Link to Post:
http://elisabethcondon.blogspot.com/2013/02/from-color-field-to-figure-friday-in.html
Elisabeth Condon photo blogs visits to several painting shows on view in Chelsea: Peter Williams at Foxy Production (through March 23) Charlie Roberts: Girl Power at Kravets Wheby (through February 23) Shinique Smith: Bold As Love at James Cohan Gallery (through March 16), and Caro, Frankenthaler, Louis, Motherwell, Noland, Olitski, Stella, curated by Hayden Dunbar at Paul Kasmin Gallery (through February 23).
Link to Post:
http://structureandimagery.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-lure-of-paris-loretta-howard-gallery.html
Paul Behnke photoblogs the recent exhibition The Lure of Paris at Loretta Howard Gallery, New York. The show highlights the lesser known influence of Paris on mid-century American artists and features work by Biala, Norman Bluhm, Ed Clark, Harold Cousins, Beauford Delaney, Sam Francis, Shirley Goldfarb, Cleve Gray, Al Held, Shirley Jaffe, Conrad Marca-Relli, Joan Mitchell, Jules Olitski, Milton Resnick, Jean-Paul Riopelle, George Sugarman, and Jack Youngerman.
Sol Ostrow writes in the catalogue: "In the 1950s, with the triumph of the New York School, the United States for the first time in history had produced visual art of international consequence. Yet, artists from the United States and from all over Europe continued to flock to Paris just as the center of the western art world was shifting to New York... Their reasons varied. Some saw it as an opportunity to be cosmopolitan or to satisfy their wanderlust; others may have imagined the Paris of Le Jazz Hot, café society, and the romance of the pre-war avant-garde, or the chance to see works by Vuillard, Bonnard, Matisse, etc., that they knew only from black and white reproductions. In most cases the women artists had accompanied their significant others, while like the generation before them, the Afro-American artists, sought to escape the racism that was endemic in the States."
Link to Post:
http://www.pirihalasz.com/blog.htm?post=883215
Piri Halasz reviews three exhibitions of works by Jules Olitski: Revelation: Major Paintings by Jules Olitski at American University, Washington D.C. (through December 16), Jules Olitski On An Intimate Scale at George Washington University, Washington D.C. (through December 14), Anthony Caro and Jules Olitski: Masters of Abstration Draw the Figure at Freedman Art, New York (thorugh February 2, 2013).
Halasz writes: " 'Revelation' is a distinguished show, a fitting tribute to a major master. I had a better time at 'Jules Olitski on an Intimate Scale,' at George Washington University’s Brady Gallery. Not expecting as much, I was surprised and delighted by all these enticing little pictures, dancing up & down along the walls in a masterful installation. The informality of the show was very appealing, particularly after the comparatively stiff and dignified atmosphere of the Katzen Center show. Rightly or wrongly, I felt closer to the artist at the Brady."
Link to Post:
http://dailyserving.com/2012/10/revelations-in-paint/
Hayley Plack blogs about the exhibition Jules Olitski: Revelation: Major Paintings at American University Museum, Washington D.C., on view through December 16, 2012.
Plack writes: "Painting was a spiritual experience for Olitski. He describes, 'I’ve come to believe that this power I can surrender to in my studio is indeed a higher power.' Beyond the playful colors and pleasing compositions, the artist reveals a serious and emotional side through his works. Through the exhibition, it becomes clear how the word ‘revelation’ is tied to Olitski. It may refer to the revelation that Olitski had each time he sat in his in studio and was struck with an idea, or the revelation of each new stylistic chapter of painting, or the revelation of a new means of applying paint whether it be via spray gun, roller, leaf blower or using his own hands. Through experimentation in paint, Olitski continued to challenge his own aesthetic and push the limits of abstraction."
Link to Post:
http://www.pirihalasz.com/blog.htm?post=873479
Piri Halasz reviews several new shows in Chelsea including The Lure of Paris at Loretta Howard Gallery (thorugh November 3), Jackson Pollock and Tony Smith at Matthew Marks Gallery (through October 27), and Carolanna Parlato at Elizabeth Harris Gallery (through October 6).
In the Lure of Paris Halasz finds Jules Olitski and Ed Clark to be standouts. She writes: "Olitski seems to have been one of the few Americans actually looking at the better postwar French painters practicing the French equivalents to American abstract expressionism known as tachisme or l’art informel..." Halasz continues: "[Clark] is... known for having painted with push brooms instead of brushes... [his painting] benefits from the use of large, sweepingly simple forms and clear, vigorous colors, wisely limited & separated from each other -- much livelier than the blackened, bush-like center in the Joan Mitchell on display, or the muddy, overdone creation of Al Held."
The Lure of Paris provides a fitting backdrop for Halasz to view a show of new paintings by Carolanna Parlato: "[Parlato's] intuitive color sense is one of the strong points of the current show... Also, her paint is a lot thinner than the hallmark smears of the 50s, sometimes transparent in fact, when an almost dry brush appears to have been stroked across the canvas, depositing only hair-like lines of paint, as opposed to solid areas, and allowing the complimentary undercoat to shine through. Finally, at its best her organization is a lot stronger than most of the tyros at work in 'The Lure of Paris.' "
Link to Post:
http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/2012/03/jules-olitski-talks-about-painting.html
Sharon Butler posts a new video on the painter Jules Olitski produced on the occasion of the exhibtion Revelation: Major Paintings by Jules Olitski, at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Texas, on view through May 6, 2012.
In the film Olitski dicusses the "meaning" of abstracion and his work, noting: "Decisions are being made a mile a minute as you're making the work, and that has to come out of experience and vision."
Artists such as Anthony Caro and Willard Boepple also weigh in on Olitski's work.
Link to Post:
http://paulcorio.blogspot.com/2010/03/in-my-short-obits-of-jules-olitski-and.html
Paul Corio calls for a reconsideration of Color Field painting, Noland, Olitski, and Louis in particular.
