9– December 3

New Aspects of Space, April 9–May 11

Clay Bartlett: Paintings of the West Indies, January 13–30 American Paintings from the Collection of Martha Jackson and Others, February 3–28 New Talent, March 3–27 Marion Humfield: Scenes of India, March 8–24 Arshile Gorky: Middle Period, March 31–April 24 Heinz Troekes: Recent Watercolors and Gouaches, March 31–April 24

21215.indd 56

Younger American and European Artists, May 18–June 12

Matthew Barnes: 1880–1951, December 5–23

1956

Opening Exhibition of the New Martha Jackson Gallery: Paintings and Sculptures from the Collection of Martha Jackson, January 24– February 11

Drawings in Color & Black and White, May 8–June 15 Marsden Hartley: Landscapes and Still-Lives, May 19–June 14 Karel Appel, October 1–26 Sculpture for Museum Collections, October 29–November 23 Morris Louis, November 5–23

Sam Francis, February 13–March 3

Sam Francis, November 27– December 27

John Hultberg: Recent Paintings, March 6–31

Germaine Richier: Sculpture, November 27–December 27

10/14/21 1:41 PM

1958

John Hultberg: Recent Paintings, January 2–25 Lawrence Calcagno, January 28– February 22 Louise Kruger, January 28–February 22

Prints and Paintings, December 10– January 2

Alfred Leslie: Paintings, January 5–30

New Acquisitions Exhibit, April 1–26

John Chamberlain: Sculptures, January 5–30

Harold Altman, April 29–May 29 Karl Appel, April 29–May 29 Ten Block Exhibition, June 1–30 The Gutai Group, September 25– October 25

Arshile Gorky: Drawings, 1929–34, February 3–March 1

Michael Goldberg, March 1–19

Selections of American Art, 1934–61, from the Collection of Martha Jackson, February 6–March 3

Lawrence Calcagno, March 22–April 16 Antoni Tàpies, March 22–April 16 Walasse Ting, April 23–May 2

Fritz Bultman, January 27–February 21 Antoni Tàpies, February 24–March 21 William Scott, March 24–April 18 Norman Carton, March 24–April 18 Paul-Emile Borduas, March 24–April 18 Sofu Teshigahara, April 22–May 18 Alfred Jensen, April 22–May 18 The New York Scene, May 19–June 19 Walasse Ting, May 19–June 19 Karel Appel, Rudy Pozzatti, Germaine Richier, September 10–October 3 John Hultberg: New Paintings Matisse to Manessier, October 6–24 Louise Nevelson: Sky Columns Presence, October 29–November 21 Picasso: Graphics, November 10– December 1

1962

Jim Dine, January 9–February 3

Gottfried Honegger, February 27– March 19

Sam Francis, November 25– December 20

Hisao Domoto, January 2–23

Motonaga, December 11–January 6, 1962

Louise Nevelson, January 24– February 17

Frank Lobdell: 1953–59, April 19–May 7

The Enormous Room: Four Artists, January 2–23

Lucio Fontana, November 21– December 16

Alberto Burri, February 2–27

Paul Jenkins, October 28–November 22

1959

Alan Davie, October 24–November 18

1960

Lee Krasner, February 24–March 22 Norman Carton: Recent Paintings, April 1–26

21215.indd 57

Alfred Jensen, November 24– December 19

New Forms—New Media I, June 6–24 Four Japanese Artists, September 8–24 New Forms—New Media II, September 28–October 22 Karel Appel: Paintings, 1955–60, October 25–November 19 Michael Goldberg: Recent Paintings, November 22–December 17 The Internationals, December 20– January 14, 1961

1961

Alfred Jensen, January 18–February 14 Larry Rivers, January 20–February 18 John Hultberg: New Paintings, February 14–March 11 Antoni Tàpies, March 15–April 8 Louise Nevelson: The Royal Tides, April 20–May 20

Alfred Leslie: Paintings, March 6–31 Lawrence Caleagno, April 3–26 John Hultberg, April 28–May 26 Billy Al Bengston, May 1–26 Sven Lukin, May 29–June 22 Alex Katz: Stage Sets for “George Washington Crossing the Delaware,” June 5–30 William Scott: Paintings in Retrospect, 1952–62, September 25–October 20 Grace Hartigan: Eight Oils, October 23–November 17 Philippe Hosiasson, November 20– December 15 Sculpture International, November 23–December 29 Painting International, December 18–January 5, 1963

