Jack Roth: Works from the Estate

Jack Roth (1927-2004)

WORKS FROM THE ESTATE February 25 - April 2, 2022

Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com cover: New Synthesis #43 (detail), 1981, Acrylic on canvas, 67 x 44 in

Untitled, 1960 Oil on canvas, 36" x 36"

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Jack Roth | Works from the Estate I stand on the shoulders of the heroes who came before.... Painting and drawing are intentional in that I work towards a transcendental configuration which is meaningful to me…. It is transcendental both in that I stand on the shoulders of the heroes who came before, most recently artists such as Newman, Rothko, Motherwell, Frankenthaler… and in that it transcends analysis in terms of traditional language and logic. Effectively such an image adds another dimension to our world. In this sense, art is sublime and spiritual.

Jack Roth

The remarkable work and career of Jack Roth places him among the legendary figures of the Abstract Expressionist and Color Field movements of the post-World War II periods of American art – including the “heroes on whose shoulders” he thought he stood.

Roth was himself a brilliant Abstract Expressionist and Color Field painter who created an extraordinary body of art that capably reflected a variety of influences and manifesting a number of fascinating styles.

His career began in the late 1940s when he worked in San Francisco and studied under Mark Rothko, Richard Diebenkorn, and Clyfford Still. Though he concerned himself less with the promotional or commercial side of his career, Roth had achieved a considerable level of critical and even professional success by the mid-1980s, when unfortunately his career was cut short by triple bypass surgery after which his health declined precipitously and he effectively ceased producing art. However, before he died in 2004, he and his wife stored away in an onion barn in Chester, NY hundreds of paintings and works on paper from the height of his art-making ability. The more than 40 works on canvas and paper in this LewAllen exhibition represent Roth’s finest periods and come from this treasure chest of art secreted away and off the market for many years.

Roth began his career as one of the youngest artists—just 27 years of age—whose work was selected for the landmark “Younger American Painters” exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which helped to introduce Abstract Expressionism to the American public in 1954. This exhibition, which traveled to major art museums across the United States, included numerous leading artists of the day, including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell, many of whom were decades his elder.

Art in America named Roth as its "New Talent" graphic artist in 1963 upon the recommendation of legendary curators Dorothy Miller and William Lieberman from the Museum of Modern Art who also added a Roth work to the Museum's collection. In 1979, he was awarded a highly prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for painting which was a major recognition of Roth's career achievements and the importance he had attained by that time in the art world.

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In 1979, the legendary New York gallery, Knoedler & Co, began representing Roth’s work, placing him in the company of leading artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Alexander Calder, Adolph Gottlieb, Frank Stella, Robert Motherwell, and Franz Kline. Knoedler sold more than one hundred of Roth's paintings during the 1970s and 1980s. With a vivid sense of graphic immediacy and arrangements of fresh, even color, Roth’s art from this later period often incorporated broad shapes of stained matte pigment and an unusual use of line and negative space. In 1980, John Russell, the acclaimed critic for The New York Times, wrote of Roth’s work, “[His] paintings are almost dangerously easy to like, but they have teeth.…”

Roth’s art evolved alongside the vanguard of postwar American art, from Abstract Expressionism through Color Field painting and beyond. This exhibition includes examples of both his early and later periods, including his early gestural and densely brushed canvases through his crisp, confident, and graphic 1970s and 1980s works that emphasize high-intensity color arrangements and wide expanses of black pigment on unprimed canvas. Other abstractions also include those that feature thin contour lines that delineate his soft forms, sometimes evoking the flat, ‘cutout’ shapes of Matisse’s late paintings.

The exhibition begins with an example from 1960 of Roth’s version of an action painting that features the multi-colored Sturm-und-Drang cacophony of the artist’s act of creation. Untitled (1960) is interlaced with wide ranging textural variations, wrist movements producing rivulets and arabesques of line, and accumulations and stains of myriad colors. Here is the versatility of the artist’s intuitive creativity and expression on display that might be reminiscent of French tachisme and Art Informel movements of the previous two decades.

This dramatic painting is followed by three other canvases (Untitled “P”, Untitled (1961), and Cinderella) that further illustrate the manifestation of Roth’s most spontaneous creativity from the early 1960s, each making use of free application of blurs and clouds in gray tones contrasted with assertions of black splotches and occasional interventions of color. Here perhaps are the gestures that most clearly express the emotions of the artist at a point when his work was at its height of free-form expression. Roth returned toward the spirit of these works near the end of his career in a 1982 series of untitled acrylic paintings on paper, several of which are also included in this exhibition.

