Jonathan Goodman reviews a recent exhibition of works by Syd Solomon at Berry Campbell, New York.

Goodman writes that Solomon “opens up a genuine understanding of the abstract-expressionist movement—we see the art and not the painter overwhelming the art. The vertical work called Summer Spell (1985), with its skeins and wisps of color—white, yellow, blur, some brown—create a barely baroque maelstrom of abstract effects. The complexity of the work is almost too intricate to describe; ribbons of paint travel in what looks like the upper atmosphere, and their rough patches and ropy loops rise and fall in minor crescendos up and down the expanse of the canvas. One has the sense that this is an improvisation about the charms of a season, rendered at a time when one could still paint with deliberate beauty.”