1963

Lester Johnson, January 8–February 2

Marsden Hartley, April 20–May 20

Michael Goldberg, January 8– February 2

Environments, Situations, Spaces, May 25–June 23

Jean McEwen: Paintings, February 5– March 2

Paul Jenkins: Recent Painting, October 3–21

Recent Prints and Paintings, February 15–March 5

10/14/21 1:41 PM

Karel Appel: Paintings, Sculpture, Graphic Works, Books, March 5–30

Grace Hartigan: New Paintings, 1963– 64, November 24–December 19

Phillip Pavia: Marble Sculpture, June 14–July 1

John Hultberg, April 2–27

Christmas Exhibition: Watercolors and Gouaches from the Private Collection of Mrs. Winchester Fitch Ingersoll, December 15–30

Yves Gaucher: Recent Paintings, 1965–66, September 13–October 1

Frank Lobdell: Paintings and Drawings, April 30–May 21 Artists for CORE, May 23–29 Louise Nevelson: Bronzes and Other Sculpture, May 11–[June] Galerie Pilotes, Lausanne, June 4–22 Eleven Americans, September 17– October 12 Antoni Tàpies, October 15– November 16 Yves Gaucher, November 9–30 Christo Capralos, November 19– December 16

Christmas Exhibition of Gallery Artists, December 15–30

Small Sculptures and Sculptors Drawings, November 26– December 30

Figuration, February 9–March 6

Phillip Pavia: Marble Sculptures, 1965–66, November 29– December 30

Vibrations Eleven: The Anomina Group and Others, January 6–31 Alan Davie, March 9–April 3 International 4: Collages and Constructions, April 6–May 1

Bob Thompson, December 3– January 4, 1964

1964

Group Exhibition, September 21– October 9

Michael Goldberg: Still Lifes Group Exhibition, January 7–February 1

Bob Thompson: New Paintings, 1964–65, September 21–October 9

Lester Johnson: Bowery Series, February 4–29

Julian Stanezak: New Paintings, 1965, October 12–30

Paul Jenkins: Recent Paintings, 1963–64, March 3–28

Alik Cavaliere, November 2–27

Sam Francis: New Lithographs, April 28–May 25

Sale of Original Works and Graphics, November 5 Selections for Museum Acquisition: Paintings and Sculpture, November 30–December 30

Sculpture, May 1–31 Looking Back: A Survey of Gallery Exhibitions, May 27–August 14 Julian Stanezak: Optical Paintings, September 8–26

21215.indd 58

1966

Carlos Merida: Recent Paintings, 1962–65, January 4–29

New Acquisitions, September 18–26

Michael Goldberg: Recent Paintings, 1964–65, March 8–[April]

Jay Milder: Subway Runaway Series, September 29–October 17

Edward Weiss: Portraits of People of Renown, April 6–30

Gottfried Honegger: Paintings in Relief, October 17–November 19

Exposition Festival, April 27–May 28

John Hultberg: White Paintings, October 20–November 21

Paul Jenkins: Paintings, 1965–66, November 11–26

1965

Claire Falkenstein: Sculpture and Kinetic Paintings, 1963–64, May 4– June 18

Karel Appel: Object Paintings, March 31–April 25

John Hultberg: Paintings and Lithographs, 1965–66, October 4–29

1967

Karl Appel: Personnage Paintings, 1965–66, January 10–February 4 Grace Hartigan: Oils, 1966, February 7–March 4 Hisao Domoto: Solutions de Continuite, 1966–67, March 7–April 1 Antoni Tàpies: Mixed Media, 1965–66, April 4–29 Frank Roth: Recent Painting, 1966, May 2–27 Young Artists, June 3–23 Celine Chalem: Tables You Can Eat On, September 26–October 7 Treasures from Inventory I: Seventeen Loves, October 17–November 18 Treasures from Inventory II: A Christmas Show, November 21– December 23 Treasures from Inventory III, December 30–January 13, 1968 Jim Dine: Paintings, Drawings, and Collages, 1958–61, December 30– January 13, 1968

Frederick Kiesler: Sculpture, 1964–65, May 6–June 10

10/14/21 1:41 PM

1968

Alfred Jensen: Paintings, 1958–60, January 16–31 James Brooks: Recent Paintings, 1966–67, February 2–March 3 Bob Thompson: Important Works in New York Collections, March 5–28 Man Ray: Multiple Sculpture, March 30–April 20 Joan Mitchell, April 2–27

Wallworks, Part III Graphics, June 2–26

Aijiro Wakia: White Wound Sculpture, March 29–April 19

Martha Jackson Graphics, September 15–October 3

Antreasian: The Silver Suite, March 29–April 19

Antoni Tàpies: Paintings and Drawings from the Gallery Collection, 1969–70, October 6–31

