DISCOVERY! : Three One-Woman Exhibitions - Rita Blasser

D I S C O V E R Y !

Rita Blasser

July 10 - Aug 8, 2015 Wi l l i a m Re ave s F i n e A r t

D I S COV E RY !

JULY 10 - AUGUST 8, 2015

Exhibition Events Opening Reception: Saturday, July 11, 6 - 8:30 p.m.

Gallery Talk - Rita Blasser: Saturday, July 18, 2 - 4 p.m.

Artist Talk - Karen Lastre: Saturday, July 25, 2 - 4 p.m.

Gallery Talk - Constance Forsyth: Saturday, August 1, 2 - 4 p.m.

William Reaves Fine Art | 2143 Westheimer Road | Houston, Texas 77098 | 713.521.7500 Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-5pm and by appointment, please call 713.521.7500 or email info@reavesart.com.

Recalling Rita: The Prints and Paintings of Rita Mallett Blasser While Rita Mallett Blasser was never exactly a household name in Texas art circles, she was a respected Dallas artist and did indeed have many admirers. In a late-blooming career that blossomed in the 1970s and 80s, Blasser proved to be a devoted artist with an ingenious edge. She was active as both artist and teacher for over four decades, and in retrospect, the inventive body of work which she left behind presents rich opportunities for re-discovery and renewed consideration.

Born Rita Sidran in Brooklyn in 1926 to industrious Jewish immigrants, Blasser arrived in Dallas in the waning years of the Great Depression, her family relocating their successful women’s apparel enterprise there around 1937. She graduated from Highland Park High School in the city and began her professional career in the business world, assuming a variety of obligatory roles in the family business. Drawn naturally to the creative elements of the fashion world, Blasser’s earliest artistic productions were fashion sketches depicting typical svelte models of the late 1940s and 50s adorned in the stylish, blowsy dresses which were custom designed and produced by the firm. Even today, Blasser’s models possess a simple elegance in their line and form, and clearly demonstrate an early propensity for fine design and draftsmanship. While direct in their purpose as illustrations, Blasser’s fashion sketches are nonetheless engaging, and foretell of the obvious talent which she was to more fully develop in her latter career as artist and teacher.

Despite innate interests in the arts and considerable latent ability, Blasser managed to contain her artistic tendencies during the early stages of young womanhood, a time when she moved through a series of challenging marriages, the births and rearing of children, and continued responsibilities with the family business.

By the early 1960s, however, as she approached her mid-30s, Blasser’s natural proclivities burst through as she entered the undergraduate art program at Southern Methodist University (a bold and atypical starting age for a woman of that period), and simultaneously launched a teaching career as an instructor in the school’s division of continuing education. From there, she never looked back!

She attained the BFA from SMU in 1968, and followed with an MFA there in 1969. In 1969, she also moved to El Centro College, and began a twenty-year teaching engagement with the Dallas Community College System where she served as an instructor at four of the system’s colleges, most notably associated with Mountain View College (1970-74; 1984-90). She also served brief stints as a university instructor at both SMU and Texas Woman’s University, as well as the University of Dallas, being among the first Jewish faculty members at that private Catholic institution. In addition to teaching adult students, Blasser remained active and deeply interested in children’s art, beginning as an instructor with the children’s art program at the Museum School of the Dallas Museum of Art. Beyond her demanding teaching schedule, Blasser was equally fastidious about her own work as an artist, and devoted to continued professional development in the field. She pursued (but never completed) the Ph.D. in painting at The University of North Texas, and along the way received instruction or critique from such notables as Hans Hofmann, Robert Breckman, Frederick Taubes, Carlotta Corpron and Wilfred Higgins.

Given primarily to abstract compositions, Blasser worked effectively in a variety of media, and experimented broadly with a wide range of styles, techniques and materials. While successful in most all these modalities, she became particularly adept as a print-maker, as well as becoming known for dynamic and electrifying landscapes done in perhaps the most Texas-centered medium of all – cattle markers!

She was indeed at the creative forefront of all Texas artists in her use of “found objects” in printmaking. Given her early activism in the feminist movement and her sensitivity to the plight of women, she was inclined to incorporate everyday household and domestic objects associated with the traditional roles of women (i.e. shopping bags, children’s clothing, grocery packages and even men’s undergarments) into her print work. The results were sublime, creative and highly novel renderings, and these distinctive, multi-media prints achieved sound critical acclaim and numerous awards when shown. Among the most successful of these found-object prints can be found in Blasser’s “bag” series, shown in this exhibition, in which the artist adroitly fashions simple grocery sacks into sensuous, highly evocative forms.

