The Estate of John Hersey Jr.

JOHN HERSEY JR.

SELECTIONS FROM THE ESTATE 1 943 - 2 0 1 8

S E L E C T A R T W O R K S B Y T H E L AT E J O H N H E R S E Y J R .

AU G U S T 28 T H - O C TO B E R 31 S T, 2021 T H E E S TAT E O F J O H N H E R S E Y J R .

1221 C H E S T N U T R I D G E R O A D M I L L B R O O K , N Y 12545

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INTRODUCTION The Estate of John Hersey Jr. presents select artworks by the late John Hersey Jr. within the home that he designed and built in Millbrook, NY. The paintings, etchings, drawings, sculptures and photos on display were created in SoHo in the 70s and 80s and in Millbrook from 1981 until his passing in 2018.

As one of the early artists in SoHo, Hersey’s studio was a meeting place of creatives. You may have found Lou Reed having tea or Paco De Lucia playing flamenco guitar. His studio began to host artist-driven projects and became a gallery in the early 80s, Gallery Hirondelle. As the gallery director, Hersey exhibited diverse, downtown legends including Peter A. Bradley, Jorge Salazar, Mihail Simeonov and Francine Tint, along with his own work. In the heart of the SoHo movement in the 70s and 80s, Hersey was friends and contemporaries with artists Gerard Malanga, John Chamberlain, Andy Warhol, and many other artists and culturally influential peers.

Hersey lived across the hall from Lauren Bacall in the Dakota on the Upper West Side in NYC while raising his first son, Cannon Hersey. Mikhail Baryshnikov, Roberta Flack, Yoko Ono, and Charles Henri Ford were some of the other creatives in the building when John Lennon was shot on the building’s doorstep. Within less than a year of that dark day, Hersey sold the apartment in NYC, got divorced, left the city and established a painting studio, dark room, print press and sculpture studio in the former studio of American abstract expressionist painter Norman Bluhm in Millbrook, NY. Hersey kept the gallery in SoHo until 1988 and then disappeared from the larger NYC art scene. In the woods, he focused almost exclusively on the creative process, producing the majority of his life’s work during the last 37 years of his life. Staying away from the market, Hersey sought to ever-refine his eye and hand across disciplines and mediums. Although not active in the New York art scene after the late 80s, he created new work on his own print press for 25 years, kept an active dark room for 35 years and produced and exhibited works in Johannesburg, South Africa; Sao Paolo, Brazil and China.

Hersey passed away on May 30th, 2018 and left his children John Baird and Cannon Lyell Hersey and grandchildren Isabella, Freya and Akicita, a legacy of over 4,000 artworks primarily unknown in the art market.

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We live in a time of strangely paradoxical and simultaneous yearnings. Many want the “government” to get out of their lives, to leave them to live free of legal restrictions against what they feel is a proper way of life. At the same time they demand that this same “government” be given all legal powers necessary for such things as forbidding women the right to use their own bodies. Almost as though “women” aren’t us. Only their embryos are us.

Normality, whatever that is -- peacefulness, privacy for all of us -- is what they demand. And yet these same people want free possession of guns, practice the brualization of homosexuals, and turn to the use of laws (always new ones), boycotts, various kinds of threats and intimidation to stop what they consider irreligious and/or obscene. They wish to protect their “community standards”, that current code phrase.

We Americans, the unique melange which we are, have always had a strong streak of irrationality coursing through us. It’s as if we constitute a great river, and we are a country of great rivers, which constantly divides itself into smaller tributaries, some of them unparalleled in purity, with great rapids and deep crystal pools; and others filled with the pollution of hatred and misogynistic fears.

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The above is all by way of preamble (or warner) to John Hersey’s current exhibition at Suzan Cooper Gallery. His work demands and merits that it be considered alone, by itself, but we must also take cognizance of the present environment which might well bring about concealment, if not suppression of such work.

In his art the self-absorption of his subjects draws us magnetically into their own orbit. His fascination with the odalisque -- her air of self sufficiency hinting at erotic trance -- is here captured in his drawings and etchings. HIs line, harmonized to his point of view, is immersed in sensuality. The subject is the line and flesh, the voluptuousness contained in the drawings is uninterrupted. Their chaste directness and restraint serves to dramatize their deep sexual tones. He combines the aesthetic stamina of the nude as tradition with his own vision, here highly charged with the erotic.

