ABSTRACTION

AL HELD

PAUL JENKINS

LEE KRASNER

YAYOI KUSAMA

MILTON RESNICK

 

4 June - 31 July 2015

 

Abstraction is a summer group exhibition with works by Al Held, Paul Jenkins, Lee Krasner, Yayoi Kusama, and Milton Resnick.

 

Born in Brooklyn in 1928, Al Held joined the Navy at the age of 16 years old. He began studying in 1958 at the Art Students League in New York and later used his GI Bill to attend the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris under sculptor Ossip Zadkine. While his earlier work incorporated some gestural painting characteristics of Abstract Expressionism, he eventually began producing works with bold lines and stark geometric shapes, becoming particularly well known for his large-scale hard-edge paintings. His work has been exhibited at institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; among others. Held died in 2005 in Todi, Italy.

 

Paul Jenkins was born in 1923 in Kansas City, Missouri. He attended the Kansas City Art Institute circa 1936 to 1941. Using his GI Bill at New York’s Art Students League (1948-1952), he studied for four years with Yasuo Kuniyoshi. Throughout his career, he divided his time between New York and Paris. Jenkins died in New York in 2012. His works are represented in private and public collections internationally, including the Tate Gallery, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; among many others.

 

Born in 1908 in Brooklyn, American Abstract Expressionist artist Lee Krasner enrolled at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Art and Science in Manhattan at the age of 18 years old. She then transferred to the National Academy of Design. She entered into the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts where her career began to flourish. In 1945, Krasner married fellow painter Jackson Pollock. The union had a profound and mutual influence on their respective careers. Krasner, constantly at arms with the male dominated art world, did not gain recognition as a preeminent first generation Abstract Expressionist until late in her life. She died in 1984 and left behind an ever growing legacy and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.

 

Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Japan in 1929. Though she briefly studied painting in Kyoto, she was essentially self-taught and fiercely determined to become an artist. Kusama moved to New York in 1957, where she rapidly established herself among the New York avant-garde and gained international attention during the 1960s with her paintings, sculpture, installations, poems, novels, performances and film. Her powerful presence during this period has been influential and inspirational for subsequent generations of artists. Her work has been exhibited at hundreds of galleries and museums, as well as included in private, public, and institutional collections, worldwide during her extraordinary career. 

 

Born in 1917 in Bratslav, Ukraine, Milton Resnick moved with his family to the United States in 1922. A graduate of the American Artists School, the first generation New York School painter was brought into association with artists such as Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning. Though his early work is largely characterized by Abstract Expressionist aesthetics, he later transitioned to focus on heavily impastoed monochrome canvases that investigate paint’s materiality, process, and perception, dissolving form and image. Resnick died in 2004 and his work continues to be exhibited at and represented by major American and international collections.