Her use of cattle-markers, a form of oil-pastel paint, is another stroke of Blasser’s everyday genius. While employing this medium in many compositions, Blasser was at her best when applying the Texas cattle-marker to the Texas terrain! Her landscapes of this manner become true gems of regional abstraction, popping with brilliant colors reflecting the uncommon vibrancy and energetic contrasts of the Texas landscape. In a captivating series of small paintings, entitled The Canyon Suite, the artist clearly gives a nod to her notable female forebear, Georgia O’Keefe. In her own Canyon Series, however, Blasser offers bright, color-field interpretations of forms and colors associated with the Palo Dura countryside, and “ups the ante” on such high plains abstraction by expertly employing the ultimate, utilitarian Texas paint—the common cattle marker!

Could there be a more iconic medium for Lone Star abstraction?

Even beginning late, Blasser enjoyed a long and prosperous career.

In Dallas, she was represented by noteworthy galleries including Edith Baker and DW Gallery. Her resume shows 14 solo exhibitions in her lifetime, including one-woman shows at SMU and Texas Woman’s University, as well as individual shows at the Longview and Tyler museums.

Likewise, her works have been included in 30 group exhibitions in institutions such as the Dallas Museum of Art and The Oklahoma Arts Center, as well as other art centers in the Dallas area (Plano, Irving, and the MAC). She was an officer and active member of the Texas Fine Arts Association, and showed regularly throughout the state in that organization’s traveling exhibition series.

Blasser passed in 2014. Through the efforts of her daughter, Leah Lax, who has worked tirelessly to preserve her mother’s legacy, it was our privilege to encounter the residual works of Rita Mallett Blasser. After viewing these exquisite materials, we were moved to share them once again in a gallery setting with friends and clients, enabling Blasser and her intriguing art a well-deserved “fresh look” and renewed DISCOVERY! on the Texas art scene... Just in case you missed her the first time around!

Thank you, Rita. Enjoy.

-William Reaves, President William Reaves Fine Art, LLC

I love color. I love its formal aspects—the way color describes space and solidity, as well as its transparencies. This and my love of painting contribute to the multiple simultaneous impressions that are part of my work.

My work deals with memory. Sometimes the image is clear and sharp. Sometimes it is blurred. Subject matter is unimportant; everything I remember is a viable source. There is a moment when what I see becomes what I remember.

That is when the lines between realism and abstraction are blurred. Photographic detail is not an issue—I want an image to feel as if it is in the middle of “happening,” in flux, with no actual beginning and no end—just a moment in time.

Then the colors of the painting and the experience in space come together.

- Rita Blasser

Rita Blasser • July 10 - Aug 8, 2015 No.

Artist

Title of Work

Date

Medium

Size (inches)

1940s Fashion Drawings

1

Rita Blasser

Untitled (Black Dress)

c. 1945

watercolor on paper

15x11

2

Rita Blasser

Untitled (Blue Dress)

c. 1945

watercolor on paper

15x11

3

Rita Blasser

Untitled ( GrayDress)

c. 1945

watercolor on paper

15x11

4

Rita Blasser

Untitled (Red/Black Lace Dress)

c. 1945

watercolor on paper

15x11

5

Rita Blasser

Untitled (yellow Dress)

c. 1945

watercolor on paper

15x11

Cattle Marker Drawings

6

Rita Blasser

Canyon Suite Six

nd

cattle marker on paper

12x13.5

7

Rita Blasser

Canyon Suite Five

nd

cattle marker on paper

12x13.5

8

Rita Blasser

Canyon Suite Four

nd

cattle marker on paper

12x13.5

9

Rita Blasser

Canyon Suite One

nd

cattle marker on paper

12x13.5

10

Rita Blasser

Canyon Suite Three

nd

cattle marker on paper

12x13.5

11

Rita Blasser

Canyon Suite Two

nd

cattle marker on paper

12x13.5

12

Rita Blasser

Entrance/Exit

1998

cattle marker on paper

24.5x32.5

13

Rita Blasser

Fan and Teapot

1999

cattle marker on paper

23x30.5

14

Rita Blasser

Rise Above It

1998

cattle marker on paper

25.5x32.5

15

Rita Blasser

Seasonal

1998

cattle marker on paper

23x30.5

16

Rita Blasser

Untitled

c. 1999

cattle marker on paper

20x30

Rita Blasser • July 10 - Aug 8, 2015 No.

