Bernard Chaet: Coastal Memories

BernardChaet COASTAL MEMORIES

BernardChaet

C O A S TA L M E M O R I E S APRIL 6 - APRIL 29. 2012

LLC

Railyard: 1613 Paseo De Peralta Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 tel 505.988.3250 Downtown: 125 West Palace Avenue Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 tel 505.988.8997 www.lewallencontemporary.com cover: Rocky Shore, 2006, oil on canvas, 32 x 32 inches

Bernard Chaet: Coastal Memories A marker of achievement in contemporary art is the ability to help others see differently. Works are celebrated when they can suggest new points of view or impart alternative perspectives – perhaps what architect Phillip Johnson was referring to as “the ability to disturb our thinking.”

Such works jostle accepted notions and demonstrate the potential for human enrichment by propounding convincing alternatives to supposedly settled realities. Arguably, they assist in the making of culture.

Cubism, Constructivism and other movements of artistic innovation that set the stage for contemporary adventurers like Bernard Chaet to offer up yet more new ways of seeing the world. Chaet is an artist who clearly delights in the tactile qualities of oil paint; his ability to capture the brilliant gradations in color and light at various times of day and year recalls the work of one of his icons, Marsden Hartley. The keen sense of weightlessness and freedom so convincingly affected in his seascape paintings serves to distinguish his work from the denser, more angst-driven compositional tendencies of fellow modern American painters.

According to internationally acclaimed critic and art historian Edward Lucie-Smith, Chaet’s is “one of the most respected names in American art.” The exhilarating interactions between ocean, land, and sky that populate Chaet’s oil paintings have provided him with fertile opportunity for provocative reformulation of the way we look at seascapes, among other subjects.

They have come to define his richly dynamic oeuvre and his exciting visual reappraisals.

Historically, the more realistic the pictorial representation, the better the work of art was thought to be. But as mere appropriation and visual description of reflected scenery grew tedious to observers of art in the middle part of the 19th century, painters began to create more adventuresome expositions of the world around them. Executant impression provided a novel alternative to faithful reproduction and thereby stimulated intellectual and emotional capacities not previously addressed.

Coastal Memories is a tightly assembled group of oil paintings focused primarily on the Eastern seaboard landscapes for which Chaet is so renowned. An acknowledged master of vivid brush strokes and clever formal arrangements, Chaet imbues his canvases with a striking liveliness and breathtaking color harmony. Over the course of a nearly sevendecade career, Chaet has maintained a principal position among painters and educators in evolving the history of American Modernism. The celebrated seascapes and still-life paintings which constitute Coastal Memories are characterized by their highly energetic palette, expertly variegated surface qualities, and the coexistence of compositional rigor and bold improvisation. As a former chair and current Emeritus Professor at the Yale University School of Art, and as author of several widely utilized texts on materials and techniques, including An Artist’s Notebook (1979), The

Cezanne exemplified this early impulse to depart from the merely familiar in order to convey a deeply personal reaction to the experience of nature. His reconfigurations of the world manifested in spatially distorted, often indistinct forms; they were thought of as radical and unsettling assaults to accepted notions of how landscape paintings ought to be constructed.

The possibilities consequent to this willingness to re-look kindled, however, a tradition that grew through 2

Art of Drawing (three eds., 1970-83), and Artists at Work (1960), Chaet has exerted a profound influence over several generations of American artists.

texture. Though his adherence to traditional elements of landscape painting belie his classical training, Chaet injects to these a wholly unexpected, almost percussive improvisation; when he uses dashes of hot pink or burning orange to otherwise placid seascapes they strike the viewer as both organic and otherworldly.

In this way, the drama of rocky mounts and stormy skies avoids conflict with the comparative tranquility of ocean crests and melting sunsets.

It is not uncommon for Chaet to use unconventional colors for landscape entities like rocks and clouds, which mesmerize the viewer and evoke a specific time of day or season. This focus on light-drenched, reimagined vistas, along with an almost reverential loyalty to the textural qualities of oil paint, suggest the work of Cezanne and van Gogh; he differentiates himself with elements of unexpected, almost percussive improvisation which strike the viewer as both plausible and thrilling.

Chaet’s deep knowledge of classical painting and drawing indeed infuses his practice with a connection to the past, but one that is refreshingly free of constraint or convention.

He combines tradition with spontaneity, creating works at once bold and ordered –much like the American jazz musicians he is so fond of listening to in his studio.

As implied by the exhibition title, Chaet has a nostalgic affection for the East Coast shoreline that informs much of this work. The craggy upper Atlantic coast has held a captivating spell over Chaet for 45 years, when a move to the majestic seaside town of Cape Ann, Massachusetts sparked an enduring love of seascape painting.

Chaet’s facility with oil paint is articulated in confidant strokes of brilliant color, which he manipulates with thick dabs or thin washes into roiling surf and rocky cliffs. In capturing this outwardly inhospitable and often dramatic landscape, Chaet seems eager to challenge our assumptions of its obduracy. His fondness for plein air painting allows him to achieve a pictorial honesty informed by direct observation, and also serves as a platform by which the opacity of intense color can merge with the enigmatic translucence of natural light. Wall Street Journal art critic Lance Esplund recently observed that in Chaet’s incandescent compositions, “light sparkles through porous forms, which wrap and twist together as if earth, ocean and sky were a single organism.”