John Hersey / Nudes written by Barney Rosset from exhibition catalogue from Suzan Cooper Gallery, 1991 Woodstock, NY 5

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John Hersey Jr. and son, Cannon Hersey in Millbrook Studio, 1981

Photo by Gerard Peter Pas, 2001 ©

The studio on Chestnut Ridge Road in Millbrook, New York was orginally an old winery built by the Italian construction family responsible for building Carnegie Hall. In the 1970’s, it became the artist Norman Bluhm’s studio and would be the studio of John Hersey from 1981 - 2005.

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BIOGRAPHY Using the phrase physical lyricism to describe his earlier work, John Hersey Jr is best known for his larger scale abstract paintings. Although his cast bronze and welded steel sculpture carries much of the feeling of that period, his more recent paintings have moved through figurative and back into a synthesis of both polarities.

Throughout, John Hersey has continued expanding on his drawing, etching and photography.

John Hersey Jr. in his SoHo Studio Photo by Gerard Malanga © 1981

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John Hersey Jr. in the arms of his father, John Hersey Sr. 10

BIOGRAPHY

John Hersey was born in 1943 in New York City to China-born author and journalist, John Hersey, and to North Carolinian, Frances Ann Cannon. John Hersey practiced drawing under Victor de Pau in East Hampton, NY and worked for a building contractor constructing houses before entering Yale University as an Art and Architecture major. During his undergraduate years, John Hersey worked for the architect John M. Johansen, A.I.A., for two consecutive summers. He traveled throughout Europe in 1963. In 1964 John Hersey studied Drawing and Italian at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California while working at a center for autistic children.

In 1965, John Hersey received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Yale and then entered the Yale Graduate School of Architecture while establishing a painting studio in a barn in New Haven. He studied Philosophy of Art and Painting at the University of California at Berkeley as well as traveling to Mexico and the Yucatan. At Yale Architecture School, his project, “House and Studio for a Sculptor,” was exhibited as Best of First Year. John Hersey Jr studied photography with Walker Evans and exhibited works. In 1966 he attended an international conference of contemporary architectural theory in Delfi, Holland, and again traveled throughout Europe. Following graduate school he worked as a draftsman for various architectural firms in New York City, most notably, once more, for John M. Johansen.

In 1970 John Hersey lived in Paris, France for a year and a half and in Rome (visiting the American Academy for three months) and on l’Isole d’Elba, Italia, before returning to New York City to establish a painting and photography studio in the newly emerging SoHo industrial district. In 1981, John Hersey purchased the house and studio of painter Norman Bluhm in Millbrook, New York and divided his time between his NYC and country studios.

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In 1983, John Hersey opened Gallery Hirondelle Incorporated, in New York, representing a spectrum of contemporary local and international artists until 1988. He traveled to South Africa in 1990 to work with the Johannesburg Art Foundation and participated in the Thupelo workshop in Botswana. He donated his sculpture to the National Museum of Art in Gaborone. In 1991, as Chairman of “Cast the Sleeping Elephant,” a project of the artist Mihail Simeonov, John Hersey assisted in funding (meeting with President Sam Njomo to enlist Namibia as a donor nation) and creating a life-sized cast bronze bull elephant that was placed in the gardens of the United Nations in New York in 1998 as a symbol of all wildlife. Also in that year, John Hersey traveled with his son, Cannon, to China (Shanghai, on the Yangtze River to Chongqing, Beijing and Tianjin) in search of the house where his father was born.

John’s notable travel to Sao Paulo, Brazil, for the exhibition On the Shoulders of Giants Cannon Hersey and Samson Mnisi at Kim Esteve private collection for the opening event of the Bienal do Sao Paulo in 2008.

John Hersey planned and constructed his last home, gallery and studio in 2005 in Millbrook, NY, where he lived until his passing on May 30th, 2018.