Artist

Title of Work

Date

Medium

Size (inches)

Works on Paper

17

Rita Blasser

Untitled (burgandy)

nd

mixed media on paper

9.75.13

18

Rita Blasser

Untitled 0544

nd

mixed media on paper

7.5x11

19

Rita Blasser

Untitled Q2 0146

nd

mixed media on paper

8x36.5

20

Rita Blasser

Untitled R43 0387

nd

mixed media on paper

10x22.5

Experimental Prints

21

Rita Blasser

Paper Bag, Grocery Two

nd

monotype

30x22

22

Rita Blasser

Paper Bag M1

nd

monotype

24.25x20.25

23

Rita Blasser

Paper Bag, M3

nd

monotype

24.25x20.25

24

Rita Blasser

Study - Paper Bag

nd

monotype

25x21

25

Rita Blasser

Untitled M80026

nd

monotype

32.5x24.5

26

Rita Blasser

Rothko Searched for Venus

nd

monotype

31x23

27

Rita Blasser

Pacific Glimpse

nd

monotype

31x23

28

Rita Blasser

O Where is Camelot

nd

monotype

26.5x31.25

29

Rita Blasser

Skating Pond

nd

monotype

7.5x10

1940s Fashion Drawings

1. Rita Blasser, Untitled (Black Dress) , c. 1945, watercolor on paper, 15 x 11 inches.

2. Rita Blasser, Untitled (Blue Dress), c. 1945, watercolor on paper, 15 x 11 inches.

3. Rita Blasser, Untitled ( GrayDress), c. 1945, watercolor on paper, 15 x 11 inches.

4. Rita Blasser, Untitled (Red/Black Lace Dress), c. 1945, watercolor on paper, 15 x 11 inches.

5. Rita Blasser, Untitled (yellow Dress), c. 1945, watercolor on paper, 15 x 11 inches.

Cattle Marker Drawings

6. Rita Blasser, Canyon Suite Six, nd, cattle marker on paper, 12 x 13.5 inches.

7. Rita Blasser, Canyon Suite Five, nd, cattle marker on paper, 12 x 13.5 inches.

8. Rita Blasser, Canyon Suite Four, nd, cattle marker on paper, 12 x 13.5 inches.

9. Rita Blasser, Canyon Suite One, nd, cattle marker on paper, 12 x 13.5 inches.

10. Rita Blasser, Canyon Suite Three, nd, cattle marker on paper, 12 x 13.5 inches.

11. Rita Blasser, Canyon Suite Two, nd, cattle marker on paper, 12 x 13.5 inches.

12. Rita Blasser, Entrance/Exit, 1998, cattle marker on paper, 24.5 x 32.5 inches.

13. Rita Blasser, Fan and Teapot, 1999, cattle marker on paper, 23 x 30.5 inches.

14. Rita Blasser, Rise Above It, 1998, cattle marker on paper, 25.5 x 32.5 inches.

15. Rita Blasser, Seasonal, 1998, cattle marker on paper, 23 x 30.5 inches.

16. Rita Blasser, Untitled, c. 1999, cattle marker on paper, 20 x 30 inches.

Works On Paper

17. Rita Blasser, Untitled (burgandy), nd, mixed media on paper, 9.75 x 13 inches.

18. Rita Blasser, Untitled 0544, nd, mixed media on paper, 7.5 x 11 inches.

19. Rita Blasser, Untitled Q2 0146, nd, mixed media on paper, 8 x 36.5 inches.

20. Rita Blasser, Untitled R43 0387, nd, mixed media on paper, 10 x 22.5 inches.

Experimental Prints

21. Rita Blasser, Paper Bag, Grocery Two, nd, monotype, 30 x 22 inches.

22. Rita Blasser, Paper Bag M1, nd, monotype, 24.25 x 20.25 inches.

23. Rita Blasser, Paper Bag, M3, nd, monotype, 24.25 x 20.25 inches.

24. Rita Blasser, Study - Paper Bag, nd, monotype, 25 x 21 inches.

25. Rita Blasser, Untitled M80026, nd, monotype, 32.5 x 24.5 inches.

26. Rita Blasser, Rothko Searched for Venus, nd, monotype, 31 x 23 inches.

27. Rita Blasser, Pacific Glimpse, nd, monotype, 31 x 23 inches.

28. Rita Blasser, O Where is Camelot, nd, monotype, 26.5 x 31.25 inches.

29. Rita Blasser, Skating Pond, nd, monotype, 7.5x10 inches.