Roth was a complex man, much like the discipline of mathematics that he loved, held a PhD in, wrote books about, and taught in universities for decades. In addition to having studied art at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco in the late 1940s, Roth earned a Bachelor in Art and Chemistry from Penn State in 1951, followed by a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa in 1952, and a PhD in mathematics from Duke University in 1962. Roth was a true polymath, as conversant in Bergsonian philosophy and Zen Buddhism as he was in avant-garde American art and the relationship of non-figurative painting to mathematical physics. He was both a brilliant mathematician as well as a man of deep artistic passion.

As his artwork evolved, it began increasingly to manifest a convergence of these interests. He expressed 4

it this way in a 1980 interview with The New York Times: I think there is a definite connection between doing work in mathematics and work in painting.

They’re very similar creative activities. Both creative mathematicians and artists are out there at the edges of horizons trying to push back the frontiers of human knowledge and understanding.

Those monumental efforts begin to manifest in Roth’s more ordered paintings from the late 1970s and early 1980s in which the free-form sense of spontaneity of expression in the earlier works begins to give way to a more disciplined approach in arranging solid-color shapes and forms assembled as though in mathematically constructed combinations. In this exhibition, acrylic on canvas paintings -- with numbered title variations of Dance to the Music of Spring, Montclair (1981); Phant-6 (1980); and Untitled (1976) feature palettes of subdued, stained colors, built from ribbons, chasms, tunnels, and plumes of color interposed one upon the other to create lively and complex compositions. These invite comparison to Henri Matisse’s dancers and cutouts as well as Fernand Leger’s works in which color and line seem to work delightfully well independent of each other.

In another group of intensely colorful works entitled the Rope Dancer series (1980), we are told that Roth was inspired by a Man Ray painting now at the Museum of Modern Art called The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself with Her Shadows. That painting had been based on a happy accident that inspired Ray to make a painting based on scraps of colored paper fallen on a floor. In a more concerted way, Roth’s Rope Dancer paintings evince a sense of the construction of cutout forms but with more forethought than randomness and clear attention to chromatic congruence. Mathematics again seems to enter into the aesthetic equation. One might also feel a kinship to the saturated colors and adept use of forms to communicate through pictorial structure that Stuart Davis consummately represented in his iconic mid20th century Modernist works.

Increasingly, Roth strove to find deeper connections between mathematical principles and art, and saw those intersections between the two as being useful as his work evolved. Indeed, Roth viewed both art and mathematics as different types of languages to describe the world and clearly preferred them to the lingua franca of written or spoken English. “[That] language is weak and inadequate to analyze such mysteries as love and friendship and art,” he wrote, “To find a new language – this is a partial answer, at least, to why – to why I paint and draw.” He expands on this pursuit in his writings: I seek to invent a universal language and logic--a language available to all who will look without prejudice and look without looking for something. A language available to those who do not try to understand by interpretation and by imposing non-art structures. A language for understanding that which can not otherwise be understood.

It is this mission that perhaps finds its greatest actualization in the large-scale works in this exhibition, 5

bearing titles such as numerical iterations of Cornering, New Synthesis, Parametric Pressure, and Thesis.

These major works offer an interesting visual duality that perhaps parallels Roth’s struggle to discover new ways of confronting, understanding, and communicating about the chaos of the modern world as well as aspects of his own unique life. These works evince Roth’s more disciplined mathematical approach to the pictorial mechanics of composition than his earlier works, combined with fields of color, often black, blue or red, and punctuated by fissures of white lines of negative space and peripheral bars of contrasting colors.

Certainly, the elements of these monumentally scaled paintings possess the power to merge signifiers of perceptual specificity into these broader conceptual possibilities. Color, for example, becomes a surrogate for meaning in his work, a realm of semiotics which, as with mathematics that he knew so well, could be used in formulaic combinations to communicate meaning. Colors were a language by which he could express mood and wield emotion. One is reminded of Clyfford Still, who wrote, “I never wanted color to be color. I never wanted texture to be texture, or images to become shapes. I want them all to fuse into a living spirit.” In a similar way, Roth fused color and the other elements of his mathematics of art into what for him became a living art and a way to communicate profound aesthetic meanings.

Roth did this as well in these works with his use of line which, of course, Roth knew well from his study of geometry, the branch of mathematics concerned with spatial relationships. About this, Roth wrote, "I used to fantasize about a line that was so beautiful that it would mean everything, would express all, and would be the locus of all our hopes and aspirations, joys and sorrows, and where we could find peace and oneness. In recent years I have come to believe that such a line... can only be approximated."

