Skip Steinworth: Master Drawings

Skip Steinworth Master Drawings

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Skip Steinworth Master Drawings

March 20 - April 18, 2020

LewAllenGalleries Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com

cover: Apple Blossoms in Small Jar (detail), 2020, graphite on board, 13 x 11 inches

Skip Steinworth Master Drawings Considered one of the finest draftsmen working anywhere today, Skip Steinworth has had a successful career spanning over forty years. His extraordinary drawings consistently demonstrate remarkable grace, elegance, and finesse – often incorporating a sense of quiet drama and a gentle evocation of mystery in remarkably detailed still-lifes that transform the commonplace and familiar into arrangements that are both intimate and exceptionally poetic.

In consciously limiting himself to the ancient and yet deceptively difficult medium of graphite on paper, Steinworth’s approach is that of a reductivist—intentionally avoiding the potential enticements of color in favor of the extraordinary visual effects created by the gradations between black and white. In so doing, the artist has dedicated himself and his career to a particularly challenging task.

Steinworth’s fervent belief is that each pencil mark must serve to define and convey the full intentions of the works. This is a tremendous act of courage. Very few artists have ever been willing or even capable of taking on such an artistic challenge. Steinworth not only takes on that challenge, he thrives on the opportunities such calculated limitation provides. His remarkable prowess has distinguished him as possibly the finest master of this art form today, and in the company of such historically regarded figures as Dürer, da Vinci, Rubens and Rembrandt.

In the hands of the artist, a tableau of simple objects or perhaps a cluster of apples becomes surprisingly personal and evocative. Steinworth transcends subject matter by capturing its ultimate, almost spiritual essence, what the renowned French Neoclassical painter JeanAuguste-Dominique Ingres referred to as the “inner form.”

Steinworth states, “It’s a process of mentally deconstructing, analyzing, and distilling the visual essence of a subject.” The exquisitely spare and graceful qualities of Steinworth’s imagery belie the fact that it often takes several months to create these complexly executed drawings that consist of thousands upon thousands of carefully conceived and executed pencil strokes.

Steinworth’s drawings are radiant and voluptuous, yet quietly unassuming with their subtle and nuanced imagery. Depicting contexts that are more often implied and suggestive rather 2

than defined and obvious, and depicting objects that are frequently ephemeral (such as cut flowers), the works convey a surprising and pervasive sense of timelessness. In his works set in domestic environments, Steinworth achieves a dreamlike effect that balances the empirical quality of his objects with a subtle, yet ever-present sense of mystery. In fact, Steinworth sometimes invents the objects that he portrays.

In the tour-de-force work, “Measuring Time,” Steinworth demonstrates his great facility with form, light, shadow, and invention. The tableau of individual objects possesses the reflective qualities of a Flemish still life or “nature morte.” Yet, just as a Flemish painting would have celebrated the objects of 17th century Holland, this tableau incorporates items that are more familiar to us today. There is a theatrical quality to this image that seems to imply an enigmatic story. The juxtaposition of the varied objects creates a sense of tension with each of the objects becoming like characters in a play. Not only does this drawing include a somewhat traditional bowl of fruit, it also features a small statuette, a camera, paint tubes, a swatch of shimmering fabric, a cascade of ivy, a glistening pot of delicate flowers and, presumably from Steinworth’s imagination, a hummingbird fluttering above the delicate stemmed blossoms— all actors animating an otherwise still environment.

Indeed, what is not apparent is that much of the set-up of this drawing is conjured entirely from the artist’s imagination. Had one been in the studio when this work was created, the items in the tableau would have been simply placed on a plain wooden shelf. The table and tablecloth are inventions of the artist, as is the flooring, the physical aspects of the room and, of course, the fluttering dreamlike figure of the hummingbird. Each item is celebrated for its presence and singular sense of character. Note, for example, the shadows of the ivy leaves reflected on the sensuous folds of the tablecloth. The gleam off the pair of scissors is so convincingly captured that one is tempted to reach over and pick them up. The yardstick casts a dramatic shadow on the wall that enhances the physicality of the object itself. The letter on the richly grained oak chair and the perhaps anachronistic pocket watch and watch chain straddling the map all evoke the lush trompe l’oeil (fool the eye) paintings of the classic 19th century American artist William Hartnett. Like those works, there is an implied story—a puzzle to engage the viewer by intimating questions.

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Steinworth continues, “My work is representational, which to me means more than achieving a pictorial illusion. It is an investigation of our perceptions of the seeable world, an effort to understand what exactly it is that allows us to make sense of what we see.”

This dramatic aspect of Steinworth’s drawings to resonate that Ingres sense of “inner form” also appears in “Mums with Scissors and String,” “Small White Still Life,” and “Pots & Peppers,” where each array of inanimate and botanical life forms acts as both props and actors on a stage. Other drawings, like “Apple Blossoms in Small Jar” or “Nest #6,” emanate a sense of poetry that is conceived like a soliloquy.

