James Castle / Walker Evans, Knoedler & Company, New York - Word-play, Signs and Symbols

James Castle / Walker Evans: Word-play, Signs and Symbols
Knoedler & Company, New York
May 4 – August 11, 2006

Knoedler & Company presents James Castle/Walker Evans: Word-play, Signs and Symbols. This exhibition focuses on James Castle’s use of words and letters, numbers, signs, and symbols, and juxtaposes this varied body of work—which includes collages, drawings, and handmade books, as well as mixed media works in color—with late Polaroids by Walker Evans.

James Castle’s use of language was limited, and his degree of literacy has never clearly been determined, however a fascination with text, pictograph, and symbol is found throughout his work, marked not only by “its craft, warmth of feeling, and variety,” but also by its “formally sophisticated relationship to the sign culture of products and advertising, as well as its obsession with the building blocks of language: letters, sets, and sequential order and disarray.” James Castle’s detailed attention to text and symbol extends to lists, ledgers, and calendars—ordered collections of letters, numbers, punctuation marks and pictographs, which he often collected into hand-sewn books. Sometimes he cut or tore individual letters, words, phrases, and headlines from printed matter, dissecting each letter into minute jigsaw-puzzle like pieces which he then recombined and reassembled, as in Untitled (Fire Sale). More often, we discover that apparent “found” texts and symbols are actually beautifully rendered drawings.

While the exhibition’s primary focus is the work of James Castle (1900-1977), it also present a parallel selections of Polaroids by Walker Evans (1903-1975) on loan from the Collections of Martin Z. Margulies, Miami. Walker Evans made 2,650 Polaroids during the years 1973 and 74, on the themes of vernacular architecture, domestic interiors, portraiture, and signage—including roadside and storefront signs, and traffic markings and arrows. Like James Castle, Walker Evans often used fragments of signs and groupings of letters as decontextualized graphic forms. This thematic juxtaposition of Castle and Evans shows James Castle engaged by concerns that were very much those of mainstream modernism.

James Castle/Walker Evans: Word-play, Signs and Symbols marks Knoedler’s third exhibition devoted to the work of James Castle, presented in collaboration with J Crist Gallery of Boise, Idaho. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with an essay by Stephen Westfall (all above quotations are taken from the catalogue essay).

KNOEDLER & COMPANY
19 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021
www.knoedlergallery.com

David Smith by Dan Budnik, Knoedler & Company, NYC

Seeing David Smith
Photographs by Dan Budnik
Knoedler & Company, New York
March 18 – May 26, 2006

“The fields” would probably not have become two of the more evocative words in the Smith literature without Dan Budnik.” – Michael Brenson (quotation from “The Fields,” originally published in David Smith: A Centennial @ 2006 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York)

David Smith is widely acclaimed as one of the giants of 20th century sculpture. David Smith’s persona, his working process, his studio, and the “fields” at his home in Bolton Landing, New York, have been the fascination of many photographers—among them Ugo Mulas, Alexander Liberman, and Irving Penn. Dan Budnik’s photography of David Smith, however, is unparalleled in its intimacy and its depth. The exhibition in Knoedler’s lower space presents a rare opportunity to view the master prints themselves—last shown together in 1974.

Dan Budnik (b. 1933), whose career as a photographer has spanned more than half a century, was the most recent recipient of the prestigious American Society of Media Photographers Honor Roll Award. His photo-essays have appeared in periodicals that include Art in America, Life, Fortune, The London Sunday Times Magazine, Look, Modern Photography, Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, and Vogue.

Seeing David Smith: Photographs by Dan Budnik coincides with the comprehensive retrospective of Smith’s work at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with an introduction by E.A. Carmean, Jr. and text by Dan Budnik.

KNOEDLER & COMPANY
19 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021
www.knoedlergallery.com

Judith Rothschild, Knoedler & Company, NYC - Points of Light

Judith Rothschild: Points of Light
Knoedler & Company, New York
March 8 – April 29, 2006

Knoedler & Company presents an exhibition of the art of Judith Rothschild (1921-1993). Points of Light, which takes its name from one of the paintings in the exhibition, focuses on Judith Rothschild’s landscape-inspired paintings and reliefs from 1956 through 1984, highlighting the artist’s work from the late 1950s and 1960s.

