Spanierman Gallery is pleased to announce the opening on July 12, 2012 of Modern and Contemporary Paintings, presenting works from the mid-twentieth century to the present by Leon Berkowitz, James Bohary, Ilya Bolotowsky, Frank Bowling, Stanley Boxer, Carolyn Carr, Dan Christensen, Jasmina Danowski, Burgoyne Diller, Friedel Dzubas, John Ferren, Perle Fine, Michael Gibson, Judith Godwin, Teo González, Carol Hunt, Wolf Kahn, Stephen Pace, Katherine Parker, Betty Parsons, Melville Price, Jack Roth, George Segal, Charles Green Shaw, Syd Solomon, Teiji Takai, Michael John Upton, and Susan Vecsey.

In the nineteenth century, the refinement of photography had a profound impact on painting, calling into question its necessity as a means of representation. In the twentieth century, the separation of painting from its mimetic role provided a basis by which painting was not only able to thrive, but also to advance as artists pursued new and individualistic methods of expression. The vitality of painting is unquestioned today, as artists continue to draw from the resources of the past while exploring new innovations, as the pluralistic art in this exhibition demonstrates.

Paintings from the 1950s include such works as Stephen Pace's Untitled (51-90), a dynamic abstract painting in which forms move into and through the picture plane in the mode of the art of Pace's teacher Hans Hofmann, Melville Price's Untitled (ca. 1959), a gestural painting in the abstract expressionist idiom in which figurative elements have a suggestive presence, and George Segal's Three Nudes (1959), in which a psychological tension is conveyed in the expressively treated figures that are integrated into spaces defined by veils or blankets of color. From the 1960s are Charles Green Shaw's Black on White against Yellow (1968), in which Shaw revived the polygon from his art of the 1930s to create a new minimalist statement, Leon Berkowitz's Cathedral, No. 11 (1968), a work by the Washington Color School artist in which imperceptible shifts of color and an emanating luminosity produce a meditational quality, and Betty Parsons's Miami (1966), which evokes the artist's enthusiasm for Native American art, while demonstrating the influences on her work of the leading abstract painters of the era, whose art she championed at her gallery on 57 th Street.

The 1970s is represented by Ilya Bolotowsky's Blue Abstraction in a Square (1978), in which a sharply defined linear structure expresses the interaction of abstract forms, Perle Fine's An Accordment, No. 80 (1974), part of a series in which Fine made use of the grid and serial working methods to create works attuned to nature and the universe, Syd Solomon's Baybend (1977), in which the artist, who was close to Pollock, Kline, and de Kooning in East Hampton, expressed raw and conflicting forces within the natural world, and Frank Bowling's Courteous Shade ( 1974), a luminous, textural image in the Color Field mode by this contemporary artist, the first black artist to be elected to the Royal Academy and a recipient of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen of England (O.B.E.).

The diversity of the 1980s can be seen in Dan Christensen's Tuscarora (1980), which belongs to the vibrant and poetic paintings in which the artist furthered his use of experimental methods to include staining on unstretched canvases and calligraphic “drawing” using sticks, brushes, and turkey basters, Friedel Dzubas's Barrier (1983), demonstrating the lyrical and contemplative style of this artist who studied with Paul Klee, and Stanley Boxer's Speckledchant (1988), a work in mixed media that evokes baroque opulence in the way that explosive forms seem compressed within the confines of the canvas.

The 1990s through the present has witnessed the continued efflorescence in painting, as demonstrated in this show by works such as Judith Godwin's Blue, No. 11 (1997), a lyrical expression of mixed emotion, Jasmina Danowski's Tender Trap (2012), in which the artist conveys a sense of moving through an aquatic and sensuous world, Carol Hunt's Easter Morning (2011), featuring a calligraphy of line and shape that conjures archetypal signs and symbols, Katherine Parker's Behind and Above (2011), a canvas built of thin layers of paint that the artist has scraped away to convey a metaphysical awareness of the passage of time, and Susan Vecsey's Napeague Bay, Montauk (2012), in which the subtle color stained into the canvas evokes the emotion of a place remembered and deeply felt.

Gallery Hours: Monday-Saturday 9:30-5:30