Vail Caldwell Projects: A Curator's Kaleidoscope by www.vailcaldwellprojects.com

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Introduction

Last spring, a colleague asked if I could send installation photos of an exhibition on which we had worked in 2008. Reviewing the material, I realized much of the archive was analog, which makes accessing or sharing it a challenge. Several projects that were stored in manila folders were among my favorites—idiosyncratic exhibitions that brought together the work of emerging, historic, and soon-to-be-historic painters and sculptors. Going through all the material gave me the idea of a compiling it for a book. Because books remain relevant, I decided that rather than curate a new show, I would produce a book.

I a m not ashamed to admit that I needed encouragement to compile the material. It came from Reed Seifer, a longtime collaborator, friend, and talented designer. I am so happy Reed pushed me. Working on the book gave me the opportunity to reconnect with

the many talented artists, curators, and colleagues with whom I am fortunate to have forged relationships over the years. While compiling the manuscript, I was reminded repeatedly how the interaction I have with artists has changed my life, taught me crucial lessons, and, at times, provided muchneeded refuge. The courage required to engage with purpose in the creative process requires rigor, humor, stamina, imagination, intellect, and enormous self-discipline. It knocks me out, as do the artists without whom so much empathy, observation, inspiration, discovery, critical debate, and joy would be lost. Joe Fyfe once sent me a note that said, “I always felt you had my back.” The truth is that Joe, like every artist with whom I have ever worked, always had mine.

—Priscilla

Vail Caldwell Brooklyn, September, 2024

Selected Exhibitions Curated

A Winged Life, 2011

Kimber Smith

opposite: Kimber Smith, 1977

Photo by Jean-Pierre Kuhn.

Graham Gallery, New York

above: Kimber Smith, K’s 4 Red , 1968, acrylic on canvas, 95 3/4 x 63 3/8 inches

Courtesy the Estate of Kimber Smith.

opposite: The exhibition installed at Graham Gallery, New York

Photos by Joshua Nefsky.

The painter, who died in 1981 at the age of fifty-nine, was close to both Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell (they were godmothers to his two sons), but he never achieved his friends’ level of fame. Due, perhaps, to the current vogue for the rough-and-ready in painting (Richard Aldrich, Michael Krebber), Smith is getting a well-deserved second look. There is a near-Fauvist airiness to the pyramids, diamonds, and blossom-like blobs in these large canvases from the mid-seventies. But, all appearances to the contrary, Kimber was anything but impetuous. As the artist Joe Fyfe convincingly argues in an essay accompanying the show, every brushstroke is there for a reason. —Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker

Kimber Smith

PAiN ti NGS & W OR kS ON P APER

MAy 5 t HRO u GH Ju NE 30 2011

OPEN i NG t Hu RS dAy MAy 5 6–8 PM

cAtAl OG uE W it H ESSA y by JOE fyf E

Kimber Smith might not be a household name, but his paintings from the 1960s and ’70s are knockouts, some of the most formidable to be on view in our moment of near-ubiquitous abstraction. A second-generation Abstract Expressionist better known for his friendships with Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell than for his own work, Smith spent more than a decade in Paris, where he encountered Annette Michelson in 1964, who called him the “most serious and consequential” of his community of expats. —Suzanne Hudson, Artforum

Lines Thicken: Stuart Davis in Black and White, 2018

Stuart Davis

right: Stuart Davis, Untitled (Black and White Variation on “Pochade”), 1956–58, casein on canvas, 45 x 56 inches

© Estate of Stuart Davis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. below: The exhibition installed at Kasmin Gallery, New York

Photos by Christopher Stach.

“Lines Thicken: Stuart Davis in Black and White,” at the Kasmin gallery (through Dec. 21), shares an open secret of the irrepressible American modernist: drawing powers his paintings, even at their most colorful. These sixteen robust designs on paper, canvas, or board—in ink, gouache, or casein—amount to paintings in skeleton, displaying jazzy, indestructible linear networks, either edge to edge or afloat in pictorial space. The abstracted subjects include street and harbor scenes, stilllifes, and a study for the artist’s tour de force,

the 1932 mural “Men Without Women,” in the men’s room of Radio City Music Hall. There’s chroma enough in the pictures’ white negative spaces. They sizzle. The excellence of the show’s selection makes this a brisk primer on the Parisian-informed genius of post-Cubist, protoPop form, who died in 1964, at the age of eightyone. Davis took drawn line not for a walk, in the stated manner of Paul Klee, but for canters and gallops, with any willing viewer delightedly astride.

Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker

left: Stuart Davis, Composition No. 1 , 1932, gouache and traces of pencil on paper, 22 x 30 inches

© Estate of Stuart Davis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

right, top: Rendering for the exhibition

right, bottom: The exhibition installed at Kasmin Gallery, New York

Photo by Christopher Stach.

Stuart Davis is known for loud, hotly colored compositions that pulse with the rhythms of jazz and the sensory aspects of street life. Often at play with the object of the everyday—an eggbeater, a ladder, a matchbox—and the language of advertising, Davis became a hulking influence on the modernism and abstraction of his own day and the Pop Art movement that emerged several decades later. Though his black and white works are less well known, they are a vital and longstanding aspect of his oeuvre.

—Art & Antiques

Davis’s lines come together and branch out like urban streets, taking swooping, angular detours. Images such as musical staves, clefs, and notes mingle with cityscapes, boats, buildings, chimneys, fish, flowers, and even an armchair in a sort of interior-exterior cartography. His strokes are so rewardingly bold and sure, but on occasion we can see the faintest of hesitant, whispery pencil traces— they feel like a benediction. —Rahel Aima, Artforum

Stuart Davis, Boats , 1932, gouache and ink on paper, 14 1/4 x 17 7/8 inches

© Estate of Stuart Davis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Stuart Davis, Composition with Winch , 1932, ink and traces of pencil on paper mounted on paperboard, 17 x 21 inches

© Estate of Stuart Davis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Stuart Davis, Composition , 1934, ink and traces of pencil on paper, 14 x 20 3/8 inches

© Estate of Stuart Davis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Group Exhibition, 2009

Color Climax

Graham Gallery, New York

opposite: Liz Markus, Grab the Hate and Drown It Out (detail), 2008, acrylic on unprimed canvas, 54 x 77 inches Courtesy of the artist.

