Peter Saul: Homage to Dalí, Nolan Eckman Gallery, NYC

Peter Saul: Homage to Dalí
Nolan/Eckman Gallery, New York
February 12 – March 13, 2004

Peter Saul’s work could be described as the product of the collision of challenging visual elements with social and political satire. No subject daunts him. With hearty cheer he assaults taste, violates taboo, and defies convention (sometimes all three within one picture).

Peter Saul is literally and figuratively a man of many parts: a critic of society's crueler preoccupations, a diarist of the vulgar and profane, an appropriator, a history painter, and a provocateur. Peter Saul’s cartoon transgressions are his way of shaking us awake from our quotidian stupor. To those who are offended by his images, he might say, “I’m an optimist. My paintings are pure fantasy. The genuinely appalling things happening in the world are real.”

Peter Saul was born in 1934 and currently lives in upstate New York. After attending art school, he went to Europe, where he lived from 1956 to 1964. His first one man exhibition was in 1961 at Allan Frumkin Gallery in Chicago. This is his fourth exhibition at Nolan Eckman.

NOLAN/ECKMAN GALLERY
560 Broadway, New York, NY 10012
www.nolaneckman.com

Peter Saul: The Sixties, Nolan Eckman Gallery, NYC

Peter Saul: The Sixties
Nolan/Eckman Gallery, New York
September 20 – October 26, 2002

In the 1960’s, Peter Saul’s paintings are poised between proto-Pop and Abstract Expressionism. Being an iconoclast, he resolutely avoids being part of either movement. But what a precocious lad he is! Somehow, he gets into the Icebox before Warhol, and then scouts for Guston, who would enter cartoon territory in 1967. Were he a stockbroker, Peter Saul’s prescience with Pop would have the SEC on his tail, pronto.

Featuring works not seen in over 35 years, this exhibition explores the foundations of Peter Saul’s fierce and mischievous artworks. He demonstrates an uncanny rapport with American culture, despite the fact that everything was made while living in Europe. And in many respects, his early work is very much like his current work: Peter Saul continues his ironical investigation of the economic and moral forces that move our society.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Peter Saul, The Sixties

Edited by David Nolan

Text by Ellen H. Johnson (re-print from 1964)

44 pages, softcover, 10 color ill., 3 b&w; ill.

Published by Nolan/Eckman Gallery, 2002.

NOLAN/ECKMAN GALLERY
560 Broadway, New York, NY 10012
www.nolaneckman.com

Updated: 16.07.2019

Peter Saul: Heads 1986 - 2000, Nolan Eckman Gallery, NYC

Peter Saul: Heads 1986 - 2000
Nolan/Eckman Gallery, New York
November 3 – December 9, 2000

Peter Saul’s ruthlessly comic and politically incorrect drawings and paintings begin at the neck and continue maniacally upward, closely documenting quite alarming distortions. As the artist Carroll Dunham notes in his introduction to the show’s accompanying catalogue, “Saul’s visual thermostat is set high—the threshold of his pictorial circuits must blow the fuses of many contemporary eyeballs.”

Peter Saul’s lovingly constructed fantasies slalom through a course of Zap Comix, Pop art, Cubism, and Surrealism. After all, this is an artist whose stated aim is to reconcile de Kooning with Mad magazine. 

Peter Saul was born in 1934. He has recently returned to the New York area after nearly twenty years of living in Austin, Texas. This is his second show at Nolan/Eckman Gallery. 

Peter Saul, Heads 1986 - 2000

Edited by David Nolan

Interview with Peter Saul by Carroll Dunham

68 pages, softcover, 20 color ill., 8.25 x 9 inches

Published by Nolan/Eckman Gallery, 2000.

NOLAN/ECKMAN GALLERY
560 Broadway, New York, NY 10012
www.nolaneckman.com

Updated: 15.07.2019

Peter Saul: Recent Drawing, Nolan Eckman Gallery, NYC

Peter Saul: Recent Drawing
Nolan/Eckman Gallery, New York
September 17 – October 17, 1998

Peter Saul likens his art to a cold shower or unwelcome interrogation. Clearly, what the artist has in mind is a confrontation. Notwithstanding, the work that he extends to us as provocation is revealing and elemental, highly personal, and fully imbued with humor and charm (a pie in the face, perhaps?).

Peter Saul’s bright colors and lunatic subjects are also litmus tests for the soul; fearlessly visceral, incendiary, and downright disturbing. Define the opposite of political correctness and you will have found Peter Saul. He will accept any reaction but indifference. He speaks in the language of everyday people, uses familiar images and trusts unfailingly in our judgment and humanity.

Over the years, Peter Saul has methodically cut and slashed his way through much of American culture. He has grappled with Vietnam, Angela Davis, the Women’s Movement, racism, Ronald Regan, the male ego, and (recently) Viagra. Through political and topical commentary, Saul partakes of the artistic tradition of social criticism and satire, as embodied by Rabelais, Hogarth, Gross, and Dix.

Peter Saul was born in 1934 in San Francisco. As a young man, he moved between Holland, Paris, and Rome before returning to California in 1964. He resided in Austin, Texas since 1981, and continues to exhibit in this country and internationally. This is his first exhibition at Nolan/Eckman.

NOLAN/ECKMAN GALLERY
560 Broadway, New York, NY 10012
www.nolaneckman.com