Phillip Pavia: Marble Sculptures, 1967–68, April 26–May 28 Nathan Oliveira: Lithographs, April 26–May 28

Paul Jenkins: Watercolors, April 27– May 18

Wallworks, Part I, June 4–20

Frank Roth: Paintings and Sculpture, April 30–May 23

Dennis Byng: Plexiglas Constructions, September 9–27

Gallery Group Show, May 20–June 22

Sam Richardson: Sculpture Landscapes, October 4–25

Ed McGowin: Plastic Sculptures and Sculpture Drawings, May 28–June 22 Clayton Pond, September 17– October 5

Wallworks, Part II, June 24–July 18

Karel Appel: Paintings and Sculpture, November 1–22

New Acquisitions, October 8–30

Louise Nevelson: Black Walls and Sculptures, December 3–20

Hans Hofmann: Oils and Inks on Paper, October 8–30

1970

Antoni Tàpies: Recent Paintings and Works on Paper, 1966–67, November 1–30 Julian Stanezak: Paintings, 1968, December 3–28 Canadian Graphics Show, December 3–28 Selections from the Graphics Department, December 16–31

1969

John Hultberg: Recent Paintings, 1968, January 4–25 Sculpture/Prints/Drawings by Sculptors, January 4–25 Lester Johnson: Figures, 1968, February 1–22 Frank Roth: Drawings and Collages, 1968–69, February 1–22

21215.indd 59

Paul Jenkins: Recent Paintings, 1968–69, March 1–22

Lucio Fontana: Twelve Paintings, 1960–62, January 3–24 Gio Pomodoro: Graphics, January 3–24 An Exhibition and Sale for the Studio Museum in Harlem, January 27–31 Frank Roth: Recent Paintings, 1969–70, February 3–21 Paul Jenkins: Recent Paintings, 1969–70, February 28–March 21 Grace Hartigan: Oils and Collages, 1969–70, March 28–April 18 Norman Bluhm: Recent Paintings, 1968–69, April 22–May 9 John Hultberg: Paintings, 1969, May 15–30 Gordon Smith: Serigraphs, 1968–69, May 15–30 Wallworks, Part III, June 2–26

Sorel Etrog: Graphics and Books, October 13–31 Sam Francis: Paintings, Watercolors, and Gouaches, 1950–69, November 3–28 Sam Richardson: Islands and Ice/ Sculpture, 1970, November 3–28 December Group Show, December 4–19 Aijiro Wakita: Sculpture and Graphics, December 4–19

1971

Julian Stanczak: Recent Paintings, 1969–70, January 5–30 Norman Bluhm: Triptychs, January 5–30 James Brooks: Recent Painting, February 3–27 Lester Johnson: The Human Situation, March 2–27 Julian Stanczak: Serigraphs, March 2–27 Hisao Domoto: Solution de Continuites, March 30–April 24 Karel Appel, March 30–April 24 Gio Pomodoro: Contatti, May 8–June 2 Karel Appel: Chelsea People, June 16– July 16 David Gilhooly: Antedeluvian Frogs and Other Primitive Ancestors, June 16–July 16 Frank Roth: Recent Acrylics, September 29–October 16