In the spring of 2008, Joe Fyfe and I met at his studio on Taaffe Place in Brooklyn to discuss an idea for a show—a show conceived as a response to MoMA’s exhibition Color Chart, curated by Ann Temkin and inspired by David Batchelor’s concise book of 2001, Chromophobia . We were interested in exploring Batchelor’s question, “If colour doesn’t matter, why does its abolition matter so much?” and took Batchelor’s position that color’s role is to challenge established hierarchies. This made us wonder if, in turn, Temkin’s choice of artists and work, which subordinates color through regimented ordering, was an unwitting illustration of Batchelor’s observation that Western culture is afraid of contamination by color! In contrast, Joe and I sought out artists who embrace color’s intoxicating sensuality and take pleasure in the raucous, joyful, unruly nature of the psychedelic, florescent, or shiny. We titled our show Color Climax and invited Judy Ledgerwood to intervene and paint the gallery’s white walls screaming day-glo hues of pink and orange. Priscilla Vail Caldwell

opposite: The exhibition installed at Graham Gallery, New York

Photos by Joshua Nefsky.

Color Climax

norman bluhm sarah braman richmond burton james hyde judy legerwood rebecca morris cordy ryman amy sillman kimber smith dan weiner john zinsser

june 26–august 15, 2008 JAMES GRAHAM & SONS

selected by Joe Fyfe and Priscilla Vail Caldwell

Checklist to the exhibition

The exhibition installed at Graham Gallery, New York

Photos by Joshua Nefsky.

Significant Form, 2019

Elie Nadelman

Kasmin Gallery, New York

opposite: Elie Nadelman with his bronze sculpture Man in the Open Air, c. 1915 George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

above and opposite: The exhibition installed at Kasmin Gallery, New York

Photos by Chris Stach.

Elie Nadelman was one of those moderns who shaped the future by looking to the past. A sculptor who fused the classical and folk traditions, Nadelman dedicated his art to “salvaging the monumental by the miniature,” in the words of his champion Lincoln Kirstein. Now at Kasmin Gallery and curated by Priscilla Vail Caldwell, “Elie Nadelman: Significant Form” gathers together a wide selection of the artist’s figurative work assembled from his estate. “Nadelman’s craft was rooted in continuity he wished to extend,” wrote Kirstein. This show brings that extraordinary craft up to the present day. —James Panero, The New Criterion

left: Elie Nadelman, Seated Woman (with Leg Up), 1935, marble, 14 1/2 x 9 x 7 inches

© Estate of Elie Nadelman.

center: Elie Nadelman, Head of a Woman (with Headband), 1924, marble, 22 x 13 x 11 inches (with base)

© Estate of Elie Nadelman.

right: Elie Nadelman, Femme Drapée , 1912, this edition cast c. 1920, polished bronze, 22 ¼ x 11 ½ x 8 inches

© Estate of Elie Nadelman. Photo by Christopher Stach.

above: Elie Nadelman, Head of a Woman (Emerging from Stone), 1915–20, marble, 9 3/₄ x 10 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches

© Estate of Elie Nadelman. Photo by Christopher Stach.

opposite, left: Elie Nadelman, Head of a Girl, 1926, galvano-plastique, 17 7/8 x 10 1/2 x 12 inches (with base)

Courtesy private collection. © Elie Nadelman Estate. Photo by Christopher Stach. opposite, right: Elie Nadelman, Seated Woman , 1926, galvano-plastique, 53 x 21 x 26 3/4 inches (with base)

Courtesy private collection. © Elie Nadelman Estate. Photo by Christopher Stach.

Out of the Shadows, 2003

Helen Torr

Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York

Graham Gallery, New York

Mitchell Art Museum, St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland

opposite: Helen Torr, Abstract Flowers , (detail), c. 1927, oil on copper, 6 ¾ x 6 ⅞ inches

Photo by Christopher Stach. Courtesy of a private collection and the Estate of Helen Torr with the permission of Diane and John B. Rehm.

We are so aware of being in the world of Helen Torr, with its views of water and sky, its lighthouses and sheds and dishes and flowers, that her rare images of fantasy or dream appear reasonable and just as real. [...] Most mysteriously here the entire effort is to confirm that something is there and that it is distinct within the pattern of which it is a part. —Donald Goddard , New York Artworld

left: Invitation to the exhibition

right: Helen Torr, Evening Sounds , c. 1925–30, oil on composition board, 14 ¼ x 10 inches

Helen Torr, Abstract Flowers , c. 1927, oil on copper, 6 ¾ x 6 ⅞ inches

Photo by Christopher Stach. Courtesy of a private collection and the Estate of Helen Torr with the permission of Diane and John B. Rehm.

As a painter, Torr was aware of the experimentation and innovations of her contemporaries and borrowed freely from them, a way of using what she could to further her own vision. In fact, she worked through these influences only to come to the conclusion that her strength lay in a direct response to nature and her environment, something she ultimately developed through careful observation and an imaginative approach to form. In those heady days of the infancy of American Modernism, the exchange of ideas was crucial to the development of a national artistic identity, generating experimentation that required a sharing of methodology. —Robert G. Edelman, artnet

above: Helen Torr, Oyster Stakes , 1929, oil on paperboard, 18 x 24 inches

The Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY, gift of Mrs. Mary Rehm, 1971.5a. Courtesy the Estate of Helen Torr with the permission of Diane and John B. Rehm. opposite: Helen Torr, Sea Shell, 1928, gouache and charcoal on paper, 19 ⁷/8 x 14 ⁵/8 inches

The Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY, gift of Mr. Robert D. Jay, 1985.7. Courtesy the Estate of Helen Torr with the permission of Diane and John B. Rehm.

The title is appropriate, not simply because Helen Torr’s work deserves recognition, but as a description of the work itself. Torr studied to be an artist in Philadelphia, where she was born in 1886, but didn’t consistently work at her art until she met the painter Arthur Dove in about 1919 (although they may also have met earlier). They left their spouses in 1921, lived together on a boat anchored near northern Manhattan and in Huntington Harbor, Long Island, then moved to Geneva, New York, and back to Centerport, Long Island, where Dove died in 1946. Torr and Dove were exceptionally devoted to one another, through much tribulation and lack of funds, and more than that they were aligned with one another. In their work, and presumably in their lives, they were totally interdependent, part of each other. As artists, one did not fully exist without the other. Together they were truly at the center of a world that radiated magnificently from the confines of their boat on the water, and later from a one-room house… Donald Goddard, New York Art World

Helen Torr, Impromptu , 1929, oil on canvas board, 15 5/16 × 21 1/4 × 7/8 inches

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase acquired with funds provided by the Oppenstein Brothers Foundation in honor of Laura Fields and the American Art Deaccession Fund, 2017.7. Image courtesy Nelson-Atkins Media Services. Courtesy the Estate of Helen Torr with the permission of Diane and John B. Rehm.

