Form + Figure
July 18-August 6th, 2009
Curated by Stephanie Noll
While the “figure” has held a prominent position in the imagery of art since the prehistoric period, the development of 20th century modern ideologies provided the catalyst for the elements of “form”, i.e. color, shape, dimension, and line, to take an equally prominent role as the subject. Consequently, the artistic language of this period was grounded in abstraction, an alternative style believed to be more effective in addressing the modern concerns of humanity. “New needs require new techniques”, stated Jackson Pollock in defense of abstraction, “…the modern painter cannot express this age-- the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio--in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any past culture”.
For centuries, art relied on the “figure” as a subject, while the formal qualities of art developed separately: the simplicity of the Egyptian line, the minute detail of the Roman dimension, the exaggerated palette of Fauvist color, and the defragmentation of the Cubist shape and composition. The 20th century abstract artist developed a new vocabulary for expression, which successfully captured both the nuances of their uncertainty and the confidence of their instinct. In exploring the formal qualities of art, these artists denounced the figure, or object, as the subject and consequently their art became a reflection of their inner thought. As Robert Motherwell poignantly stated, “Most painting in the European tradition was painting the mask. Modern art rejected all that. Our subject matter was the person behind the mask.”
Abstract art is infused with the energy, innovation and colors that artistically embody the essence of the changing American nation during the 20th century. Paralleling the major advances in modern technology, nuclear and atomic warfare, science, photography, and aeronautics, the dominant art of the period suggests an entirely new relationship between the artist, their art, and the viewer. As a result, a new desire for subjectivity for both subject and form developed, allowing artists the freedom to express their own artistic concerns as finished compositions. For many, the process of discovery became an “arena in which to act” and therefore the process became equally integral to the work as a finished composition. As noted art historian Robert Rosenblum stated,”these works are so radical in their breaks with the conventions of the easel picture—they are lighthouses of art that can illuminate a vast territory.”
The artists whose works are included in this exhibition successfully represent the fundamental ideologies associated with the abstract movement of 20th century modernism. Their representations of both figure and form remain a testament to their importance within our artistic and cultural history, subsequently paving the way for contemporary visual expression.
Included below are a few images of works included in this exhibition and a brief description of their relevance.
As winner of the 1947 Prix de Rome, Albert Wein is recognized for his modernist approach to a relatively traditional classical canon. His infatuation with the female form, coupled with his innate ability to transcend the hard qualities of bronze to create works which were considered balanced and delicate, places him as a classical modernist amongst his contemporaries.
Wein won every major award given at the National Academy and the National Sculpture Society and additionally was awarded the Tiffany Foundation Fellowship in the 1950s and the Rockefeller Foundation grant in Italy in the 1980s. His notable and varied exhibition history, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, support the recognition of his unique ability to master the human form.
Nassos Daphnis worked and associated with some of the most influential geometric abstract painters of the Pre and Post-War era, but his body of work remains substantively unique. While his early compositions, many painted alongside fellow Greek-American artist Theodoros Stamos, are representative of a surrealist style, with their undulating rhythms of biomorphism, his later works are pure geometric abstractions at their best. It was in 1952, in Paris, where Daphnis painted his first geometric abstraction, which became the epiphany of his aesthetic identity [Daphnis, 1993]. In 1958 legendary dealer Leo Castelli took him into his stable of artists, giving Daphnis the opportunity to exhibit his works and gaining him instant recognition amongst his contemporaries.
Daphnis’ work lends itself to a calculated but visual simplicity and balanced harmony, as he attempted to liberate color and allow it to exist as its own identity. His color theories, which are measured according to density, allow a total visualization of infinite abstract space, but not without spiritual context behind their arrangement.
Daphnis’ works are included in the collections of major museums including the Guggenheim Museum (NY), the Hirshhorn Museum, the Butler Institute of American Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Jose de Creeft’s oeuvre duly supports his ingenuity and versatility as an artist and has awarded him a prominent exhibition history in major institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, which held a major retrospective in 1960. De Creeft’s preferred method of direct carving allowed him to be a part of the entire creative process whereby there existed an unbridled spontaneity, the result of a reciprocal, rather than hierarchical, relationship between artist and his medium.
Admired by both his peers and the public, de Creeft was afforded the opportunity to complete several important commissions, including a major early installation of two hundred stone sculptures for the Fortaleza in Majorca, Spain (1927-29) and Alice and Wonderland, a bronze sculpture group in New York’s Central Park (1957-59).
Recognized as one of the youngest artists of the Abstract Expressionist movement to achieve major exhibition status, Walter Plate’s ascent in the early post-war movement was remarkable. By the mid-1950s Plate’s work was being eagerly purchased by the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the National Gallery of Art. In addition, his solo exhibitions and impressive reviews gained him respect amongst his contemporaries.
Throughout Plate’s oeuvre, flat planes and gestural brushstrokes compete with one another, creating various chaotic energies within a thoughtful, functional order. The opaque and lucid quality of his surface and palette, somewhat reminiscent of stained glass windows, highlight his superiority as a master colorist. In the work from the late 1950s and early 1960s, Plate transitions from a linear energy to a more concentrated and complex composition, perhaps a testament to his influential friendship with Philip Guston.
As a leading member of Abstract Expressionism and a contributing member of “the Club”, Milton Resnick, along with Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, and others, pioneered the American modern art movement during the mid 20th century. Resnick’s artistic sensibilities were directed by his interest in the process of painting, an idea which provided a more intimate experience for the artist than in earlier decades.
Resnick, like other artists, came to desire an overall quality for his paintings which was completely detached from the recognizable. He aimed to create paintings which had no specific focus, where one part of the canvas was not more important than another. “There is no eccentricity in the way I paint...I have processes. It is when I pull the brush across that I look for a painting. What I like is for a painting to act in many different directions at once, so strongly, that it will shatter itself and open up a small crack, which will suck the world in” (Resnick, 2006).
Resnick’s work is in included in the permanent collections of numerous museums including the National Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Formulating his artistic vision based upon the ideals of Surrealism, automatism, and abstraction, Motherwell created a personal iconography very early on, which reflected confidence and consistency throughout his career. Running Elegy II, Blue State, is one of the strongest examples of this personal vocabulary.
Beginning in the 1940s, with his first Elegy Series, and continuing throughout his oeuvre, this subject matter became an “alter ego in which he saw himself reflected” and a testament to Motherwell’s philosophy that “art is a creative dialogue between art and life; a dialogue which is both self and other” [Rosand]. More than any other image in his oeuvre, the Elegies came to represent the man and the sense of his own inner weights.