In “Fallen Leaves,” Steinworth uses his finely honed draftsmanship to focus and luxuriate on the myriad aspects of this earthly mantle of small branches, twigs, and fallen oak leaves. Through his deft use of gradations of grays, whites, and blacks, Steinworth has created a heightened sense of reality. The viewer is encouraged to scrutinize the mottled barks of the branches and twigs and to delight in the pirouetting forms of the autumn leaves. In depicting these natural forms, Steinworth creates the work with an “all over” effect not dissimilar to that of an Abstract Expressionist painting. The drawing is vital in its exuberant energies depicted in these natural forms. There’s a transcendental quality to this work – evoking the cycles of life and the omnipresent force of spirituality in nature.

Reviewer Bill Lasarow, of Art Scene Magazine, captured Steinworth’s artistic courage when he wrote, “The simple purity of pencil work… is gutsy for its rejection of bombast.” The works, while quiescent, attain a remarkable energy in their masterful composition, evocation of light, space, and form. Like the Dutch and French old masters before him, Steinworth pays careful, almost obsessive attention to arrangement, lighting, scale, and subject matter—elevating the everyday to resplendent expression.

Justin Ferate

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Measuring Time, 1989, graphite on paper, 37 x 49.5 inches

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Small White Still Life #2, 2019, graphite on board, 16.5 x 19.5 inches

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Mums with Scissors and String, 2019, graphite on board, 14.5 x 15.5 inches

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Pots & Peppers, 2020, graphite on board, 13 x 17.5 inches

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Nest #6, 2017, graphite on board, 13.5 x 16.5 inches

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Fallen Leaves, 2019, graphite on paper, 16.5 x 25 inches 11

Apple Blossom Branch, 2020, graphite on board, 9.5 x 12.5 inches

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White Flowers and Glassware, 2019, graphite on board, 25 x 30 inches

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Shallots, 2017, graphite on board, 7.75 x 9 inches

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Leaves, 2019, graphite on board, 10.75 x 9.5 inches

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Pots/Plants #4, 2011, graphite on board, 22 x 32 inches 17

Beachstones #5, graphite on board, 20 x 30 inches

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Beachstones #7, 2019, graphite on board, 11 x 11 inches

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Shoreline #4, 2017, graphite on board, 18 x 18 inches

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Skip Steinworth

b. 1950, Stillwater, MN

EDUCATION 1979 MA Art, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN 1974 BA Art, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN

2003

2001 2000

1999

1998

1997 1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2020 Master Drawings, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM 2017 LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

Stillness: Drawings by Skip Steinworth, Evansville

Museum of Arts, History and Science, Evansville, IN 2015 National Contemporary Realism Invitational, M.A.

Doran Gallery, Tulsa, OK; also 2014 2014 Face to Face, Artists’ Self-Portraits from the

Collection of Jackye & Curtis Finch, Arkansas Arts

Center, Little Rock, AR 2013 Contemporary American Still Lifes, Evansville

Museum of Arts, History, Science, Evansville, IN; Spring Selections, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San

Francisco, CA 2012 Quietude, Drawing Stillness, Jenkins Johnson

Gallery, New York, NY 2011 Pismo Fine Arts, Aspen, CO Texas Contemporary, Jenkins Johnson Gallery,

Houston, TX Celebrate Summer, Jenkings Johnson gallery, San

Francisco, CA 2010 Summertime, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco,

CA and New York, NY San Francisco Fine Art Fair, Jenkins Johnson Gallery,

San Francisco, CA Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2009 Beyond the Object Project, Galley 1261, Denver, CO

On Paper, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York, NY Black and White, William Blaczek Fine Arts,

Northampton, MA 2008 The Object Project, Evansville Museum of Art,

Evansville, IN; Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville,

SC; Philbrook Museum, Tulsa, OK; Hunter Museum

of Art, Chattanooga, TN; Museum of Outdoor Art,

Denver, CO 2007 Drawn From Life, Sardella Fine Art, Aspen, CO

Skip Steinworth, Hackett Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA (also 2000) Re-representing V, Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY A Noble Tradition Revisited: The Contemporary American Still Life, Spanierman Gallery, New York, NY Skip Steinworth: Drawings, Evansville Museum of Art, Evansville, IN Observed Facts: New Realism, Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX A View From Within: Still Lifes and Interiors, Sydney Bernard Fine Arts, Los Angeles, CA Paperworks, MB Modern Gallery, New York, NY Drawings Midwest, Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, MN Drawings of Skip Steinworth, Horwitch Newman Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ Skip Steinworth, Jerry Solomon Gallery, Los Angeles, CA About American Realism, Horwitch Newman Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ .

Realism '95, Parkersburg Art Center, Parkersburg, WV 20th Century Figurative Drawings, Forum Gallery, New York, NY The Real Thing, Louis Newman Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA Skip Steinworth, Louis Newman Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA Slice of Life: Contemporary Still Lifes, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA Skip Steinworth, Louis Newman Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR Plains Museum, Moorhead, MN Sagamon State University, Springfield, IL St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN 21

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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 2020 LewAllen Contemporary LLC Artwork Š Skip Steinworth