Helen Torr, January, 1935, oil on canvas, 27 7/8 x 19 7/8 inches

Courtesy the Estate of Helen Torr. The Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY, gift of Mrs. Mary Rehm, 1971.5a, with the permission of Diane and John B. Rehm.

New York Group Exhibition , 2009

Blue

Graham Gallery,

opposite: Dan Walsh, Shop , acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 inches

© Dan Walsh. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.

Blue

JUNE 17 – AUGUST 28

Richmond Burton

Rudolf de Crignis

Joe Fyfe

Wayne Gonzales

James Hyde

Daniel Levine

Nancy Lorenz

Olivier Mosset

James Nares

R.H. Quaytman

Kate Shepherd

Amy Sillman

Kimber Smith

Philip Taaffe

Dan Walsh

Curated by John Zinsser

JAM eS GRAHAM & SONS

A rather somber group show with the theme of the historical and cultural significance of the color that Joni Mitchell (not to mention Yves Klein) immortalized. New York magazine

opposite, top: Invitation to the exhibition

opposite, bottom, and above: The exhibition installed at Graham Gallery, New York

Photos by Joshua Nefsky. above: Checklist to the exhibition

Well there’re so many sinking

Now you’ve got to keep thinking You can make it thru these waves…

—Joni Mitchell, “Blue” (1971)

above: Jamie Nares, Who I Am , 2008, oil on linen, 93 x 58 inches

Courtesy of the artist and Kasmin Gallery, New York.

opposite: Wayne Gonzales, Seated Crowd , 2007, acrylic on canvas, 38 x 38 inches

Courtesy of the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photo by Jean Vong.

“Blue” lyrics © Reservoir Media Management, Inc.

opposite: Joe Fyfe in his studio

What does an abstract painter want? Color, texture, surface, material, light and dark, maybe, gesture, maybe. . . . Is that everything? Authority, also? The New York painter Joe Fyfe, who was born in 1952, and also writes art criticism and curates exhibitions, displays a distinct sense of command in his recent undertakings, if that’s not too romantic a notion. Something happened in his visits to Southeast Asia, something like the world suddenly offering up freely its simple wealth to his senses. For those of us back in New York, Fyfe’s breakthrough was his 2009 show at Graham & Sons, where he exhibited a room full of simple yet powerful abstractions, made not with paint but with the simple folding of one fabric onto another, the kind of discovery that made heroes of New York artists in the 1950s. Walter Robinson, artnet.com

Joe Fyfe, Road , 2007, muslin and dyed cotton, 24 1/2 x 22 3/4 inches Courtesy of the artist.

Contrasting and overlaying the handmade with the manufactured and mass-produced, the art object with the throwaway, the immediate with the no longer so far away, Fyfe’s show was a personal odyssey as well as a social/esthetic commentary on painting in the world, a kind of updated, peripatetic Constructivism. This is the most visually rich of Fyfe’s projects that I’ve seen to date, though its takeaway is more or less the same—that to see, pay attention, make connections, remember and record deeply matter.

Lilly Wei, Art in America

left: Joe Fyfe, Window with Orange , 2008, dyed cotton, felt and silk burlap, 31 3/4 x 24 inches Courtesy of the artist.

right: Joe Fyfe, Untitled , 2008, felt and cotton, 26 1/4 x 21 1/2 inches Courtesy of the artist.

above: Joe Fyfe’s Taaffe Place studio, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

opposite: Catalogue of the exhibition featuring “Gates of Heaven,” a poem by Max Blagg

above: Joe Fyfe, Square Curtain , 2007, found cotton fabric, felt, and cotton appliqué, approx. 48 x 41 inches

Courtesy of the artist.

opposite: Invitation to the exhibition

Joe Fyfe: It’s strange the way things happen. For example: I think I became an abstract painter because I quit smoking. A big change allows you to make another change. It’s a practice leap. I really became an abstract painter because of Blinky Palermo’s work, but it could just as easily have been because I quit smoking. I quit smoking and couldn’t bear to do figurative work anymore—I didn’t know what to do so I would just lay on the couch and read.

Josh Blackwell: Because you weren’t smoking?

JF: Exactly. Whenever I found this sentence I really liked, I would project it onto the painting and trace it out. One day I crossed out one of the sentences and the painting looked really good. Then I thought, Oh, that’s how you make an abstract painting. After I’d been painting for 20 years the fact that it’s an actual language emerged.

JB: (laughter) Right.

—BOMB Magazine, Spring 2011

Sempervirens, 2018

Claire Sherman

DC Moore Gallery, New York

opposite: Claire Sherman hiking in Redwood National Park, California

Photo by Jon Cancro.

There is a cleavage between the dramatic paint handling and the equally dramatic choice of subject matter. The freedom of Sherman’s paint handling and the elegance of her execution is one pole of her work, while the arbiter, which retains the balance and allows a cool reading of her paintings, is the intercession of the mechanical processes of photographic material. —Joe Fyfe

Clockwise from top left: Catalogue of the exhibition

Claire Sherman at the opening of the exhibition New Pangaea , 2019

Claire Sherman’s studio, 2016, Guttenberg, NJ

Claire Sherman, Trees , 2014, oil on canvas, 96 x 78 inches

Courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York.

[Sherman] is a painter who is able to transmute knowledge of color and representational bravado from the past into something that clearly belongs to the 21st Century. From prior epochs, Sherman has carried the earthtoned underpainting forward into a time when it can complement palettes that alternate between the day-glow cadmium chroma of a computer screen to the more muted hues of a doctor’s waiting room. While the large, bold brushstrokes bear a kinship to AbEx forebearers, accidental scrapes and runs contribute to a sense of geology, serving a double life as painterly strata and description. —Sarah Goffstein, The Brooklyn Rail

above: Claire Sherman’s studio, 2014, Sunset Park, Brooklyn

Photo by Claire Sherman.

opposite: Claire Sherman, Night and Trees , 2014, oil on canvas, 59 1/2 x 54 inches

artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York.