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John Hersey Jr. with Gerard Malanga and Diane Hersey, ( c. 1970’s)

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M O R E F O R E P L AY, 1978 O I L O N C A N VAS 66 X 72 I N C H ES SI G N E D

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U N T I T L E D, 1975 O I L O N C A N VAS 53 X 48 I N C H ES SI G N E D & DAT E D LOW E R R I G H T

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H E L I O P H I L E , 1981 O I L O N C A N VAS 73 X 69 I N C H ES SI G N E D O N V E RSO

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L E AV I N G T H E G L A D E , 1980 O I L O N C A N VAS 87 X 6 4 I N C H ES SI G N E D O N V E RSO

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U N T I T L E D, E A R LY 80’ S O I L O N C A N VAS 67 1 / 2 X 55 1 / 2 I N C H ES SI G N E D O N V E RSO

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P R O B A B L E LO C AT I O N O F E R ATO, 1978 O I L O N C A N VAS 66 X 84 I N C H ES SI G N E D O N V E RSO

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TA N T R I C , 1981 O I L O N C A N VAS 53 X 1 0 0 I N C H ES SI N G E D O N V E RSO

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M AT I S S E B LU E , 1987 O I L O N C A N VAS 66 X 8 0 I N C H ES SI G N E D & DAT E D LOW E R R I G H T

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A P H R O D I S I A C , 1980 O I L O N C A N VAS 8 0 X 1 8 I N C H ES SI G N E D O N V E RSO

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F LO AT I N G F I G U R E S , 1986

O I L O N C A N VAS 6 4 X 84 I N C H ES SI G N E D O N V E RSO

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H A I K U B LU E , 1986

O I L O N C A N VAS 47 X 74 I N C H ES SI G N E D & DAT E D LOW E R R I G H T

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MORPHIUS WITH H I R O N D E L L E S , 1985

O I L O N C A N VAS 43 X 68 I N C H ES SI G N E D & DAT E D LOW E R R I G H T

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U N T I T L E D, 1976 O I L O N C A N VAS 43 X 68 I N C H ES SI G N E D & DAT E D LOW E R R I G H T

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S TA R R Y N I G H T S E R I E S , 2008 M IX E D M E D I A O N C A N VAS 96 X 72 I N C H ES SI G N E D O N V E RSO

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S TA R R Y N I G H T S E R I E S , 2008 M IX E D M E D I A O N C A N VAS 96 X 72 I N C H ES SI G N E D O N V E RSO

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R E T U R N TO R E T U R N ( D O N ’ T D O I T ) , 1985 M IX E D M E D I A W / PL AST E R C AST / C A N VAS 62 X 84 I N C H ES SI G N E D & DAT E D 1 985

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PA R T I A L LY CO V E R E D R E C L I N E D N U D E , 1985

M O N OT Y PE E. V. ½ 22 X 30 I N C H ES SI G N E D & DAT E D LOW E R R I G H T

“ Well, I don’t to try to clarify things too much. I try not to explain the work too much. The drawings speak for themselves, without all the words. People should have discourse with the work of art itself and perhaps they would see something different there than the author would indicate. The work can express itself by itself.”

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FORESHORTENED B A C K , 1999

G R A PH IT E O N PA PE R 1 4 X 22 I N C H ES SI G N E D & DAT E D LOW E R R I G H T

Selections from a conversation between John Hersey Jr with artist Jay Milder and curator Andile Magengelele shot at the Hersey Institute in 2009 by Cannon Hersey. From a never published catalogue on drawings by John Hersey Jr called “Sublime.”

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U P S I D E D O W N O N PA R A C H U T E , 1994 SA N G U I N E WAS H / A RC H ES PA PE R 58 X 4 4 I N C H ES SI G N E D & DAT E D LOW E R R I G H T

“ Even while I’m in the throes of drawing I sometimes say to myself, “You don’t have to explain this or describe that area or element.” You have to ignore a lot in order to find the essentials of feeling and emotion. If you use too many colors you end up in a muddy grave. Essence is vitality, not babbling some inane justification that only clouds the picture.”

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M U S I N G - A R M S U P, 1988

G R A PH IT E O N PA PE R 24 X 30 I N C H ES SI G N E D & DAT E D LOW E R R I G H T

“I don’t like doing the same drawing over and over. One reason I keep doing drawings is because I could never quite get it right. Then, you try again, and you try again. Never comes out quite right. Drawing is difficult for me, but I am always curious to see what the next one will be and I begin another. In the end, there is no one perfect drawing and the process becomes more important than the individual pieces.”

