(10) Results for "The Figure: From Cubism to Post-Modernism" Jump to Page         Page 1/1  

 
 

The Figure: From Cubism to Post-Modernism

January 1 - January 2, 2007

 Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
24 East 78th Street New York, NY 10021
TEL 212 628-9760 FAX 212.628.9635
Hours: Monday- Friday 10am - 5pm

For further information contact:

Gerold Wunderlich
Director
(212) 628-9760

In competition with the European academies, America developed their own academic institutions, most notably the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the National Academy of Design. By the late nineteenth century the leading teachers at these academies had been well trained and had brought back the European techniques to American soil. Following in the footsteps of Thomas Eakins and Thomas Hovington, were the next generation of artists some following the more representational backgrounds or influences; others breaking ground and looking at the newest European influences coming from Europe in the early twentieth centuries. Certainly, Max Weber became a major influence on American art propagating the radical cubist technique he developed through his friendship with Pablo Picasso in the early years of the twentieth century. Max Weber style was eclectic in nature as seen in The Dancer, as well as a slightly fauve flavor in The Apollo in Matisse’s Studio. Yet during the first portion of the twentieth centuries these “modern” paintings were the exception. More typical were the academic trained painters whose tradition moved forward. F. Lois Mora’s grandiose painting, The American Gladiators, 1908, continued the tradition set forth by Eakins. It is a figural masterpiece employing the chiaroscuro technique of his Spanish heroes such as Diego Velazquez, as well as Eakins’ last important sporting painting, The Wrestlers.

Throughout the twentieth century the figurative tradition continued, first through the Robert Henri studio, albeit it a more painterly technique then the previous generation. Academically inspired works are seen through the eyes of Eugene Speicher, a well respected painter from Woodstock, New York, as well as Robert Brackman and Leon Kroll. Brackman, a student of Henri and George Bellows, was a lifelong teacher at the Arts Students League; his influence on a new generation of students was enormous. Kroll’s congregated around the Henri circle of artists equally as well as European painters such as Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, and Robert and Sonya Delaunay, revealing his openness toward seemingly two opposite factions of the art world. Expressionism began to appear in American art as a regular influence by the 1920’s and is seen in the work of Marguerite Zorach’s Country Evening, and Harold Weston’s Taking Stockings Off.

As the art world careened toward the Abstract Expressionist movement in the mid twentieth century there remained an undercurrent of more traditional painting. Aside from the teachings of Brachman, another New Yorker, John Koch had a strong following among younger painters during the 1950’s. Koch followed his own love of people and coupled them with their interiors. Looking back at the meticulous painting technique of Jan Vermeer, Koch portrayed his friends and clients in their daily twentieth century settings. Together, both Koch and Brachman had a remarkable influence on the next generation of painters who were not inspired by throwing paint abstractly at a canvas. Charles Pfahl worked in Brackman’s studio as a teenager, and later became one of Koch’s closest friends and collaborators. After studying with Brachman for a year Richard Maury left for Florence, and began creating some of the most magnificent figurative paintings found anywhere. His painting, My Interpretation of the Manner of DFE, is remarkable for the spatial quality, as well as its verisimilitude.

North of the border, in Canada, a style described as “High Realism” began to appear in the 1980’s. The technique is notable for the very fine quality of draftsmanship in his painting technique – the exact opposite of the earlier expressionist derived painting. Richard Thomas Davis, an ex-patriot is notable for his strict accuracy in drawing and modeling, his meticulous fidelity to surface textures and colors, which yields an astonishing sense of tangibility. Two of his remarkable works, Aglaia, and Karolyn reveal every detail of the subjects portrayed. Another Canadian, Glenn Priestley was always preoccupied with the discovering and portraying the people and places he knew. Again painting is a highly realistic manner his painting, Toys, 2006 reveals his naturalistic yet somewhat surreal point of view towards his subject.

While it has been assumed in much of the art world that realistic art, in general, and figurative painting, in specific, has gone the way of the dodo bird in the twentieth century, in fact, figurative painting is alive and well. By the mid 1970’s a new generation of painters began to emerge, dissatisfied the various abstract movements, and interested in representational subject matter.


   

Thomas Hart Benton

Study for The Pathfinder
Oil on board
14 x 11 in

For further information contact:

Peter Riess
Director of Western Art
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
(505) 954-5771
   

Richard Thomas Davis

Aglaia
Oil on tempera on wood
64 x 40 in

For further information contact:

Gerold Wunderlich
Director
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
(212) 628-9760
   

Richard Thomas Davis

Karolyn
Oil and tempera on wood panel
40 x 30 in

For further information contact:

Gerold Wunderlich
Director
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
(212) 628-9760
   

Max Weber

Apollo in Matisse's Studio, 1908
Oil on canvas
23 x 18 in

For further information contact:

Lily Downing Burke
Director
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
(212) 452-6604
   

Max Weber

Beautification, 1942
Oil on Canvas
36 x 28 in

For further information contact:

Catherine Whitney
Director of Twentieth Century American Art
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
(505) 954-5716
   

Max Weber

Dancer
Oil on board
24 x 18 in

For further information contact:

Lily Downing Burke
Director
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
(212) 452-6604
   

Harold Weston

Tirage D'Essai, 1928
Oil on canvas
24 x 19 in

For further information contact:

Reagan Upshaw
Director
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
(212) 452-6608
   

Marguerite Zorach

Country Evening, c. 1940
Oil on canvas
20 x 26 in

For further information contact:

Reagan Upshaw
Director
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
(212) 452-6608
   

Marguerite Zorach

Sawing the Logs, c. 1940
Oil on canvas
35 x 48 in

For further information contact:

Reagan Upshaw
Director
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
(212) 452-6608
 
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