Art Dealer Archipelagoes, 2009

John Zinsser

Graham Gallery, New York

opposite: John Zinsser in his studio

clockwise from top left: John Zinsser, Sonnabend Gallery, 2009, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 12 ¼ x 16 ¼ inches; John Zinsser, Colin De Land / American Fine Arts , 2009, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 14 x 11 inches; John Zinsser, Park Place Gallery, 2009, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 14 x 11 inches; John Zinsser, John Good Gallery, 2009, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 8 ¼ x 11 ¾ inches; John Zinsser, Civilian Warfare (1985), 2009, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 14 x 11 inches; John Zinsser, Holly Solomon Gallery, 2009, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 14 x 11 inches; John Zinsser, Annina Nosei Gallery (1985), 2009, colored pencil on paper, 14 x 11 inches All works courtesy of the artist.

When I started making these drawings, they came to me completely unexpectedly. They started out as open-ended musings and became more detailed, complex, and interrelated as I went along. I began to see that, taken together, the maps convey a larger sense of family—a family of idiosyncratic characters who collectively define the history of post-war American art.

T here is something inherently funny about the whole undertaking, the groupings, the borders, and implied territories—and a sense of the larger triumph and pathos, those artists who made it and those who didn’t.

M y take isn’t ironic. It reflects a 25-year love affair I’ve had with New York galleries and their exhibitions. —John Zinsser

Daniel Levine (left) at the opening of Art Dealer Archipelagoes, Graham Gallery, New York

It’s a slight conceit, but a charming one: take a random sampling of New York galleries— from Castelli, in the sixties, to Nosei, in the eighties, to Reena Spaulings, in the aughts— and draw them as islands, in a maplike palette of pink, yellow, and green. Mark with artists’ names in lieu of cities’, then install on the wall in an archipelago-like cluster. It’s said that no man is an island, but some artists are islets: note Jeff Koons, off the northeast coast of Sonnabend. The New Yorker

above: John Zinsser, Heiner Friedrich Gallery (1977), 2009, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 14 x 11 inches

Courtesy of the artist.

below: John Zinsser, Jay Gorney Modern Art , 2009, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 8 ¼ x 11 ¾ inches

Courtesy of the artist.

Poèms d’Intérieurs, 2003

Walter Gay

Graham Gallery, New York

opposite: Walter Gay, Interior (detail), c. 1912–1916, oil on canvas, 22 x 18 1/4 inches Courtesy private collection.

No one could accuse Walter Gay (1856–1937) of being avantgarde. His obsessive specialty was roomscapes, elegant views of 18th-century French chambers, with Louis XV furnishings, crystal chandeliers, period furniture, marble mantelpieces and beyond. He loved such rooms, lived in them and saluted them on canvas for most of his career.

Grace Glueck, The New York Times

above: Catalogue of the exhibition

right: Walter Gay, Matilda Gay Reclining on a Lit de Repos (Château de Fortoiseau), c. 1897–1906, oil on panel, 17 x 21 inches Courtesy private collection.

above: Chapter by Priscilla Vail Caldwell in Impressions of Interiors: Gilded Age Paintings by Walter Gay

Published by the Frick Art & Historical Center.

opposite: Walter Gay, Interior, c. 1912–1916 oil on canvas, 22 x 18 1/4 inches Courtesy private collection.

Walter and Maltida Gay’s genius for collecting, arranging, and decorating their homes led Walter into a genre of painting that not only recorded for posterity the physical beauty of rooms but also evoked the elusive spirit of objects unlike any other painter in the genre. Gay articulated the difference in his approach when he said his sensibility and desire to connect with the past made him seek the “spirit of empty rooms.” In his introduction to Gay’s memorial exhibition at Wildenstein & Co. in New York, A. E. Gallatin wrote, “The rooms which he painted are occupied, they are only momentarily deserted, and the personalities of the inhabitants are suggested in a very subtle manner. He studied the physiognomy of inanimate things. His rooms possess souls and are lived in.” —Priscilla Vail Caldwell

opposite: Walter Gay, Interior with Clock Garniture , c. 1912–1916, oil on board, 21 1/2 x 18 inches Courtesy private collection.

opposite: Max Jansons, The Gorgeous Warrior V.3 (detail), 2019, oil on linen, 36 x 42 inches Courtesy of the artist.

“All the subjects in my work ultimately provide me with a vehicle to engage with the language of painting. My subjects often act as a touchstone or way into the painting. I like them to be easily definable—a portrait, a flower, a triangle—this allows me to get lost in the nuances of the painting.

The different subjects I work with allow me to constantly shift the lens. So how a flower can become an abstraction, a geometric shape can become soft and organic, or a still life can be transformed into a landscape. These relationships interest me. I want to reveal and show the connections you can make, how you can redefine things, shift your perceptions, and ultimately change the way you see the world. That’s what I feel a painting can do and has done for me.”

Interview with Maria Vogel , Art of Choice

above: Max Jansons in his studio

left: Rainbows , 2010, oil on linen, 7 x 13 inches Courtesy of the artist.

New York native Max Jansons paints exceedingly charming stylized flowers in vases, as well as teapots and modernist influenced abstractions. For his whimsical portraits of indoor plant life, he uses curved forms to convey a sense of movement, as if each posed “posy” or vine were in the process of growing. Flowing forms such as buds and leaves filled each canvas to its edges and complement the zigzag patterns of the vases. [. . .] Adding to the buoyant animation of each painting are the artist’s smaller brushstrokes. From close up we can see curlicues looping in on one another inside the shape’s outline, actively involved in the process of their being created [. . .] All of Jansons’s choreographed plants and colorful abstracts are composed with a deliberate hand and a visceral response to life’s simpler visual treats. Doug McClemont, ARTNews

above: Invitation to the exhibition Love

right: Max Jansons, Clifford Still, 2018, oil on linen, 51 x 60 inches Courtesy of the artist.

above: Max Jansons, Freaky Deaky, 2011, oil on linen, 14 x 16 inches

Courtesy of the artist.

opposite : Max Jansons, Like a Sailor Redux , 2011, oil on linen, 12 x 10 inches

Courtesy of the artist.

above: Advertisement for the exhibition Freewheelin' in Artforum magazine opposite: Max Jansons’s studio Ocean Park, Santa Monica, CA

Group Exhibition, 2017

The Enormity of the Possible

Kasmin Gallery, New York

opposite: Oscar Florianus Bluemner, Untitled (detail), 1921, watercolor and gouache on paper, 5 x 6 ¾ inches

Photo by Christopher Stach.

Arthur Dove, Untitled , 1945, oil on canvas, 11 ⅞ × 8 ¾ inches

Photo by Diego Flores. © The Estate of Arthur Dove.

Oscar Florianus Bluemner, Untitled , 1921, watercolor and gouache on paper, 5 x 6 ¾ inches

Photo by Christopher Stach.