Born in New York City in 1921, Judith Rothschild graduated from Wellesley College in 1943 and went on to study painting with various artists, including Hans Hofmann, who had a formative influence on her. Although Judith Rothschild’s earliest work was entirely non-objective, by the mid-1950s, along with many American abstract painters both in New York and in the West, she began to reincorporate figurative imagery into her abstractions, most apparently in her landscape-related paintings. In works such as Nauset Marsh (1964), the artist uses non-local color and hazily defined forms to suggest a natural settings without actually resorting to representation. By the 1970s the artist had begun to create reliefs that included both traditional painting and collaged elements.

Judith Rothschild was never allied with one particular stylistic school, and the main influences on her work were artists such as Calder, Léger, Masson, Matisse, Miró, and Mondrian, rather than the Abstract Expressionists and Color Field painters. Her work has been the subject of several museum exhibitions since her death in 1993, including important retrospectives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 1998 and at The State Russian Museum (Ludwig Museum at the Marble Palace), St. Petersburg in 2002.

Judith Rothschild: Points of Light is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with an essay by Justin Spring.

KNOEDLER & COMPANY
19 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021
www.knoedlergallery.com

Jules Olitski, Knoedler & Company, New York - Matter Embraced, Paintings 1950s and Now

Jules Olitski—Matter Embraced
Paintings 1950s and Now
Knoedler & Company, New York
September 14 - November 5, 2005

Knoedler & Company announces its representation of Jules Olitski with the exhibition Jules Olitski—Matter Embraced: Paintings 1950s and Now. This exhibition pairs Jules Olitski's earliest series, the "matter" paintings, with his current works from the ongoing Embraced series — as Carl Belz writes in a new essay — "catapulting us from 1958 to 2005 and challenging us to see Olitski whole through the prisms of two seemingly disparate bodies of work."

Inspired by Jean Dubuffet and the School of Paris, Jules Olitski produced his "matter" paintings, mixing paint with spackle to create thick, coarse impastos, with vaguely representational figures atop smooth, controlled monochrome grounds. These paintings caught the attention of Clement Greenberg, who in 1958 invited Jules Olitski into the stable of French & Company, along with Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, Morris Louis, David Smith, and Kenneth Noland. Knoedler will be including five works that have not been seen in New York since their exhibition at French & Company in 1959.

Counterposed to the "matter" paintings, Jules Olitski's recent work from the Embraced series revisits and departs from the heavy impasto and subtle tonal shifts of the earlier pictures. Boisterous, daring and unrestrained, the Embraced paintings are an investigation and a celebration of color and texture, with large circular forms floating upon runny multicolored fields. Their vibrant swirls and unconventional color combinations attest that Olitski, after six decades of painting, continues to explore the unexpected, the beautiful, and the new.

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with an essay by eminent art historian Carl Belz, Director Emeritus of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.

KNOEDLER & COMPANY
19 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021
www.knoedlergallery.com

Mark Di Suvero, Knoedler & Company, NYC - Indoors

Mark Di Suvero: Indoors
Knoedler & Company, New York
May 12 - August 12, 2005

Mark di Suvero (b. 1933), one of today’s most respected and innovative sculptors, have his first exhibition at Knoedler & Company, Mark di Suvero: Indoors, consisting of nine sculptures dating from 2002 through 2005. The works range in size from sixteen inches to over eight feet in height, with moving components that, as John Yau writes in the catalogue essay, “invite the viewer to actively participate with the work, to make it turn, spin, and swing, and rock.” Di Suvero began his experimentation with kinetic compositions as early as 1962: progressing from the “spinning” or “balance” pieces, to the “variable” or “tumbling” works, and finally to the “puzzle” sculptures. The exhibition also includes a selection of recent works on paper.

Mark di Suvero: Indoors is accompanied by a fully-illustrated publication (in hard and soft cover), with a new poem and essay by John Yau. The poem, “Ghost Guest”, is dedicated to the artist and titled after one of the sculptures included in the exhibition. Yau’s essay considers the musicality and poetry in di Suvero’s sculpture, exploring its playfulness, exhilaration, and accessibility.

Concurrent with the Knoedler show, Storm King Art Center, in Mountainville, New York will celebrate its forty-fifth anniversary with the exhibition Richard Bellamy and Mark di Suvero, which will be on view from June 8 – November 13, 2005 and again from April 1 – November 15, 2006. In addition to the permanent installation of four monumental outdoor sculptures by Mark di Suvero, there will be a survey of indoor and outdoor works on loan for the exhibition. Importantly, there will be a special selection of fifty photographs of Mark di Suvero’s work taken by Richard Bellamy between 1975 and 1998. Richard Bellamy (1927-1998) was Mark di Suvero’s longtime dealer and close friend.

