Seeing Red

This summer, the Al Held Foundation will exhibit two important sculptures by Ronald Bladen on its scenic campus in the Catskill Mountains. These works of geometric abstraction in painted aluminum were created in the 1970s at a moment when Bladen deepened his exploration of form in space. The installation is a partnership between the Al Held Foundation and the Estate of Ronald Bladen, honoring the vital thirty-year friendship between these pioneers of postwar American geometric abstraction.

Loretta Howard Gallery is pleased to present a group of 1960s oil paintings on paper by Shirley Goldfarb. These small format works were tipical of her studio practice, often used as studies for large scale paintings.

Following World War II, hundreds of artists from the United States flocked to the City of Light, which for centuries had been heralded as an artistic mecca and international cultural capital. Americans in Paris explores a vibrant community of expatriates who lived in France during the post war period.

In the 1960s, Gray was making increasingly loose, increasingly explosive, monumental paintings. This is evident especially in the Silver series of 1967. This sense of freedom is evident and deliberate in these charged canvases. Gray said “I thought I should do something untoward and without the rational guidance of my paintbrush. I had nothing to lose, and I wondered what would happen; I picked up a bucket of aluminum paint and threw it at the canvas lying on the floor.”