Charles Burchfield (1893–1967), Industrial Kilns , c. 1920, watercolor, gouache, and pencil on paper, 15 ¾ x 24 ½ inches

Photo by Christopher Stach. © Charles E. Burchfield Foundation, reproduced with permission.

For proof that the galleries have become the new museums, look to the remarkable museum-quality lineup now on view, through October, at Chelsea’s Paul Kasmin. In “The Enormity of the Possible,” at Kasmin’s 297 Tenth Avenue location, the independent curator Priscilla Vail Caldwell explores the intersections of the first generation of American Modernists with the later Abstract Expressionists, bringing together Milton Avery, Oscar Bluemner, Charles Burchfield, Stuart Davis, John Marin, Elie Nadelman, and Helen Torr, among others, with Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.

—James Panero, New Criterion

above: Paul Kasmin at The Enormity of the Possible exhibition below, left: Invitation to the exhibition below, right: Guest book for the exhibition

Some will wonder about the use of “enormity,” and how it usually attaches to something negative, but in The Enormity of the Possible, it is certainly the opposite case. How could the possible ever be anything but very, very big? And this exhibition is not to be believed: John Marin (one of my—and many persons’—favorite) appears on the cover of the catalogue with his Movement VI of 1946. You would love to abscond with it under your sleeve. I didn’t do that, but just stood in happiness before this work and two others, the Sea and Boat Fantasy (1944) with the icons on the top bar, and the more complicated Movement: Sea Played with Boat Motive (1947). As happens with almost every work here— the Milton Averys in their spaciousness and clarity, the Rothko of 1932 (!), the Pollock (!), and the very grand Lee Krasner’s very grand Seated Figure of 1938–39, an oil and collage on linen—oh my goodness! Also, let me single out three Stuart Davis works, the Black and White Variation on “Pochade” (1956–58)—right there when you come in, so remarkably recognizable straight off—and the bright, bright Standard Brand No. 2 of 1960–61, with its pencil traces, and the totally gorgeous Open Book and Fruit of 1922, which does its legibility and outpouring and gustatory enjoyment for all of us, so early! Like a wakeup to end this piece with earliness.

—Mary Ann Caws , The Brooklyn Rail

Charles Burchfield (1893–1967) , Dark Tree, Gloomy Tree , 1917, watercolor on paper, 14 x 10 ¾ inches

Photo by Christopher Stach. © Charles E. Burchfield Foundation, reproduced with permission.

above: The exhibition installed at Kasmin Gallery, New York

Photos by Christopher Stach.

right: Charles Burchfield (1893–1967), Sun and Rocks , 1950–53, ink,

conté crayon and watercolor on buff wove paper, 12 x 16 1/2 inches

Photo by Joshua Nefsky. © Charles E. Burchfield Foundation, reproduced with permission.

Group Exhibition , 2014

James Graham & Sons: A Century and a Half in the Art Business

No. 2

A Graphite Exhibition

Group Exhibition catalogue with essay by Betsy Fahlman DC Moore Gallery, New York

SEP 4 — OCT 4, 2014

OPENING RECEPTION SEP 11, 6–8PM

PEARL BLAUVELT

CHARLES BURCHFIELD

TOM FAIRS

SPENCER FINCH

VALERIE JAUDON

JOYCE KOZLOFF

ADAM MCEWEN

NATHAN OLIVEIRA

NANCY RUBINS

JAMES SIENA

BARBARA TAKENAGA

GEORGE TOOKER

KON TRUBKOVICH

The No. 2 pencil evokes memories of the dwindling days of summer, students preparing to go back to school, and the anxiety associated with standardized test taking. Sharpened pencils, doodling, compulsive mark making, and obsessive interest in subject matter, all figure into the works included in this exhibition. Priscilla Vail Caldwell

Installation of the exhibition, DC Moore Gallery, New York

Spencer Finch, Vultures over Canyon des Rio Lobos, Spain 3/30/13

1591F, Spain

3-30-13 , 2013, pencil on paper, 30 ¼ x 44 inches

Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York.

left: James Siena, Sawtoothed Angry Form , 2011, graphite on paper, 11 x 8 ½ inches

Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York.

right: Barbara Takenaga, Untitled , 2014, graphite, acrylic wash, and gouache on paper, 12 x 11 ½ inches

Courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, New York.

In Havana, 2021

Stuart Davis

Kasmin Gallery, New York

opposite: Stuart Davis, Self Portrait (detail), 1919, oil on canvas, 23 x 19 inches

Photo by Chris Stach. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

With news this week of unprecedented wide-scale anti-government protests in Cuba, perhaps it’s an opportune moment to look back on the small but often important role the Caribbean island played as a travel destination for Modernist artists and writers of the early twentieth century. Hemingway’s time in Cuba is legendary, of course; now an exhibition at Kasmin Gallery examines Stuart Davis’s trip to Havana, where the painter is said to have gone to convalesce after contracting the Spanish Flu in 1919. The exhibition includes ten watercolors by the then-twenty-seven-year-old, as well as archival material having to do with his monthslong visit. —Andrew L. Shea, The New Criterion

During the Spanish Flu pandemic, the painter Stuart Davis caught the virus and left New York City to convalesce in Havana, Cuba. It was early in his career, and while recuperating Davis set to work on 10 evocative watercolors, taking in the shapes and colors of the Caribbean. Though it was a short period of time, ‘it was a watershed moment’ for the artist, says Priscilla Vail Caldwell, curator of Stuart Davis in Havana . All 10 paintings are in the exhibition, which includes archival material from Davis’s trip—lottery tickets, postcards, and his passport. —Airmail.com

above: The exhibition installed at Kasmin Gallery, New York Photos by Diego Flores.

Stuart Davis, La Casa Rosa , 1920, watercolor on paper, 23 1/8 x 17 7/8 inches

Photo by Christopher Stach. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Stuart Davis, Havana , 1920, watercolor on paper, 17 ⅞ × 11 ⅞ inches

Photo by Christopher Stach. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Davis was one of the youngest painters exhibited in the inaugural Armory Show and ‘clearly synthesised all the influences from the Armory [while] allowing himself to experiment more boldly, to paint more freely,’ [says curator Priscilla Vail Caldwell.] The artist’s well-known love of music comes though on the paper with several of the works featuring figures who seem to move rhythmically though veils of color. The exhibition also presents materials documenting his trip like postcards, lottery tickets and his passport. —The Art Newspaper

right: Passport of Stuart Davis, 1919 opposite: Postcard from Davis to his mother, 1920

Stuart Davis, (Three Women with Terrace), 1920, watercolor on paper, 16 ¾ × 23 ¼ inches

Photo by Christopher Stach. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Stuart Davis, (Havana Landscape), 1920, watercolor and crayon on paper, 17 ⅜ × 23 ¼ inches

Photo by Christopher Stach. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Stuart Davis, (Woman with Shawl), 1920, watercolor on paper, 22 ½ × 17 ½ inches

Photo by: Christopher Stach. © Estate of Stuart Davis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Group Exhibition, 2024

Think of Salad Days

Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York

opposite: Liam Lee, Untitled, Grey (detail), 2022, mohair and merino wool, 102 x 96 x 1 inches

Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Clemens Kois.