But foremost, one senses in his paintings that Roth nears his hope that one can get lost, make one’s own interpretations, and perhaps, in the doing of this, one can discern a new language to understand that which cannot be understood. His array of elements in accordance with his own geometric principles, onto epically-sized canvases, nears his stated goal of “adding another dimension to our world” and, indeed, making art that is “sublime and spiritual.”

- Kenneth R. Marvel

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Untitled "P", 1961 Oil on canvas, 72" x 53.5"

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Untitled, 1961 Oil on canvas, 51.5" x 40"

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Cinderella, 1961 Oil on canvas, 51" x 42"

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Untitled, 1967 Oil on canvas, 55" x 54.5"

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Untitled, 1967 Oil on canvas, 47" x 47"

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Untitled, 1965 Oil on canvas, 62" x 62"

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Untitled, 1968 Acrylic on canvas, 62.5" x 56.75"

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Ibid-9, 1982 Acrylic on canvas, 69" x 90" 15

Cornering #11, 1979 Acrylic on canvas, 80" x 70"

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Thesis X, 1981 Acrylic on canvas, 84" x 84"

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New Synthesis #55, 1981 Acrylic on canvas, 48" x 70" 18

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Cornering #22, 1978 Acrylic on canvas, 55" x 42" 20

Untitled, 1978 Acrylic on canvas, 55" x 42" 21

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Parametric Pressure, 1980 Acrylic on canvas, 67" x 80" 23

New Synthesis #10, 1981 Acrylic on canvas, 92" x 66"

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Swy, 1979 Acrylic on canvas, 18" x 28"

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Untitled (Rope Dancer Series), 1980 Acrylic on canvas, 10.5" x 24"

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Untitled (Rope Dancer Series), 1980 Acrylic on canvas, 10" x 16"

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Untitled (Rope Dancer Series), 1980 Acrylic on canvas, 10.5" x 12"

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Untitled (Rope Dancer Series), 1980 Acrylic on canvas, 10.25" x 18"

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Untitled, 1976 Acrylic on canvas, 40" x 90"

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Dance to the Music of Spring, Montclair #61, 1981 Acrylic on canvas, 70" x 52"

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Phant-6, 1980 Acrylic on canvas, 18" x 38"

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Untitled, 1976 Acrylic on canvas, 30" x 90"

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Dance to the Music of Spring, Montclair #31, 1981 Acrylic on canvas, 24" x 90"

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Dance to the Music of Spring, Montclair #29, 1981 Acrylic on canvas, 28.5" x 90"

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Dance to the Music of Spring, Montclair #23, 1981 Acrylic on canvas, 40" x 70"

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Untitled, 1982 Acrylic on paper, 30.5" x 22.5"

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Untitled, 1982 Acrylic on paper, 30.5" x 22.5"

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Untitled, 1978 Acrylic on paper, 30" x 22"

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Untitled (Diptych), 1978 Acrylic on paper, 30" x 44"

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Untitled, 1982 Acrylic on paper, 30.5" x 22.5"

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Untitled, 1982 Acrylic on paper, 30" x 22"

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Untitled, 1982 Acrylic on paper, 40" x 32"

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Untitled, 1982 Acrylic on canvas, 44" x 30.5"

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Untitled, 1982 Acrylic on paper, 22.5" x 30.5"

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Zen Study 5, 1986 Acrylic on paper, 40" x 32"

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Zen Study A-11, 1986 Acrylic on paper, 40" x 32"

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Zen Study A-11-2, 1986 Acrylic on paper, 40" x 32"

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JACK ROTH (1927-2004) b. 1927, Brockway, PA | d. 2004, Montclair, NJ SELECTED SOLO PUBLIC EXHIBITIONS

1980

Jack Roth: Recent Paintings, Knoedler & Co.,

Princeton, NJ

New York, NY

1980

Knoedler & Co., New York, NY

1963

60 Modern Drawings: New Acquisitions,

2022

Works from the Estate, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

Jack Roth: Ramapo Paintings, Clocktower,

2012

Jack Roth, 1927—2004—Color Line

New York, NY

Equations, Peyton Wright Gallery, Santa

Gallery 99 Presents the Paintings of Jack

Graphics 63, University of Kentucky,

Fe, NM

Roth, Gallery 99, Bay Harbor Island, FL

Lexington, KY (traveling exhibition circulated

Ramapo Series I, Ramapo College Art

by the Smithsonian Institution)

Gallery, Mahwah, NJ

Jack Roth and Rachel Roth, Paintings

Jack is Back, (Vallarino & McCormick)

