Allen Hirsch at Monique Goldstrom Gallery, New York

Allen Hirsch - Selected Works from 1993-2003
Monique Goldstrom Gallery, New York
May 17 - June 10, 2003

Monique Goldstrom Gallery presents the portrait, figure and landscape painting of Allen Hirsch.

Allen Hirsch has found his own unique means of expression through representational painting by combining his interests in optics, neuropsychology, and classical European art.

Hirsch's intense dedication on his work over the past 30 years has spanned several careers:

His interest in the enigma of surface and depth in painting resulted in his invention of "string painting" in the late 1990's. Specks of paint on an array of nylon strings suspended over a plain ground use the contructive abilities of our eyes and brain to recreate an image that appears to float within. This illustrates his idea of painting as "the translation of the seen back into the unseen."

His explorations with the self-portrait, which number in the thousands, reveal new connections between art and science. He has documented how personality is expressed through each side of the face, and how the brain projects it's own lateralization through the artist's hand.

As a portrait artist, Allen Hirsch was a favorite cover artist for TIME magazine. His portraits of Gaddafi, Khomeni, Gandhi, himself and others graced the covers during the mid-1980's and early 90's. He also painted the inaugural portrait of President Bill Clinton for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington in 1993.

As a landscape painter, he has painted the streets of New York for 20 years for which he earned a landscape award from the National Academy of Design museum in 1998. His interest in landscape painting as with portraiture is in capturing a psychological space illuminated inside the canvas. This show will include works from New York and Venezuela.

Allen Hirsch was born in Los Angeles, California in 1959. He studied art extensively in London, Florence, Syracuse and New York. His work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, the White House, Sindin Gallery (NYC), Society of Illustrators, National Academy Museum, Ron Hall Gallery (Dallas), Quick Art Museum (NY), Louis Stern Fine Arts (Los Angeles), Allan Stone galleries (NYC) Indiana University Art Museum, and American Art (Carmel, CA).

Monique Goldstrom Gallery
560 Broadway (at Prince St.), Suite 303, NYC 10012
www.moniquegoldstrom.com

George Picken (1898-1971) at Monique Goldstrom Gallery, NYC

The Works of George Picken (1898-1971)
Monique Goldstrom Gallery, New York
April 27 - May 22, 2001

Monique Goldstrom Gallery presents the work of American painter George Picken (1898-1971).

George Picken was a prominent painter among the American generation that matured between the world wars in the first half of this century. His sensibilities were shaped by urban immigrant realties, World War I and the depression, and his close relationships with friends and colleagues like Stuart Davis, Edward Hopper, Charles Burchfield, John Marin, Philip Evergood, and Kuniyoshi. He also faced the wave of indifference felt by many of these artists as abstract expressionism captured the world's, and the criticsí attention. However, Picken pursued his own artistic vision, even as he experimented with abstraction and color. In his last decade, he returned to figurative work and painted some of his most powerful work. The artist died in 1971 at the age of 73.

George Picken was born in New York city in 1898, the son of a scottish immigrant artist and photographer. He served in World War I with an ambulance corps that saw action at Verdun.

Back in New York, he studied at the Art Students League and married Viola Carton, a young beauty from Yonkers who was said to be one of Reginald Marshís favorite models. The earliest canvases that survive have urban themes and a dark palette, which prompted Stuart Davis to ask him why he was always painting ìdungeonsî. Picken had a difficult time during the depression, supporting a wife and two children, but was employed by the WPA. His murals can still be seen near Albany, at the Fort Edward and Hudson Falls post offices.

George Picken also became well known as a teacher. He taught painting, printmaking and lithography at Cooper Union and Columbia University for over 20 years.

His work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Corcoran Gallery, the Newark Museum, the Berkshire Museum, the Ogunquit Museum and numerous other collections.

The exhibition encompasses works from each period of the artistís career.

Monique Goldstrom Gallery
560 Broadway Street Suite 303
New York, NY 10012
www.moniquegoldstrom.com

Maria Maier and Felix Weinold at Monique Goldstrom Gallery, NYC

'Ambivalent' The work of Maria Maier and Felix Weinold
Monique Goldstrom Gallery, New York
February 17 - March 14, 2001

Monique Goldstrom Gallery presents "Ambivalent", a two-person exhibition featuring the work of Felix Weinold and Maria Maier.

Both from Germany, Maier and Weinold have joined artistic forces previous to the current exhibition, in "Taking Pictures" last year, in which they, similarly to their new show, elegantly combined painting, collage, and photography in a very unique and visually interesting way.

Maria Maier's work is primarily photographic, although the basis for each piece is a collage technique in which she combines painting as well. The special appeal of her artwork is the result of this combination of media and materials. The collages featured in this exhibition are from two of Maier's most recent series, "E-mission" and "Time-Symbioses" which although alike in technique have very different meanings. Some of the work that is part of the "E-mission"series features bits of painting and clippings of x-ray pictures. Other work is made up of photographs of electric cable and squarely cut radiograph contrastingly placed with pictures of old power-stations, focusing on their decay in an historical statement. Such a statement has become Maier's interest as is shown also in her "Time-Symbioses" series where she combines photos of disintegrating pipes, cables, and sockets, with discarded pieces of theatre scenery from the Velodrorn-Theatre in Regensburg, Germany. Her work has an original concept that is not only visually obvious, but allows the viewer to get a firm grasp on the statement she makes.

Felix Weinold also uses the combination of media and materials, once again specifically photography and painting, as a way of creating the multi-level meaning that is portrayed in his work. Dr. Thomas Elsen, Director of the Neue Galerie in Augsburg, Germany, explains Weinold's technique as: "a totally new, independent medium, which uses painterly means to put a new perspective on photography, and which 'undermines' painting with photographic methods. His pictures do not spell out explicit pictorial statements or messages, but at the same time they can raise all the more resonant questions in the viewerís mind, by far transcending the actual work and sparking off controversy, to which the work itself rigorously refuses to supply any answers; it just provides the initial and decisive stimulus." In this way Weinold's work and the work created by Maria Maier become a perfect compliment to each other and fall fittingly and fascinatingly into this exhibition called "Ambivalent".

Monique Goldstrom Gallery
560 Broadway (at Prince St.), Suite 303, NYC 10012
www.moniquegoldstrom.com