Think of salad days They were folly and fun They were good, they were young

Think we’ll destabilize, it’s urgent . . . challenge the structures that sustain racism, sexism, militarism, and bourgeois heteronormativity— we have the skill to take it on here . . . the above are the sole lyrics of the two-minute song by the Young Marble Giants : indexing an influential band on their one and only album (ever heard of albums?) Colossal Youth. Think that one said they always made “music for evenings,” that is, its quietness, its . . . Mark Fisher’s “slow cancellation of the future. . .” life on the planet in its “late” period. . . it’s always evening now. . . the first paintings made in the darkness of caves. . . Cullen Washington Jr.’s creation myth walks out into the savannah and the ancient dusk. Vito Acconci said, “It’s always night in the city” . . .now it’s always night on earth. . . —Joe Fyfe

above: Invitation to the exhibition, hand lettering by Chris Burnside opposite: Installation of the exhibition at Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York

Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

Nhât Minh, Untitled (Virgin Mary), 2008, pastel painting on paper, 78 ¾ x 118 inches

Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

Cullen Washington Jr., Primer 19, 2023, earth minerals and pigments (oxidized slate, birch soot, silver graphite, charcoal), acrylic medium on paper, 31 x 47 inches

Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

left: Bennett Smith, E-Signature (Rotated), 2023, oil on linen, 17 x 20 inches

Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

right: Bennett Smith, Hat in the Ring , 2023, ink on linen, binder spine, 10 x 13 inches

Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

opposite: Liam Lee, Untitled, Grey, 2022, mohair and merino wool, 102 x 96 x 1 inches

Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Clemens Kois.

above: Alix Van Der Donckt-Ferrand, Le Mot “Mésange,” 2020, pencil, crayon and graphite on matboard, 8 ½ x 10 inches

Courtesy of the artist and april_april. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

opposite: Hannah Beerman, Waterproof Reversible , 2020, sleeping bag, espresso cups, rope, stretcher, 68 x 54 inches

Courtesy of the artist and Kapp Kapp.

Art Advisory

Selected work placed in collections

ROBERT IRWIN

Fargo, 2018, shadow, reflection, color, 72 x 99 ¼ inches

LARRY BELL

Hiromi

Arches

MARY CORSE

above: Untitled (White Inner Band with White Sides Beveled), 2020, glass microspheres in acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 x 4 inches

© Mary Corse. Courtesy of a private collection and Pace Gallery.

opposite: Untitled (Blue Inverted Arch), 2001, glass microspheres in acrylic on canvas, 44 x 72 inches

© Mary Corse. Courtesy of a private collection and Pace Gallery.

LAUREN HALSEY

Untitled , 2021, synthetic hair on wood, 108 x 56 x 8 inches

Photo by Allen Chen/SLH Studio. Courtesy of the artist, a private collection, and David Kordansky Gallery.

FRED EVERSLEY

Untitled (parabolic lens), (1969), 2020, two-layer, two-color cast polyester, 19 ½ x 19 ½ x 5 ⅜ inches

Photos by Jeff McLane. Courtesy of the artist, a private collection, and David Kordansky Gallery.

MARY WEATHERFORD

Yellow Melon (Green Split), 2021, flashe and neon on linen, 20 x 41 x 2 ¾ inches

Photo by Fredrik Nilsen Studio. Courtesy of the artist, a private collection, and David Kordansky Gallery.

KATHY BUTTERLY

Taking Form , 2022, porcelain, earthenware, glaze, 8 ¾ x 6 ¼ x 4 ½ inches

Photo by Alan Wiener. Courtesy of the artist, a private collection, and James Cohan, New York.

SAM FALLS

Untitled (Serrano Garden 1), 2019, glazed ceramic mounted on honeycomb panel with brass frame, 46 inches in diameter

AWOL ERIZKU

Malcolm x Freestyle (Pharoah’s Dance), 2019–2020, digital chromatic print, 20 x 25 inches, edition 2/3

LATOYA RUBY FRAZIER

above: Zion Taking Her First Sip of Water from the Atmospheric Water Generator with Her Mother Shea Cobb on North Saginaw Street Between East Marengo Avenue and East Pulaski Avenue, Flint, Michigan , 2019, Archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle FineArt Baryta, 30 x 40 inches, edition 2/5

opposite: Shea Brushing Zion’s Teeth with Bottled Water in Her Bathroom, Flint, Michigan , 2016–2017, gelatin silver print, 24 x 20 inches

LEE FRIEDLANDER

New York State , 1965, printed in 1960s, gelatin silver print, 8 x 5 ¼ inches

BARBARA KASTEN

Crown Hall 2, 2018–2019, digital chromogenic print, 40 ½ x 54 inches, edition 1/3

Courtesy of the artist, a private collection, and Bortolami, New York.

MARY OBERING

above: Byrd Fair Park , 1980, egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed panel, 21 ¾ x 21 ¾ inches

Courtesy of the artist, a private collection, and Bortolami, New York.

opposite: Hanging Pieces , 1989, egg tempera, gold leaf, red gilding clay on gessoed panel, 72 x 48 inches

Courtesy of the artist, a private collection, and Bortolami, New York.

HANK WILLIS THOMAS

Field Day (Red Blue), 2020, screenprint on retroreflective vinyl, mounted on Dibond, 39 x 69 inches

MARCIA HAFIF

above: French Painting: Belfort , 1997, oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches

Courtesy of a private collection, Fergus McCaffrey, and the Estate of Marcia Hafif.

opposite: French Painting: Dechamp , 1997, oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches

Courtesy of a private collection, Fergus McCaffrey, and the Estate of Marcia Hafif.