10/14/21 1:41 PM

1973

Karel Appel: Reliefs, Sculpture, and Paintings, October 20–November 13

William Scott: Paintings, 1970–72, January 5–February 16

Sam Francis: Sunlight and Shadows, October 20–November 13

Lester Johnson: Paintings, 1971–73, February 28–March 24

Paul Jenkins: Phenomena Ore Lode Vein, November 17–December 18

Antoni Tàpies: Works on Paper, February 22–March 17

Bruce Lowney, November 17– December 18

Dennis Byng: Cast Lucite Sculptures, May 24–June 14

Paul Jenkins: Watercolors, March 27– April 21

Aijiro Wakita: Sculpture, May 24– June 14

1972

Fritz Bultman: Small Sculpture and Collages, April 21–May 19

Peter Spinelli: Cement Works, May 24–June 14

Julian Stanczak: Recent Paintings, April 24–May 19

Herb Aach: Precession of the Equinoxes, September 19–October 12

New Images, June 5–22

David Hayes: Ceramics, October 5–26

Karl Appel: The Early Fifties, 1950–56, September 12–October 6

Frank Lobdell: Paintings and Drawings, 1955–73, October 17–November 16

Alma W. Thomas: Paintings, October 10–November 3

New Acquisitions: Graphics, October 29–November 16

Antoni Tàpies, 1969–72, November 7–December 15

Jochen Seidel: Paintings, November 20–December 18

Antoni Tàpies: Graphics, November 8–December 1

Antoni Tàpies: Poems from the Catalan, November 23–December 18

Concept and Content: John Cage, Antoni Tàpies, Bob Thompson, January 4–29 Eric H. Olsen: Optochromatic Objects, February 2–26 John Hultberg: Landscape in Retrospect, February 2–26 Frank Lobdell: Paintings, 1968–71, March 1–25 From the “Fifties,” March 1–25 Norman Bluhm: Recent Paintings, March 28–April 22 Julian Stanczak: Progressions, 1971, March 28–April 22 Joan Mitchell: Blue Series, April 26– May 13 Joan Mitchell: The Field Series, May 16–June 26 Clayton Pond: Parts of Things, May 16–June 26 Sam Richardson: Landscape Sculpture, Embossed Drawings, Dimensional Studies, October 3–28 Mark Tobey: Graphics, November 4–25 James Brooks: Paintings, 1949–72, November 29–December 31 Richard Diebenkorn: Lithographs, November 29–December 31

21215.indd 60

Francisco Toledo, March 27–April 20

Jesus Raphael Soto: Eight Kinetic Reliefs, September 29–October 16

Faces, January 3–February 20

Holiday Group Graphics Show, December 2–21

1974

Sam Francis: New Graphics, April 10–27 Lester Johnson: Graphics and Works on Paper, April 30–May 12 Norman Bluhm, April 23–May 18

1975

William Scott: Drawings, January 3– February 1

Fritz Bultman Collages: Bridges between Sculpture and Painting, January 5–26

Clayton Pond: Capital Ideas, February 1–27

Elaine Breiger: Graphics, January 5–26

Sam Richardson: Sierra Snow Series, 1973–74, February 5–March 1

John Hultberg: Paintings, 1972–73, January 31–February 20 Group Exhibition, January 31– February 20 Mark Tobey: Graphics, January 20– February 22

Bob Thompson: Drawings, March 1–27 Lester Johnson: City Women, March 6–29 Black and White, March 29–May 1

Keith Boyle: Collages, February 23– March 17

Benefit for the Once Gallery at Martha Jackson West, April 1–26

Tom Parish: Paintings, February 26– March 23

Julian Stanezak: Recent Paintings, April 1–26

Sam Richardson: Graphics, March 20–April 6

Inaugural Exhibition, Part One, April 8–26

10/14/21 1:41 PM

James Brooks: Recent Paintings, 1973–75, April 30–May 24 Francisco Toledo: Recent Etchings and Aquatints, May 3–24 Inaugural Exhibition, Part Two, May 6–24 Director’s Choice: Five Printmakers, May 31–June 20 Acquisitions, 1970–75, September 27–November 7 Anotoni Tàpies: Selected New Works, 1973–74, November 8–December 13

1976

Bruce Lowney: New Lithographs, January 7–February 7 Fritz Bultman: Bronze Sculpture, 1963–75, January 10–February 7 Graphics from the International Institute of Experimental Printmaking, Santa Cruz, California, February 12– March 6 Bob Thompson, 1973–66: A Tribute, March 13–April 3 William Scott: Gouaches, March 13– April 3 Joehen Seidel: Word Drawings, April 7–May 1 Louis Comtois: Paintings, April 7–May 1

Moises Villelia: Cane Sculpture, April 21–June 15, extended through Summer

1977

John Hultberg and William Scott: Paintings and Drawings, September 29–October 27

Five One-Person Shows: Fritz Bultman, Gio Pomodoro, Paul Jenkins, Clayton Pond, Dennis Byng, January 8–29 Gershon Iskowtiz, February 5–March 5

Agosti: Watercolors, May Group Exhibition: Bob Thompson, James Brooks, Seymour Boardman, Summer Rotating Group Shows, September– March 1978

1978

Antoni Tàpies: Works, 1975–77, April 1–May 6, extended through Summer Elaine Kurtz: Bordered Illusions, September 23–October 21 “90 × 30”: A Festival of Small Sculpture, November 4–December 2

James Brooks: Variations on a Theme, May 5–July 2

1979

David Hockney Graphics: Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, September 25–October 16 Sam Richardson, October 23– November 17 Alma Thomas: Recent Paintings, 1975–76, October 23–November 17

John Griefen: New Paintings, November 3–24

A Salute to Carlos Merida and Francisco Toledo: Graphics, March 12–April 30

“Great Graphics,” December 9– January 13

Group Exhibition, September 25– October 16

Works from the Gallery Collections: Bob Thompson, Antoni Tàpies, JeanPaul Riopelle, Joan Mitchell, James Brooks, February 5–March 5

