Exhibition

Sonia Gechtoff: Gesture Meets Hard Edge: Part 1 

28 Apr 2021 – 21 May 2021

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Monday
Closed
Tuesday
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Wednesday
12:00 – 18:00
Thursday
12:00 – 18:00
Friday
12:00 – 18:00
Saturday
12:00 – 18:00
Sunday
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David Richard Gallery is pleased to present Sonia Gechtoff, Gesture Meets Hard Edge: Part I, a selection of large format pencil renderings on top of acrylic paintings on paper

About

David Richard Gallery is pleased to present Sonia Gechtoff, Gesture Meets Hard Edge: Part I, a selection of large format pencil renderings on top of acrylic paintings on paper composed of geometric abstractions created from 1979 through 1981 that will be presented in two parts. There are ten paintings available that the gallery will present in 2 separate exhibitions to honor the original presentation of these works in January and February of 1982 at Gruenebaum Gallery in New York. The original presentation was reviewed by Hilton Kramer in the New York Times on January 8, 1982.
 
The exhibition will be on view from April 28 - May 21, 2021with an opening reception Wednesday, April 28, 2021 from 4:00 - 7:00 PM at David Richard Gallery, LLC on the Ground Floor located at 211 East 121 ST, New York, NY 10035, phone: (212) 882-1705 and website:www.davidrichardgallery.com. Part II will follow with another selection of 5 drawings with pencil on acrylic paint.
 
About The Exhibition:
 
There are two important aspects of this particular series of mixed media paintings on paper. The first is formal, in that Gechtoff practically invented this novel medium of drawing with graphite over acrylic paint. These paintings on paper mark a seminal period and turn in Gechtoff’s oeuvre that gave rise to additional larger paintings on canvas painted from the late 1980s through the early 2000s.
 
As noted, the paintings on paper in this presentation are large format ranging in size from 48 x 48 inches square to horizontal rectangular shapes of 48 x 66 inches in length, all comprised of geometric shapes that represent Gechtoff’s abstractions of landscapes and cityscapes and as such, they could be of any place: Upstate New York or London. The colors are moody, suggesting they were painted at dusk with heavy shadows and occasional piercing bright green, vibrant red, vivid blue or hot pink hues.
 
The second important aspect of these paintings addresses the aesthetic transition in Gechtoff’s paintings following her well known Abstract Expressionist paintings of the 1950s and early 1960s. When Gechtoff and James Kelly, her husband, moved with their daughter to New York at the end of the 1950s, they were quickly met with Brillo Boxes by Andy Warhol, shaped canvases by Frank Stella and Op Art by Julian Stanczak. It was hard for them to envision how the self-referential and non-objective gestural swaths of impasto pigment from their world fit in with an art world that overnight had become entirely externally focused, full of representation and content by artists a generation or two younger than them—who were these guys (quite literally, from Gechtoff’s perspective as a woman artist)? To that end, in the 1970s, Gechtoff explored geometric shapes and grids influenced by non-objective geometric abstraction and color theory as well as the seriality of Minimalism. However, she included her first love, drawing with graphite pencil. The grids and geometric shapes were precise and entirely planned—something entirely new for Gechtoff—but, she brought her painterly touch and artist hand (just as she did when she wielded the palette knife full of oil paint in the 1950s) with her pencil renderings to model and add texture and depth to each box (a.k.a., the pigeon holes).
 
The series of paintings in this current exhibition were formative works and gave way to a full series of large canvases produced in the late 1980s through the 90s and until her death in 2018. A selection of such spectacular paintings from the 1980s and 90s were presented by David Richard Gallery in the fall of 2019. That exhibition, Forces of Nature on the Grand Stage: Paintings from 1988 to 1995, not only revealed Gechtoff’s drawings with pencil on top of acrylic paint, but the paintings were gestural and passionate with  lush swaths of paint full of energy and grounds that evoked forces of nature—such as wind, waves, tides, fire and smoke—with references to gardens, landscapes, celestial orbs and architectural structures as well as the influences of opera, theatre and the grand stage. Everything that had been taboo and put on hold during the 1950s with Abstract Expressionism or in the background of the artist’s mind, moved its way to the foreground. Her work returned to being bold, gestural, full of life, lots of movement and grandeur. That exhibition was reviewed by John Yau for HYPERALLERGIC, A Forgotten Painter and Her Visionary Abstraction, October 12, 2019.

What to expect? Toggle

CuratorsToggle

David Eichholtz

Exhibiting artistsToggle

Sonia Gechtoff

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