Spanierman Modern is pleased to announce the opening on January 19, 2012 of Stanley Boxer (1926–2000).  An artist whose work is in numerous museum collections in America and abroad, Boxer worked with indefatigable energy during a career that spanned the second half of the twentieth century.  In his paintings from the 1960s through the 1990s—featured in this exhibition—he developed an individualistic stylistic trajectory, drawing from the action painting techniques of Abstract Expressionism and the optical color sensations and allover approach of Color Field painting, as well as from painterly traditions stretching back to the old masters. His passion for surface vibrancy is demonstrated in his sensuous, richly textured canvases and the exuberant works he created in the 1990s, in which he blended oil paint with a range of unusual materials.

In naming his paintings, Stanley Boxer’s usual practice was to string together words. The unbroken titles are a rhythmic complement to his paintings and parallel the continuous yet changing cadences of his surfaces as well as their many associations. In their animate qualities, many are suggestive of the natural world without being specifically referential.  Others are map-like, conveying the presence of landforms, water, and sky, while collaged elements add a topographical and relief dimension to the later works. 

In the 1960s, Boxer’s work was discovered by the noted critic Clement Greenberg, who categorized him as Color Field painter.  To Boxer, this label was too limiting. He stated in 1972:  “Nothing is per se rejected in my work! Everything is possible.”  It is therefore not surprising that critics from all persuasions over many decades have expressed an unusually high regard for Boxer and his art.

Boxer’s work may be found in noted private and public collections including the Albright-Knox Art Museum, Buffalo, New York; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Center, Washington, D.C.; Houston Museum of Art, Texas; the Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Santa Barbara Museum; the Singapore Art Museum; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Tate Gallery, London; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York: and the Wichita Art Museum, Kansas.