RITA MALLETT BLASSER born New York City, July 27, 1927, died Dallas, April 10, 2014 Education: BFA, MFA Southern Methodist University PhD work at Texas Women’s University PhD work at North Texas State University in painting Teaching: Dallas Community Junior College System— Richland Mountain View 1970-74 El Centro 1969-72 Eastfield 1972-80 Brookhaven Dallas College (evening school of SMU) 1963-64 Dallas Museum of Art 1966-70 Dallas Museum of Modern Art Cook County College 1991-97 Texas Women’s University University of Dallas Lectures and Workshops: 1974 Temple Emanuel, Dallas, “Jewish Art—Subject Matter or Artist?”

1975-76 Longview Museum, “Artistic Parentage”

Dallas Baptist College 1976 Kilgore College, Tyler

Arlington Independent School District, in-service workshop

“Development of Stylistic Thought.”

Arlington Independent School District, in-service workshop

“Acrylics for Sixth Grade—focus on Egyptian approach” 1983 University of Texas at Dallas “Women in Art and Business-

Progress?”

1989 San Antonio Museum of Art Solo shows: 2003 Brookhaven College, Dallas, lifetime retrospective 1988 Navarro College, Corsicana, Texas “In The Bag,” Dr. Margaret

Hicks, director 1986 Navarro College 1984 University of Texas Health Science Center, “Color and Space,”

Dallas 1977 Dallas Baptist College, “Homecoming,” Dallas 1976 Texas Women’s University, Dr. John Casey, Chairman, Denton, Texas 1975 Longview Museum, Longview, Texas, “Views,” Tom Livesay,

Director 1975 Kilgore College, Tyler, Texas, “Movements Across Space,” Ron

Chapman curator 1971 Mountain View College, Dallas “Small” 1969 Mountain View College, Dallas “The Natural Way of Light”

Eastfield College, Mesquite, Texas “Color Figures In It”

Texas Women’s University, Denton, Texas

Southern Methodist University, Pollock Gallery (MFA thesis show)

Group shows: 2003 Beaux Arts Invitational, Dallas Museum of Arts 2002 Irving Art Center 2001 Texas Visual Arts Association 1997 Northpark twenty-fifth anniversary show

Ecole de Beaux Arts, Gran Palais, Paris, France 1996 North Lake College, Irving, Texas, monoprints 1995 Brooklyn Armory, Women’s History Month, “Aftermath,” Bill

Comodore, curator. Monoprints.

Beaux Arts invitational, Dallas Museum of Art United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, “Global

Focus: Women in Art and Culture.” Exhibited in Nairobi, Beijing,

Paris, Washington.

Ruth Wiseman Box Dropoff, invitational Temple EmanuEl, Dallas, invitational. Sue Graze, curator.

Dallas Visual Arts Center, membership invitational MAC McKinney Avenue Art Center, DARE invitational, Dallas.

(“Yellow”) Trammell Crow Center, Dallas—Texas Visual Arts Association

Citation show Warehouse Arts Center, Corsicana, Texas, sponsored by Navarro

Council for the Arts.

Northlake Community College, Irving, Texas. “Exploring a

Process,” monotype.

1994 THE MAC, Dallas, invitational. (“The Exquisite Corpse”) Brookhaven College printmakers Washington University, invitational--oil (“In Progress”) Beaux Arts invitational, Dallas Museum of Arts 1993 Edith Baker Gallery, Dallas (“Tempus Fugit”) Dallas Visual Art Center. (“Lemon”) Brookhaven Foyer Gallery. Peter Marcus, curator.

1992 Irving Arts Center.

Southern Methodist University, Human Resources/Women’s

Center.

1991 Southern Methodist University, WCA November focus, Pollack

Gallery.