John Hultberg: Recent Paintings, May 5–June 5

Salute to ’76, June 9–July 2

21215.indd 61

Karel Appel: Paintings of the ’60s, November 20–December 18

Julian Stanezak, January 20–F ebruary 24 Large Paintings and Small Sculpture, March 3–April 14 Josep Guinovart: Recent Works, April 21–June 15, extended through Summer Josep Royo: Tapestries, April 21– June 15, extended through Summer

10/14/21 1:41 PM

21215.indd 62

10/22/21 2:18 PM

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are very grateful to following lenders to the exhibition: Benedict and Jacob Carton Sigrid Freundorfer Fine Art Kathy Komaroff Goodman Sven Lukin Mitchell-Innes & Nash Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art Hart Perry Michael Rosenfeld Gallery Taylor|Graham University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery

This exhibition would not have been possible without the collaboration of Bob Scalise, Director, and Nicholas Ostness, Registrar, at the University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery. In addition, we would like to thank the following individuals for their support and assistance: Joanna Abolafia, Reed Anderson, Leo Baeck Institute, Cary Bluhm and the Estate of Norman Bluhm, Michael Borghi, the Estate of Fritz Bultman, Kathy Komaroff Goodman, the Estate of Josephine Johnson and steven harvey fine art projects, Matthew Mottel, Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, George Schneider, Riche Sorensen, and Elaine Weschler.

21215.P03.04.05.19.29.63.indd 63

10/21/21 11:34 AM

This catalogue has been published on the occasion of the exhibition “Wild and Brilliant: The Martha Jackson Gallery and Post War Art” organized by Hollis Taggart, New York, and presented from November 18 to December 30, 2021. Publication Copyright © 2021 Hollis Taggart Essay © Jillian Russo All rights reserved. Reproduction of contents prohibited. ISBN: 978-1-7378463-9-0 Hollis Taggart 521 West 26th Street 1st Floor New York, NY 10001 Tel 212 628 4000 www.hollistaggart.com Catalogue production: Kara Spellman Copyediting: Jessie Sentivan Design: McCall Associates, New York Printing: Meridian Printing, East Greenwich, Rhode Island Frontispiece: Martha Jackson in her Gallery, 1969. Martha Jackson Gallery Archives, University at Buffalo Anderson Gallery, State University of New York at Buffalo. Photograph by Oscar Abolafia Pages 22–23: John Hultberg, Cloud Drama, 1962 (detail, pl. 16) Page 62: Grace Hartigan, Parson Brown, 1962 (detail, pl. 11) Back cover: Martha Jackson in front of her gallery at 32 East 69th Street, 1965. Martha Jackson Archives, University of Buffalo Anderson Gallery, State University of New York at Buffalo

21215.indd 64

Reproduction Credits © 2021 Karel Appel Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / c/o Pictoright Amsterdam (pl. 10) // © The Estate of Norman Bluhm (pl. 4) // © The Estate of Fritz Bultman (pl. 9) // Courtesy of Benedict and Jacob Carton (pl. 22) // Geoffrey Clements (fig. 6) // © 2021 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (pl. 5) // © 2021 Jim Dine / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (fig. 13, pl. 6) // © The Falkenstein Foundation; Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY (pl. 12) // © 2021 Sam Francis Foundation, California / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (pl. 1) // © Estate of Michael Goldberg; Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York (pl. 13) // © 2021 The Arshile Gorky Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (pl. 7) // © 2021 Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY (pl. 14) // © 2021 Grace Hartigan (pl. 11) // © 2021 With permission of the Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (pl. 3) // © Estate of John Hultberg (pl. 16) // © Estate of Paul Jenkins 2021 / licensed by ADAGP (pl. 2) // © 2021 Estate of Alfred Jensen / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (pl. 17) // © The Estate of Josephine Johnson, courtesy of steven harvey fine art projects (pl. 21) // © Sven Lukin, courtesy of the artist (pl. 19) // © Robert R. McElroy / Licensed by VAGA, New York, New York; © J. Paul Getty Trust (fig. 11) // © Syeus Mottel (fig. 4) // Otto E. Nelson (figs. 7, 14) // © 2021 Estate of Louise Nevelson / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (pl. 8) // Courtesy the Oldenburg van Bruggen Studio, © 2021 Claes Oldenburg (fig. 12) // © The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Digital image © Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala / Art Resource, NY (fig. 5) // © Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York (fig. 8, pl. 20) // John D. Schiff; Courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York (fig. 1) // © Estate of Jiro Yoshihara (fig. 10)

10/14/21 1:41 PM