Berry Campbell has announced its first exhibition of the paintings of PERLE FINE (1905-1988). The exhibition will include thirteen important paintings and works on paper from the 1950s through the 1970s, including a several paintings from the “Cool Series,” 1961-1963.  Berry Campbell announced their representation of the artist last month.  The exhibition will be showcased at Berry Campbell on West 24th Street in Chelsea from February 12 through March 14, 2015. 

Perle Fine was an artist at forefront of the Abstract Expressionist movement as it unfolded in New York and East Hampton, Long Island.  Fine studied with Hans Hofmann and was a friend of Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Franz Kline, and other leading artists of the era.  She gained recognition after World War II, when she received a grant from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and showed at both Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century Gallery and the Museum of Nonobjective Painting (now the Guggenheim Museum). Her first solo exhibition was held at Willard Gallery, New York, in 1945.  Subsequently she showed at Betty Parsons Gallery and the Tanager Gallery, the first New York artist’s cooperative.  In 1949, she was one of few women artists invited by de Kooning to join The Club, the intellectual artists’ group that he and Kline led. Fine’s work has recently received the attention it has long been due in exhibitions that provide new insight into Abstract Expressionism, including a traveling retrospective organized by Hofstra University in 2009. 

Fine is represented in museums, colleges, and private collections across the country, including Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; Ball State Museum of Art, Muncie, Indiana; Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennessee; Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Guild Hall, East Hampton, New York; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; Hofstra University, Long Island, New York; Indianapolis Museum of Art; Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; New York University Art Collection; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York; Principia College, Saint Louis, Missouri; Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Massachusetts; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; University of California Art Museum, Berkeley; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro; and Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts.

Perle Fine’s art adds to Berry Campbell’s prominent role as a showcase for established and mid-career artists in the modernist tradition, including Walter Darby Bannard, Dan Christensen, Raymond Hendler, Stephen Pace, William Perehudoff, Albert Stadler, and Syd Solomon.

.Berry Campbell is located in the heart of Chelsea at 530 W 24th Street on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm or by appointment. For more information please contact Christine Berry or Martha Campbell at 212.924.2178, info@berrycampbell.com or www.berrycampbell.com.