Brookhaven Gallery, 20th Print Anniversary, Ken Havis, director Cultural Arts Council of Plano, (“It’s In The Bag”) Longview Arts Center, 32nd Invitational Exhibit DArt Visual Center, funded by the Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs Mountain View College, Women of the Metroplex (“Expanding

Visions”) 1990 Texas Fine Arts Association, Medical City, Dallas, for Office of

Environmental Affairs. “Plastic Holds A Lot.” (monoprints) Southern Methodist University, Hughess-Triss Student Center,

Dallas. 25th Women’s Symposium, “Perspectives.” (“Morning

Coffee”) 1989 Dallas City Hall, “Common Ground”

Texas Women’s University, “Color Statements,” Denton, Texas

One Bell Plaza Telephone Museum, Dallas, “Reach Out,”

(“Beyond Boundaries”)

16th National Spring Open, Dallas.

1988

1987 1985

1982 1979

1978

1975 1974

1969

Edith Baker Gallery, Dallas, “Ten By Ten.” DW Gallery, Linda Samuels, curator.

Oklahoma Art Center, Artspace, Oklahoma City, OK 500X Gallery, Dallas TVAA Citation Mesa, Arizona, Gallery Mesa Oklahoma Eight State Nebraska Biennial Merceyhurst National, Pennsylvania Syracuse Museum Delaware University Brooklyn College Fort Worth Art Center Corsicana Art Center, Texas Fine Arts Association signature exhibit United Nations 3rd World Conference on Women, Nairobi.

Exhibited at Del Mar College, Richland College, Black Mountain College.

Dallas Jewish Home for the Aged (“Children”) Austin, Texas and Tyler, Texas. “Twenty-Five Women in Texas Art.” Becky Reece, curator.

Kirkpatrick Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. “Five Texas Women.”

First National Bank, Dallas, Texas Fine Arts show “Citation Again,” Ida Kohlmeyer, juror plus Fort Worth Art Center Laguna Gloria Museum Elizabet Ney Museum Nebraska Biennial. Millard Sheets, juror.

Texas Women’s University, two person show, John Brough Miller, curator Dallas Museum of Art, and museum shop. “Ala Schwitters” collages

Awards and Grants: 1982 TFAA statewide, first place 1979 TFAA Regional (5 state), first place 1978 TFAA Regional, first place 1975 Best in Show, TFAA national, Austin 1974 TFAA Regional, first place 1968 Kress Foundation Grant

Oklahoma Art Center

Mesa, Arizona “Bags” Award Public Collections: Inwood National Bank, Chase Econometrics, Southern Methodist University, New York University, University of Texas at Denton, Owens Sausage, University of Seattle, LTV Tower (now Pacific Tower in City Center, Dallas), Inwood National Bank, and National Museum for Women in the Arts Private collections New York City, Dallas, Connecticut, Houston, Seattle, St. Louis, Montreal, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Bournemouth, England

About William Reaves Fine Art

H OUSTON’S T EXAS- C ENTERED G ALLERY William Reaves Fine Art, established 2006 in Houston, Texas, is dedicated to the promotion of premier Texas artists of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing particularly on historically significant artists active in the state during the period of 1900-1975. Now beginning its ninth year, the gallery showcases many of the region’s most accomplished and recognized talents, all of whom have significant connection to the state of Texas and have evidenced the highest standards of quality in their work, training, and professionalism in the field. The gallery exhibits artists working in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, works on paper, and photography. In addition to its general focus on Early Texas Art, the gallery places special emphasis on the rediscovery and presentation of early and mid-century works by Houston and South Texas artists. William Reaves Fine Art is the foremost provider of Texas Modern Art, which includes mid-century masters and pioneering expressionists working in the state.

In order to promote interest and broaden knowledge of earlier Texas art, the gallery supports related gallery talks, community events, scholarly research, and publication related to its subject, artist, and period. William Reaves Fine Art also represents a dynamic group of contemporary artists, known as the Contemporary Texas Regionalists, actively showing their works in annual gallery exhibitions as well as traveling exhibitions throughout the state. Most recently, The Houston Press voted William Reaves Fine Art Houston’s Best Art Gallery for 2013.

Additionally, William Reaves Fine Art is a comprehensive gallery offering fine art appraisals, consultation, brokerage, and sales services.

Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-5pm and other times by appointment.

Gallery Contact: Sarah Foltz, Director sarah@reavesart.com

William Reaves Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Road • Houston, Texas • 77098 • www.reavesart.com Tel : 713.521.7500 • Contact : INFO@reavesart.com