Knoedler & Company presents this exhibition in collaboration with Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.

KNOEDLER & COMPANY
19 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021
www.knoedlergallery.com

Herbert Ferber, Knoedler & Company, NYC - Grounded / Suspended, Sculpture From The 1970s

Grounded / Suspended: Herbert Ferber
Sculpture From The 1970s
Knoedler & Company, New York
March 24 – May 7, 2005

Knoedler & Company presents an exhibition focused on thirteen sculptures by Herbert Ferber (1906-1991) from the decade of the 1970s – including two large-scale outdoor works and five suspended wall reliefs.

A first-generation Abstract Expressionist, Herbert Ferber was also highly regarded by his artist-colleagues as an intellect, and he was often a spokesperson for New York School ideas. He was one of Betty Parsons' artists, first showing with her in 1947. At her gallery, and later at Samuel Kootz's, he formed relationships with Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Tony Smith, Jackson Pollock, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, and others. The Museum of Modern Art made its first purchase of a sculpture by Ferber in 1949.

Herbert Ferber's sculpture of the 1970s evolved from an earlier Abstract Expressionist idiom shared by his sculptor contemporaries Theodore J. Roszak, David Hare, David Smith, Ibram Lassaw, and Seymour Lipton (who showed with Herbert Ferber at Betty Parsons Gallery and whose career is currently the subject of an exhibition on view at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York). By the early 1960s, Herbert Ferber's work had become especially distinctive in its concern for and engagement with the spectator, manifested in the Whitney's 1961 exhibition of his installation piece, Sculpture as Environment, Interior.

Another focus of Herbert Ferber's work during the 1970s was his Cages – in which forms are suspended within slight, linear three-dimensional frameworks, as in Homage to Piranesi XI (Sens), 1978. Herbert Ferber's Homage to Piranesi series alludes to the baroque fantasies of the Italian artist Giovanni Piranesi (1720-1778), particularly his Imaginary Prisons etchings. Among Herbert Ferber's signature works, sculptures from the Piranesi series are in the collections of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

In 1979, Herbert Ferber also began a series of floating wall reliefs that Eugene Goossen has described "as spatially full as the best of modern openwork, free-standing sculpture... Close study of any of the wall pieces reveals an exercise of choice as deliberate and delicate as the metaphors in a Shakespearean sonnet."

Gounded / Suspended: Herbert Ferber – Sculpture from the 1970s is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with essay by Norman L. Kleeblatt, Suand and Elihu Rose Curator of Fine Arts, The Jewish Museum, New York. 

KNOEDLER & COMPANY
19 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021
www.knoedlergallery.com

John Walker, Knoedler & Company, NYC - Collage

John Walker: Collage
Knoedler & Company, New York
February 3 – March 19, 2005

Knoedler & Company presents a survey focused on John Walker's work in collage, spanning the years 1974-78, and returning to his most recent explorations dating 2003-04.

John Walker created his earliest collages, including the Juggernauts, when he was in his mid-thirties, in residence in the United States and teaching at The Cooper Union (1974-75), the New York Studio School (1974-75), Columbia University (1975), and Yale University Graduate School of Art and Architecture (1975-77). In these early collages John Walker departed from Cubist convention by working in massive scale (10 x 8 feet) vertical formats. With large pieces of canvas and collage material, these works are characterized by powerful jutting, layered, and angular forms, as in Juggernaut with Plume for P. Neruda, which was awarded First Prize at John Moores Liverpool Exhibition–10 in 1976. The Ostraca and Numinous series followed in 1977-78 — the Numinous collages linking Walker to a tradition of painters that includes Manet, Goya, and Matisse (whose cut-paper collages also inspired Walker).

The first American museum exhibition of Walker's collages was held at The Phillips Collection in 1978. Ostraca I and Numinous II, in the current Knoedler show, were included in The Phillips exhibition (as were Numinous I, now in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, and Ostraca II, in The Phillips Collection).

Since 2000, a central motif in John Walker's work has been the muddy inlets and tidepools near his Maine home. He observes this subject intimately through its many permutations — during high and low tides, through all weathers and seasons, at all times of day and night. His most recent collages fall within this series — freely painted, they are composed of heavy torn paper layered upon paper, overwritten with text inspired by local Maine roadside signs. As Dore Ashton describes, "In these new collages, Walker literally paints with mud, as though he cannot get close enough to this elemental matter, much as Picasso at the end of his life portrayed the artist – himself – literally painting on the model."

John Walker: Collage is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with essay by Dore Ashton. 