IGSHAAN ADAMS

GETUIE (witness) x, 2021 , metal, plastic, glass and stone beads, metal charms (knives), hoop earrings, metal wire and chain, car paint, resin, 44 ½ x 22 ¾ x 21 ½ inches

IGSHAAN ADAMS

Klip Gooi, Stone Throw III , 2021, wooden, glass, gemstone and semi-precious stone beads, metal charms, metal garden fence, chain, variety of metal wires (copper or brass), polyester and nylon rope, 110 ¾ x 28 ¾ x 36 ⅝ inches

Photo by Rob Thomas. © Igshaan Adams. Courtesy of the artist, a private collection, Casey Kaplan, New York, and the Hayward Gallery, London.

GRACE WEAVER

long story (short), 2016, oil on canvas, 59 ¾ x 43 ¼ inches

Courtesy of the artist, a private collections, and James Cohan, New York.

PARKER ITO

Birds of California , 2020, oil on linen, 64 x 46 inches

Courtesy of the artist, a private collection, and Chateau Shatto, Los Angeles.

MAGALIE GUÉRIN

Untitled , 2022, glazed ceramic, 11 ½ x 9 x 4 inches

Courtesy of the artist, a private collection, and Corbett vs Dempsey, Chicago.

CHARLES BURCHFIELD (1893–1967)

Dark Tree, Gloomy Tree , 1917, watercolor on paper, 14 x 10 ¾ inches

Photo by Christopher Stach. © Charles E. Burchfield Foundation, reproduced with permission. Courtesy of a private collection.

ANDREW WYETH

Flint (Study), 1975, pencil on paper, 18 x 23 ½ inches

TOM FAIRS

Untitled , c. 1980s, oil, oilstick on canvas, 30 x 36 inches

MANDY EL-SAYEGH

TBC – Piece Painting (Occupations), 2019, oil and mixed media on linen with artist’s stainless steel frame, 83 x 59 x 2 inches

ANDREW WYETH

ELEANOR RAY

above: Western Meadowlark , 2020, oil on panel, 6 x 7 ⅞ inches

below: Wyoming Hills, Morning , 2018, oil on panel, 6 ½ x 9 inches

opposite above: Wyoming Snow, 2018, oil on panel, 6 x 8 inches

opposite below: Taos Night , 2019, oil on panel, 6 x 8 inches

Photos by JSP Art Photography. All work courtesy of the artist, private collections, and Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York.

ANN VERONICA JANSSENS

Frisson Blue, Frisson Rose , 2021, hammered glass, laminated on dichroic PVC film and float glass (diptych), 82 ⅝ x 41 ⅜ inches each

ANN VERONICA JANSSENS

Blue Glass Roll 405 , 2017–2018, glass, 18 x 18 x 8 ¼ inches

Courtesy of the artist, a private collections, and Bortolami, New York.

Bibliography

BOOKS

DiPietro, Anne Cohen. Out of the Shadows: Helen Torr, a Retrospective. Huntington, NY: Heckscher Museum, 2003.

Taube, Isabel L., et al. Impressions of Interiors: Gilded Age Paintings by Walter Gay. Pittsburg: Frick Art & Historical Center in Association with D Giles, London, 2012.

EXHIBITIONS

Kimber Smith: A Winged Life (2011). James Graham and Sons, New York.

5 May–30 June.

Lines Thicken: Stuart Davis in Black and White (2018). Kasmin Gallery, New York. 13 September–18 December.

Color Climax (2008). James Graham and Sons, New York. 26 June–15 August.

Elie Nadelman: Significant Form (2019). Kasmin Gallery, New York. 7 November–21 December.

Helen Torr, Out of the Shadows, A Retrospective (2003). Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY.

1 February 1–14 April. Traveled to Graham Gallery, New York, and Mitchell Art Museum, St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland.

Blue (2009). James Graham and Sons, New York. 17 June–28 August.

Joe Fyfe: Recent Work (2009).

James Graham and Sons, New York.

5 February–7 March.

Joe Fyfe: Wood/Cloth/Color (2011). James Graham and Sons, New York.

23 February–23 April.

Claire Sherman: Sempervirens (2014).

DC Moore Gallery, New York.

4 September–4 October.

John Zinsser: Art Dealer Archipelagoes (2009–10). James Graham and Sons, New York. 20 November 2009–5 January 2010.

Walter Gay: Poèmes d’Intérieurs (2003).

James Graham and Sons, New York.

13 March–12 April.

Max Jansons: Love (2010). James Graham and Sons, New York. 25 June–27 August.

Max Jansons: Freewheelin’ (2011). James Graham and Sons, New York.

22 September–22 October.

The Enormity of the Possible (2017).

Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York.

7 September–28 October.

No. 2 Graphite Exposition (2014). DC Moore Gallery, New York. 4 September–4 October.

Stuart Davis: Havana (2021). Kasmin Gallery, New York. 30 June–13 August.

Think of Salad Days (2024). Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York. 11 January–17 February.

ARTICLES

Schjeldahl, Peter. “Kimber Smith.” The New Yorker, 4 July 2011. www.tinyurl. com/SmithNewYorker.

Hudson, Suzanne. “Kimber Smith.” Artforum , 1 October 2011. www.artforum. com/events/kimber-smith-195912/.

Schjeldahl, Peter. “Stuart Davis.” The New Yorker, 17 December 2018. www. newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/ art/stuart-davis.

Aima, Rahel. “Stuart Davis.” Artforum , 2 November 2018. www.artforum.com/ events/kasmin-gallery-293-tenth-avenue-242499/.

“Stuart Davis: Lines Thicken” Art & Antiques, October, 2018.

Panero, James. “The Critic’s Notebook: On Józef Czapski, Elie Nadelman, A Christmas Carol & More from the World of Culture.” The New Criterion , 3 December 2019.

Edelman, Robert. “Pass the Cadmium Red, Honey.” Artnet , May, 2003. www. artnet.com/magazine/features/edelman/ edelman5-29-03.asp

Goddard, Donald. “Out of the Shadows: A Retrospective.” New York Art World , 2003. www.newyorkartworld.com/reviews/torr. html.

Glueck, Grace. “Art in Review.” The New York Times, 30 January 1998. www.nytimes. com/1998/01/30/arts/art-in-review335959.html.

"Blue." New York Magazine. June, 2009.

Wei, Lilly. “Joe Fyfe.” ARTnews, 18 July 2011. www.artnews.com/art-in-america/ aia-reviews/joe-fyfe-60932/.

Blackwell, J. “Joe Fyfe.” BOMB, 1 April 2011. bombmagazine.org/ articles/2011/04/01/joe-fyfe-1/.

