Abstract Expressionism Exhibitions Opening This Weekend

"The Irascibles," 1950. Photo by Nina Leen.
Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

"Advanced and Irascible: Abstract Expressionism from the Collection of Jeanne and Carroll Berry" and companion exhibition "Artists of the New York School" open this Saturday, January 14, and run together through March 19.

"Advanced and Irascible", which closes on April 30, showcases the efforts of collectors Jeanne and Carroll Berry to gather one work by each of the so-called “Irascible” painters of abstract expressionism. The Irascibles earned their nickname after sending a signed, open letter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to protest the lack of what they called “advanced” art in its exhibition of contemporary artists in 1950. Artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Willem de Kooning, Hedda Sterne and Ad Reinhardt are represented. In their letter, the artists wrote, “for roughly a hundred years, only advanced art has made any consequential contribution to civilization.”

Characterized by large, gestural paintings, the Irascibles defined the abstract expressionist movement and influenced the trajectory of modern art. A photograph of them, published by Life Magazine in 1951, became the defining image of the abstract expressionists for the remainder of the 20th century.

Almost ready: waiting for the accompanying wall labels to be mounted.

"Artists of the New York School" features works from the museum's permanent collection and several private collections. Containing paintings, sculptures and works on paper, the show highlights artistic trends of the “New York School,” or artists who were active in New York City in the 1950s and 1960s and primarily worked in abstraction. Works by female artists such as Louise Nevelson, Michael (Corrine) West, Helen Frankenthaler and Anne Ryan are included, along with works by artists Robert Goodnough, James Brooks, Frank Stella, Philip Guston and Gerome Kamroski.

An untitled metal sculpture by Robert Goodnough was a gift to the museum in 2016 and will be on view for the first time in the exhibition. An eight-foot-high mixed-media work by Fritz Bultman that uses gouache and collage is a highlight, as is an untitled tall wood sculpture by Nevelson.

Although diverse in medium and technique, the artists of the New York School were key in establishing the United States as a place that welcomed avant-garde art. While visibly influenced by art movements that originated in Europe, such as surrealism and abstraction, the New York School artists innovated in terms of content and material.

Events related to the exhibitions include:

• Irascibles Film Series: “Painters Painting”
Thursday, January 26, 7 p.m.

• Irascibles Film Series: “Pollock”
Thursday, February 2, 7 p.m.

• Artful Conversation: in-depth gallery discussion with Callan Steinmann, associate curator of education 
Wednesday, February 8, 2 p.m.

• Irascibles Film Series: “Robert Motherwell and the New York School: Storming the Citadel”
Thursday, February 9, 7 p.m.

• 90 Carlton: Winter, the museum’s quarterly reception ($5, free for members of the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art)
Friday, February 10, 5:30–8:30 p.m.

• Family Day: Abstract Valentines
Saturday, February 11, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

• Tour at Two: public tour with Sarah Kate Gillespie, curator of American art 
Wednesday, February 22, 2 p.m.

All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.

Artist Spotlight: Elaine de Kooning

Elaine de Kooning in her studio at the University of Georgia, ca. 1977-78.

The multi-faceted life and work of Elaine de Kooning, an equally accomplished artist, writer and teacher, makes her a captivating topic of study. Her contributions to the art world and the arts communities of the early 20th century at the height of the Abstract Expressionist movement mean that she has remained a consistent source of public and art historical fascination, ensuring her position as an arts, and feminist, icon. We’ve explored this, and de Kooning’s striking work in the Georgia Museum of Art’s collection before here on Holbrook’s Trunk, but now, de Kooning is back in the spotlight with an excellent exhibition of her work currently on show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, and the conversion of her former East Hamptons residence into an inspiring artist colony. Although no survey of this prolific artist can ignore her unsettled marriage to Dutch émigré Willem de Kooning, who would go on to become one of the most revered and renowned artists of their generation, Elaine de Kooning’s accomplishments are decidedly her own, and her position in the history of American art is distinct and continuing.

De Kooning, a native New Yorker, had been creating works for much of her life but did not have her first solo exhibition until the early 1950s, at the city’s Stable Gallery, when she was in her mid-30s. Instead, she had focused on criticism, and became an esteemed writer and editor — she was one of the first critics to take note of the likes of Mark Rothko and became an associate editor at Art News in the late 1940s.

This exhibition at Stable Gallery became the first of many, and as her practice grew more distinctive, so did its public appreciation. While many of her post-war New York contemporaries, the renowned action painters that included her husband Willem, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, were making physical, powerful, Abstract Expressionist works, de Kooning took this gestural style and worked it into more figurative series, often veering into portraiture. This combination of the traditional form of posed portraits with the abstraction that was so attached to the zeitgeist is a fascinating blend that gives a great insight to the cultural landscape of the post-war United States. Elaine’s often faceless representations of the male form, which ranged from anonymous basketball players to her famed commissioned images of John F. Kennedy, pervert or subvert the traditional artist-sitter relationship, and make her sitter subject to a female gaze. The basketball players in particular almost appear as a 20th-century retroversion of Edgar Degas’ amorous, voyeuristic images of young female ballet dancers — nameless, faceless, elegant female forms drawn and painted tirelessly by a 19th-century male at the forefront of Impressionism, 100 years earlier, seeming antiquated alongside de Kooning’s expression of female power.