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N I P P L E , 2001

B L AC K A N D W H IT E DA R K RO OM PH OTO G R A PH S PR I N T E D BY T H E A RTI ST 1 3 X 1 9 I N C H ES SI G N E D O N V E RSO

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N AU T I LU S , 1998

B L AC K A N D W H IT E DA R K RO OM PH OTO G R A PH S PR I N T E D BY T H E A RTI ST 1 8 .5 X 1 2 I N C H ES O R 66 X 4 4 I N C H ES ( E D ITI O N O F 3 ) SI G N E D O N V E RSO

E X H I B IT E D AT CO O PE R C L ASSI CS, N Y I N 2 0 0 1 A N D AT OS C A N TOS D O M U N D O E X H I B ITI O N I N SAO PAO LO I N 2 0 1 3.

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“ F E AT H E R S ,” 2001

B L AC K A N D W H IT E DA R K RO OM PH OTO G R A PH S PR I N T E D BY T H E A RTI ST SI G N E D O N V E RSO

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“ M I R R O R I I I ”, 2001

B L AC K A N D W H IT E DA R K RO OM PH OTO G R A PH S PR I N T E D BY T H E A RTI ST SI G N E D O N V E RSO 66 X 4 4 I N C H ES ( E D ITI O N O F 3 )

E X H I B IT E D AT CO O PE R C L ASSI CS, N Y I N 2 0 0 1 A N D AT OS C A N TOS D O M U N D O E X H I B ITI O N I N SAO PAO LO I N 2 0 1 3.

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B E F O R E T H E PA I N T I N G ,

B L AC K A N D W H IT E DA R K RO OM PH OTO G R A PH S PR I N T E D BY T H E A RTI ST SI G N E D O N V E RSO

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John Hersey (1943 - 2018) Lived and worked in Millbrook, New York 1965 BFA & MFA Yale University

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2009 John Hersey/Selected Works, Gallery Hirondelle, Millbrook, NY 2000 John Hersey/Photographs, Cooper Classics Collection, New York, NY 1991 Nudes/John Hersey/Works on Paper, Suzan Cooper Gallery, Woodstock, NY 1987 John Hersey/ Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, Gallery Hirondelle, Millbrook, NY 1986 Aqueus Chamber, Curated by turid meeker, Gallery Hirondelle, Millbrook, NY 1985 Piece d'Yquem, Hellander/ Rubinstein Gallery, Palm Beach, FL 1984 John Hersey/Paintings, Gallery Hirondelle, New York, NY 1973-1981 Periodic Studio Exhibitions, 476 Broome Street, New York, NY 1970 Private showings, Andre des Arts. 70 rue St., Paris, France

GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2009 Os Cantos do Mundo, Octavio Gallery, Sao Paulo, Brazil 2002 John Hersey/Peter Bradley, Crosspathculture Center, New York, NY 2000 Jump Start 2000, featuring Samson Mnisi and Cannon Hersey, Johannesburg Art Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa 1997 Greenport 97/Third Annual Summer Exhibition, New Center for Contemporary Sculpture, Greenport, New York, NY 1992 Thupelo Workshop, Sculpture from Thupelo, directed by Sholto Ainsley with the Johannesburg Art Foundation. Botswana National Gallery, Gaborone, Botswana 1991 The Third Dimension, Suzan Cooper Gallery, Woodstock, NY 1990 Inaugural Exhibition, Tivoli Arts Center, Tivoli, NY 1988 The Laundry, Curated by Leif Hope, East Hampton, NY 1987 The New Generation, Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, NY 1986 Decisions/Divisions, Federal Courthouses, Manhattan & Brooklyn,

New York, NY

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Photo by Laurence Guillem

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THE ESTATE OF JOHN HERSEY JR.

The Estate of John Hersey Jr. is situated on 32 acres in Millbrook, New York. The Estate’s mission is to encourage a dialogue centered around his artistic oeuvre and the social innovation that shape our culture of the Hudson River Valley.

ADDRESS: The Estate of John Hersey Jr. 1221 Chestnut Ridge Road Dover Plains, NY 12545

CONTACT: Cannon Hersey Email: cannonlhersey@gmail.com John Hersey III Email: johnhersey11@gmail.com

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"The nighthawk's blinking neon light just down the road a ways and we always found our way.

One for the road and one for keeps."

John Hersey, Jr. 1943-2018

by Gerard Malanga

The Estate of John Hersey John Hersey (1943 - 2018) Copyright©Gerard Malanga, 1990 68