Robinson, Walter. “Joe Fyfe: Painter’s Apotheosis.” artnet.com , 28 March 2011. www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/ maliszewski/joe-fyfe-paintersapotheosis-3-28-11.asp.

Goffstein, Sarah. “Claire Sherman Sempervirens.” The Brooklyn Rail , 14 October 2014. brooklynrail.org/ 2014/10/artseen/claire-shermansempervirens.

“John Zinsser.” The New Yorker, 2010. www. newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/ art/john-zinsser-2.

Glueck, Grace. “Walter Gay—‘Poèmes d’intérieurs.’” The New York Times, 28 March 2003. www.nytimes. com/2003/03/28/arts/ art-in- review-walter-gay-poemes-dinterieurs.html.

Vogel, Maria. “Max Jansons’s Paintings Tell Stories within Themselves.” Art of Choice, 23 January 2019. www.artofchoice. co/max-jansons-paintings-tells-storieswithin-themselves/.

McClemont, Doug. “Reviews: New York, Max Jansons.” ARTnews, January 2012.

Naves, Mario. “Painting Silly and Smart: Take the Jansons and Chisholm Challenge.” City Arts, 2011.

Panero, James. “The Critic’s Notebook.” The New Criterion , 12 September 2017. www.newcriterion.com/blogs/dispatch/ the-critics-notebook-8938.

Caws, Mary Ann, “Robert Motherwell: Early Paintings | Enormity of the Possible.” The Brooklyn Rail , October, 2017. www.brooklynrail.org/2017/10/ artseen/robert-motherwell-early-paintings-and-enormity-of-the-possible.

Shea, Andrew L. “The Critic’s Notebook: On Iconoclasm, Stuart Davis in Cuba, Pompeii & More from the World of Culture.” The New Criterion , 12 July 2021. www.newcriterion.com/blogs/dispatch/ critics-notebook-12210.

“Stuart Davis in Havana.” Airmai l, 15 July, 2021. www.airmail.news/arts-intel/events/ stuart-davis-in-havana

“Stuart Davis in Havana.” The Art Newspaper, August, 2021.

CATALOGUES

Smith, K. Kimber Smith: A Winged Life, James Graham and Sons, 5 May–30 June. New York: James Graham and Sons, 2011. Essay by Joe Fyfe. Photography by Josh Nefsky. Design by Reed Seifer.

Fyfe, J. Joe Fyfe: Recent Work, James Graham and Sons, 5 February–7 March. New York: James Graham and Sons, 2009. Poem by Max Blagg. Photography by Joshua Nefksy. Design by Reed Seifer

Sherman, C. Claire Sherman: Sempervirens, DC Moore, 4 September–4 October. New York: DC Moore Gallery, 2014. Essay by Joe Fyfe. Publication managed by Andrea Cerbie. Photography by Stephen Bates. Design by Reed Seifer Associates.

Gay, W. Poèmes d’Intérieurs, James Graham and Sons, 13 March–12 April. New York: James Graham and Sons, 2003.

Author, Priscilla Vail Caldwell. Editorial Coordinator, Carrie Hard. Design by John Bernstein.

Group Exhibition. The Enormity of the Possible, Paul Kasmin Gallery, 7 September–28 October. New York: Paul Kasmin Gallery, 2017.

Author, Katherine Markoski with a foreword by Priscilla Vail Caldwell. Publication Director, Mark Markin. Design by Frauke Ebinger.

Romare Bearden, The Visitation , 1941, gouache, ink, and pencil on colored paper, 30 ½ x 46 ½ inches

Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art. Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (by exchange). Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource.

Acknowledgments

I extend my gratitude to everyone who worked alongside me sourcing checklists, articles, images, and other ephemera and to the artists who agreed to have their work reproduced. In particular, I wish to thank Cameron Shay; Grace Morris; Reed Seifer; Chris Burnside; Joe Fyfe; Max Jansons; John Zinsser; Liz Markus; James Hyde; Liam Lee; Nhật Minh; Claire Sherman; Wayne Gonzales; Bennett Smith; Cullen Washington Jr.; Cynthia Nadelman; Earl Davis; Diane Rehm; Maria Friedrich; Julie Graham; Kate Sippey, Casey Kaplan Gallery; Daniel Kapp, Kapp Kapp; Madeline Warren, Hauser & Wirth; Tullis Johnson, Burchfield Penney Art Center; Charlotte Kinberger, James Cohan Gallery; Vincent Wilcke, Pace Gallery; Emma Crumbley, Alexandre Gallery; Clarice de Veyra, Lehmann Maupin Gallery; Jason Drill, Kasmin Gallery; Ashley Park, David Kordansky Gallery; Karina Ors, Nina Johnson Gallery; Bruce Kriegel, Van Doren

Waxter; Julia Moody, 303 Gallery; Anthony Flores, Gladstone Gallery; Sasha Helinski, Luhring Augustine Gallery; Yuka Lou, Stephen Friedman Gallery; Emily Letourneau, Corbett vs. Dempsey; Fei Wu, Fergus McCaffrey; Annika Klein, Chateau Shatto; Wendy Wahlert, Bortolami Gallery; Caroline Magavern, DC Moore Gallery; Lucas Regazzi, april april; Eve Arbello, Paula Cooper Gallery; Jennifer Belt, Art Resource; Fernanda Pessaro, Artists Rights Society; Caitlin Haskell, Jay Dandy, and Annika Bohanec, Art Institute of Chicago; Kerrilyn Blee, Heckscher Museum of Art; William Coleman, Wyeth Study Center; Jodi Hauptman and Kunbi Oni, Museum of Modern Art; Zak Meek, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Carolyn Cruthirds, Museum of Fine Arts Boston; and Kathleen Bezok, Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University; Cindy Trickel; Hervey Townshend; Patrick Bova; Robert Vail; and Benjamin Vail.

Priscilla Vail Caldwell Independent curator and art advisor

Brooklyn, New York

(646) 334-4308

priscilla @ vailcaldwellprojects.com

vailcaldwellprojects.com @ projectsvailcaldwell

141 Baltic Street

Brooklyn, New York 11201

Printed in an edition of 350

Typeset in Cormorant Garamond and Brandon Grotesque

Printed at GHP Media, West Haven, Connecticut

It’s a constant, continuous, spectacular world we live in, and every day you see things that just knock you out, if you pay attention. —Robert Irwin

Lois Dodd, Hackmatack Seed Cone, 2018, oil on aluminum flashing, 5 x 7 inches