Elaine de Kooning, "Bacchus #81" (1983)

This progressiveness in de Kooning’s work is what is still recognized and appreciated today — the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington exclusively highlights her portrait work and has been years in the making, and examples of de Kooning's work are featured in collections across the world, from the Guggenheim to the Georgia Museum of Art. “Bacchus #81,” in the collection and on display at the museum, is a mesmerizing example of many of these features, and its position at the museum is a particularly appropriate choice — de Kooning held a long and interesting history with the University of Georgia. She taught at a variety of esteemed institutions from Yale University to the Parsons New School for Design, before settling for some time as a Dodd Visiting Professor here at UGA. She held a studio on campus during this time in the late 1970s, where her artistic output was particularly fruitful. In fact, de Kooning actually began her Bacchus series in this studio at the university, as seen in production in the picture at the top of this post, following an affecting experience with Jules Dalou’s “Le Triomphe de Silene,” a violent sculpture featuring Bacchus and figures in similar forms to those in the painting, in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris.

“Bacchus #81” is one work in the museum’s collection of nearly 10,000 that is particularly at home. A stone’s throw away from where Elaine de Kooning began its series, it acts as a great representation of the museum’s — and de Kooning’s — contributions to the history of American art.

Helen Frankenthaler’s Pools of Color

Prominent color field painter Helen Frankenthaler was a leading force behind the visually engaging and dynamic American painting movement known as abstract expressionism. Frankenthaler’s new way of making art sets her apart from fellow abstract expressionist painters such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.

Frankenthaler’s unorthodox technique in thinning oil paint with turpentine and then applying it to an unprepared canvas achieves an effect similar to light and airy watercolors. By diluting the oil paint and pouring the mixture directly from a coffee can onto the surface of the canvas, Frankenthaler was able to create a distinctive and unique oil on canvas in contrast to the dense and often dark works of Pollock and Mark Rothko.

Frankenthaler’s breakthrough painting entitled “Mountain and Sea” (1952) was inspired by the landscapes she encountered on her travels to Nova Scotia. The oil and charcoal on canvas is lyrical in its depiction of the sky, forest and water. The pale and mellow blues and greens defined lightly by sporadic charcoal lines are active, yet calming in appearance.

Bright pools of color that make up large, yet inviting canvases define the paintings and legacy Frankenthaler left behind when she passed away Dec. 27. 

Obituary here

"New Works by Gary Hudson" at the Madison-Morgan Cultural Center

Lyrical abstractionism. Color field paintings. Abstract Expressionism. These artistic movements may not have much significance to the average person, yet from the 1950s forward, this method of art making was very influential to Gary Hudson, an artist born in New York who eventually settled in Madison, Georgia, after many years of working and traveling. He was a vibrant individual with a knowledge of art history that he applied to large-scale canvases with radiant color blocks. Hudson wrote, “I decided definitely that I was going to be a painter when I saw my first Jackson Pollock.”

Before his death in 2009, Hudson corresponded with Georgia Museum of Art Director William Eiland about his artwork in relation to his life experiences. From a peacetime accident in 1956 that resulted in paralyzation and honorable discharge from the U.S. Marines, to being in social environments with people like Andy Warhol and T.S. Eliot in 1960s New York, Hudson lived life to the fullest. His breakthrough came in 1969 when his painting Red Rim showed at the Whitney Museum’s Biennial. His style emerged from his desire to show the artist’s hand in the work. He used non-traditional devices to apply the paint, from spatulas to muslin on a stick soaked in paint. One can see in his art the allusions to the upbeat tempo of jazz and avant-garde artists in New York with the shifting lights and darks as well as the relationship between the organic and linear marks.

Hudson and his family, including wife Christie, moved to Jefferson, Georgia, in 1988 to find rest and healing. His interest in historic preservation and small-town America blossomed, and eventually they moved to Madison. In the last years of his life, he enjoyed watching SEC with friends or daydreaming on his front porch with his Jack Russell Terrier Roz. He did not paint as much during this time, but when he did, he created dialogues where “mysterious questions can be posed.” Hudson profoundly wrote,

“Painting… is a reference back to those little tiny fleeting moments in our short lives when we see something at a glance, a ray of light, a color of a flower in its particularity, not its whole, moments in time which register on our eyes to our brain and give a start. The painter in me wants to recall ... those tiny flashes of recognition.” (http://bit.ly/axSkZI)

Please plan a visit to the Madison-Morgan Cultural Center in Madison, just 30 minutes south of Athens, to see “New Works by Gary Hudson,” on view through July 9, 2010. While in Madison, take a stroll along the shaded sidewalks to experience the town like Hudson did. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/aVwsZg.