KNOEDLER & COMPANY
19 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021
www.knoedlergallery.com

Milton Avery, Knoedler & Company, New York - Onrushing Waves

Milton Avery: Onrushing Waves
Knoedler & Company, New York
November 4, 2004 – January 29, 2005

Knoedler & Company presents Milton Avery: Onrushing Waves. This focused exhibition on Milton Avery and his relationship to the sea includes paintings, both on canvas and paper, spanning the 1920s through the 1950s. Also included are a selection of the artist’s sketchbooks recording trips to California, Massachusetts, Maine and the South of France.

Milton Avery (1885–1965) continuously drew whatever was around him, and developed a working method of turning his sketches into watercolors, and watercolors into canvases. His summer visits to the sea began in the 1920, at the popular artist’s colony of Gloucester, Massachusetts. The earliest work in this exhibition, a watercolor, Rocky Coast, dates from one of those early trips. Milton Avery and his family went to the sea nearly every summer after that, and he constantly drew images of moving water, land, and sky. Milton Avery’s wife, the painter Sally Michel, recalled:

We were followers of the sea. On the beaches of Provincetown, Gloucester and the Gaspé we braved the surf and rocky shore, spending endless hours contemplating the sea … We spent a summer by the Pacific enthralled by the wild surf and the strange rock formations … But it was the sea, alternately black and mysterious or ruddy and gay that expressed the mystery and independence that makes its lure unfathomable. For Milton this was a subject to challenge again and again.

While Milton Avery’s depictions of the sea have been the subject of previous exhibitions, this is the first to focus on his treatment of the sea’s movement and energy in all its permutations.

Milton Avery: Onrushing Waves is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Arthur C. Danto. 

KNOEDLER & COMPANY
19 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021
www.knoedlergallery.com

Richard Pousette-Dart: Mythic Heads and Forms - Paintings and Drawings from 1935 to 1942 at Knoedler & Company, New York

Richard Pousette-Dart 

Mythic Heads and Forms

Paintings and Drawings From 1935 to 1942

Knoedler & Company, New York

September 11 - November 5, 2003

Knoedler & Company presents Richard Pousette-Dart: Mythic Heads and Forms - Paintings and Drawings from 1935 to 1942. One of the youngest painters of the New York School, this exhibition is the first to focus on Pousette-Dart's early work created during the developmental years of Abstract Expressionism.

Richard Pousette-Dart was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. Deciding on his artistic vocation early, and after a year at Bard College in 1936, he left school to devote himself to art. By the late 1930s - earlier than his colleagues Rothko, Gottlieb, and Pollock - Richard Pousette-Dart had discovered inspiration in African, Oceanic, and Native American art, Jungian and Freudian theories, as well as European modernism, especially Picasso.

Richard Pousette-Dart had his first solo exhibition at the Artists' Gallery, New York, in 1941. He went on to have solo shows with Marion Willard, Peggy Guggenheim, and Betty Parsons. His first museum exhibition was held at the Whitney in 1963. The Whitney held a subsequent retrospective in 1974, and also presented an exhibition in 1998. The Museum of Modern Art presented a touring exhibition of his work in 1969-70. In 1990 a major touring retrospective of Pousette-Dart's work was organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. There was an important survey of his paintings, drawings, and brasses at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1997. The Living Edge: Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) Works on Paper opened at the Schirn Kunstalle, Frankfurt, in 2001, and traveled to The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Boca Raton Museum of Art.

Richard Pousette-Dart: Mythic Heads and Forms is accompanied by a catalogue with essay by John Yau, award-winning poet, art critic, and writer. 

KNOEDLER & COMPANY

19 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021

www.knoedlergallery.com

Helen Frankenthaler, Knoedler & Company, NYC

Frankenthaler: New Paintings

Knoedler & Company, New York

May 1 - July 18, 2003

Knoedler & Company presents Frankenthaler: New Paintings. For most of the past decade, Helen Frankenthaler has focused on paintings on paper, returning to painting on canvas only this past year. This show marks the first exhibition of these new works and the first time that both paintings on canvas and those on paper of comparable large scale have been shown together.

In her recent paintings on paper Helen Frankenthaler continues to explore and expand upon the wide-ranging dimensions of her distinctive abstract vocabulary. The new paintings on canvas relate more closely to the abstract “landscape” traits which have been a central aspect of her art since the landmark painting Mountains and Sea of 1952 (collection of the artist, on extended loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC).

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated clothbound book.

KNOEDLER & COMPANY

19 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021

www.knoedlergallery.com