Making use of an energetic and far-reaching color palette, Chaet’s landscapes and still lifes make use of a variety of painting techniques –scumbled, thick swirls of paint share canvas space with more pared-down washes of pigment. This juxtaposition of built-up layers of opaque pigments with thinner, translucent pigments, forges a singular interaction between color and 3

Swirl, 2006, oil on canvas, 36” x 47.5”

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Folly Cove, 1989, oil on canvas, 16” x 20”

top: Low Tide Rocks, 2008, oil on canvas, 12” x 24” bottom: Cove, 2003, oil on canvas, 12” x 24”

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Burnt Sienna Sky, 1999-06, oil on canvas, 30” x 37.75”

Small Island, 2008, oil on canvas, 30” x 40”

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Island, 2010, oil on canvas, 26” x 40”

Provincetown, 2008, oil on canvas, 8” x 10”

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clockwise from top left: Beach Party, 2006, oil on canvas, 8” x 10” Bather, 1968, oil on canvas, 8” x 10” Bather II, 2004-05, oil on canvas, 8” x 10” 11

3 Bathers, 1988, oil on canvas, 14” x 8”

Morning Waves, 2010, oil on canvas, 24” x 36”

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The Sun, oil on canvas, 32” x 38”

Tools on a Chair, 2007, oil on canvas, 24” x 18”

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top: Front Beach, 2009, oil on canvas, 8” x 10” 15

bottom: Green Cloud, 2005-06, oil on canvas, 9” x 12”

Gloucester Harbor, 2002, oil on canvas, 20” x 20”

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May, 1995, oil on canvas, 20” x 36”

Purple Hat, 1992, oil on canvas, 14” x 10”

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July Afternoon, 2002, oil on canvas, 30” x 36”

The Pier, 2005, oil on canvas, 22” x 28”

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Green Sea, 2004, oil on canvas, 10” x 14”

Cape Ann Toolworks, 1990, oil on canvas, 15” x 29.75”

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Orange Light, 1991-99, oil on canvas, 12” x 34”

Bernard Chaet Born: 1924, Boston, MA

Education: BA, 1947, Tufts University | School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2012 LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM 2010 LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM 2008 LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM 2007 David Findlay Jr. Fine Art, New York, NY

(7 shows since 1991) 2005-06 Butler Institute of Art, Youngstown, OH (painting retrospective), traveled to: Harnett Museum of Art, University of Richmond, VA; and Amherst College, MA 2004 Alpha Gallery, Boston, MA (10 shows since 1967) 2000 M B Modern, New York, NY (also 1998) 1998 M D Modern, Houston, TX 1991 Marilyn Pearl Gallery, New York, NY (9 shows 1977-91) 1990-92 Boston Public Library (drawing retrospective), traveled to: Yale University; University of Louisville; Southern Methodist University; University of Montana; Holter Museum, Helena, MT; Indiana University; University of Michigan; College of William and Mary; and Maryland Institute College of Art 1989 Jane Haslem Gallery, Washington, DC (also 1973) 1989 J. Rosenthal fine Arts, Chicago, IL (also 1986) 1986 Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 1982 Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE 1979 Marilyn Pearl Gallery, New York, NY, traveled to: College of William and Mary; Hermitage Foundation Museum; University of North Carolina, Greensboro 1975 Forum Gallery, New York, NY 1972 Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 1970 Brockton Art Center, Brockton, MA (retrospective) 1969 University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 1967 Stable Gallery, New York, NY (also 1959, 1961) SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2007 National Academy of Design 2006 Harnett Museum of Art, University of Richmond, VA 2002 New York Studio, New York, NY 2002 Boston University Art Gallery, Boston, MA 2000 Chicago Art Institiute, Chicago, IL 1995 Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA 1991 Art Institute of Boston, MA 1989 Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC 1984 Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY 1983 Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC 1973 Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

1966 1962 1960 1959 1958 1956 1954 1954 1953 1951 1946

Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC Detroit Art Institute, Detroit, MI Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY Fort Worth Museum, Fort Worth, TX Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA San Franscisco Art Institute, San Franscisco, CA DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

SELECTED AWARDS 2007 National Academy, Edwin Palmer Memorial Prize (also 2001) 2003 National Academy, Henry Ward Ranger, Purchase Prize 2001 American Academy of Arts and Letters, Jimmy Ernst Prize 1999 National Academy, Edwin Palmer Landscape Prize 1997 National Academy, Benjamin Altman Landscape Prize 1986 American Academy of Arts and Letters, Child Hassam Fund Purchase 1981 American Academy of Arts and Letters, Hassam and Speicher Fund Purchase SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY Brown University, Providence, RI Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, IL DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM New York Public Library, New York, NY Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC State University of New York, Cortland, NY Weatherspoon Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC Wight Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles, CA Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

LLC

Railyard: 1613 Paseo De Peralta Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 tel 505.988.3250 Downtown: 125 West Palace Avenue Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 tel 505.988.8997 www.lewallencontemporary.com