1978

McCormick Gallery, Chicago, IL

Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Line Color Equation, Spanierman Modern,

1967

University of Florida, Jacksonville, FL

and Drawings, University of Kentucky,

New York, NY

1965

Jack Roth—Goodies, Kornman Gallery,

Lexington, KY

1964

Jack Roth: To Interpret Reality, University of

(traveled to High Museum, Atlanta, GA;

1960s, (Vallarino & McCormick) McCormick

South Florida, Tampa, FL

North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh,

Gallery, Chicago, IL

Boxes, Collages, Constructions, Florida

NC; Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC;

1997

Collonades Gallery, Montclair, NJ

Presbyterian Colege, St. Petersburg, FL

Birmingham Museum, Birmingham, AL)

1986

Jack Roth Ramapo College Art Gallery,

Kornman Gallery, Tampa, FL

Some Younger Names in American

Mahwah, NJ

Jack Roth, Washington Square Galleries,

Painting, Worcester Art Museum,

Jack Roth—Recent Work, Ochi Gallery,

LaGuardia Place, New York, NY

Worcester, MA

2011

Tampa, FL

When I Grow Up I Want to Be Just Like Jasper Johns, Jack Roth: Drawings from the

Hastings College, Hastings, NE

Boise, ID 1985

1983

exhibition organized by the Solomon R.

Moderns, New York, NY

Guggenheim Museum, New York),

Jack Roth, Wyckoff Gallery, Wyckoff, NJ

Jack Roth, Cinema I and II, New York, NY

Portland Art Museum (Oregon); Henry

University of Kentucky Art Gallery,

Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle;

Lexington, KY

San Francisco Museum of Fine Art;

Jack Roth, Drawings, Chapel Hill Art Gallery,

Los Angeles County Museum of Art;

Chapel Hill, NC

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville;

Jack Roth Paintings, Knoedler & Co., New Jack Roth, Acrylics on Paper, Ochi Gallery,

1962 1958

Boise, ID Jack Roth, Milhouse-Bundy Museum,

Jack Roth, Paintings, Duke University,

Isaac Delgado Museum of art; Indiana

Waitsfield, VT

Durham, NC

University, Bloomington, IN

Jack Roth, Acrylics on Paper, New Jersey

1952

1982-83 Jack Roth: Drawings and Watercolors, Ramapo College Art Gallery, Mahwah, NJ

1949

1954

Younger American Painters, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

York, NY

Dallas Young Collectors Show, Dallas

Jack Roth, Contemporary Gallery, Sausalito,

Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, TX

CA (also 1950)

(traveled to Hiram College, Hiram, OH; Sweet Briar College, Sweet Briar, VA; Junior

Jack Roth, Gallery 5, Iowa City, IA (also 1953) Jack Roth Paintings, Hansa Gallery, New

State Museum, Trenton, NJ

1953

5th Annual Iowa Artists Exhibition, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA

College of Albany, Albany, NY; Montclair

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Exhibition Momentum Midcontinental,

State University, Montclair, NJ; New Jersey

2001

Abstract Expressionism: Expanding the

Chicago, IL

1995

Still Working: New Jersey Artists Over 65,

Canon, Gary Snyder Fine Art, New York, NY

State Museum, Trenton, NJ) Jack Roth, Drawings, Ramapo College Art Jack Roth, Rosenberg Fine Arts, Ltd., Toronto, Canada

1952

Exhibition Momentum Midcontinental, Chicago, IL

The Gallery at Bristol-Meyers Squibb,

Gallery, Mahwah, NJ 1984

Jack Roth: Recent Paintings, Montclair 1982

Princeton, NJ

SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

New Jersey Curator’s Choice, Robeson

Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX

Center Gallery, Rutgers University

Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID

1982 Summer Group Show, Knoedler & Co.,

Duke University, Durham, NC

Jack Roth, Gallery 99, Bay Harbor Islands, FL

New York, NY

Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

(also 1983)

Fall Show, Rosenberg Fine Arts, Ltd.,

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Jack Roth, Paintings, Knoedler & Co.,

Toronto, Canada

North Carolina, Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC

New York, NY

Two Person Show, Gallery of Fine Art,

University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY

Art Museum, Montclair, NJ

1981

1955-56 Younger American Painters (traveling

Art, Princeton, NJ

York, NY

1982

South Coast Art Show, Sarasota, FL

Jack Roth, Drawings, Grand Central

Jack Roth Paintings, Princeton Gallery of

1963

1958

Photo courtesy of the Estate of Jack Roth

Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com © 2022 LewAllen Contemporary, LLC Artwork © Estate of Jack Roth