BERNARD CHAET FORM IN NATURE
BERNARD CHAET FORM IN NATURE FEBRUARY 27 - MARCH 29. 2015
LewAllenGalleries Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com cover: Rising, 1984-2003, oil on canvas, 36” x 62”
Yellow Sea, 1988, oil on canvas, 11” x 14”
Bernard Chaet: FORM IN NATURE for his sumptuous landscapes and engaging still-lifes, Chaet’s notable facility for thick paint and technical excellence has earned him an enduring and important place in the history of American Modernism.
In a distinguished career spanning more than six decades, Bernard Chaet (1924-2012) maintained a principal position among painters and educators evolving the history of American Modernism. His celebrated expressionistic landscapes and seascapes were characterized by their highly energetic palette, expertly variegated surface qualities, and a sustained resonance between compositional rigor and daring improvisation.
Bernard Chaet’s varied themes and styles in his artistic output over several decades reflected his pioneering approaches as a visual interpreter of the American experience. Within Chaet’s oeuvre, the most noticeable contrast was between his painterly landscapes and seascapes that he was best known for, and his blended and uniform interior spaces and figures that offered a disparate, but equally emotional visual interpretations.
Chaet blended an unremitting commitment to painterly craft with daring improvisational expression that fascinated other artists, attracted major collecting interest and prompted noted critic Edward Lucie-Smith to dub him “one of the most respected names in American art [whose] virtuosity and uncanny ability to turn color, texture and shape into emotional experience qualifies his canvases as worthy candidates for important collections of contemporary painting.” Best known
Regardless of subject matter, Bernard Chaet’s paintings invariably evidence movement and rhythm of color on a surface as a joyful counterpoint to recognition of what is being 2
portrayed. They are always about what is seen, how one’s eyes are used to apprehend what is there to be seen.
interior portraits that suggests a respect and connection with the past that was also notably free of emulation or convention.
Uniting Chaet’s diverse types of compositions were his pictorially eloquent forms and his strong attention to line, color, tone, and mass. It is apparent that he had examined a wide range of phenomena, both extraordinary and traditionally mundane, but had always observed an emphasis on form and especially the manner in which color can emphasize the mood of a time or place. There is a sense of classicism in Chaet’s work both in his almost impressionistic seascapes and his more structured
As a chair and Emertitus Professor at the Art Department of the Yale University School of Art, and author of An Artist’s Notebook (1979), Chaet exerted a profound influence over several generations of American artists. Featured in significant exhibitions internationally, his work is included in collections of such esteemed public institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, among numerous others.
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My Morning, 2005-06, oil on canvas, 30” x 30”
Glowing, 2008, oil on canvas, 15” x 30”
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4 P.M., 2002, oil on canvas, 14” x 18”
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The Large Rock, 1995, oil on canvas, 12” x 24”
Bass Rocks, Red Clouds, 1989-2005, oil on canvas, 31” x 71”
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Pink Streak, 2005, oil on canvas, 30” x 36”
Night Rain, 2003-06, oil on canvas, 30” x 60”
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Afternoon Surf, 2010, oil on canvas, 13” x 25”
Dark Sun, 1982-2002, oil on canvas, 26” x 62”
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New Day, 2000-04, oil on canvas, 44” x 50”
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Dark Wood Vt., 1995, oil on canvas, 14” x 18”
Cows in Landscape, 2005, oil on canvas, 15” x 30”
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Pine, 2001, oil on canvas, 24” x 18”
Untitled (Tree), 1975-76, oil on canvas, 40” x 44”
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Lowland, 2002, oil on canvas, 10” x 20”
Fruit Dish II, 1976, oil on canvas, 8” x 18”
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Red Tomatoes, 1989, oil on canvas, 9” x 12”
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4 Tomatoes in Colander, 1999, oil on canvas, 12” x 12”
2 Bathers, 1990, oil on canvas, 22” x 28”
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Quarry (Yellow), 1967, oil on canvas, 30” x 22”
Untitled (Bathers), 1989, oil on canvas, 16” x 21”
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BERNARD CHAET Born: 1924, Boston, MA Education: BA, 1947, Tufts University, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
1983 1973 1966 1962 1960 1959 1958 1956 1954 1954 1953 1951 1946
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2015 LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM 2012 LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM 2010 LewAllen Galleries, 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; 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)
Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT 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 Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
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
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Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com Š 2015 LewAllen Contemporary LLC