NEW YORK, February 22, 2022 -- Findlay Galleries is pleased to announce the Wednesday, March 16, 2022 opening of “Traditional & Contemporary: Timeless Composition” at Findlay Galleries, New York. This exhibition comprises pairs of paintings from different periods and reveals the surprising way two works can share compositional elements despite no thematic similarity or relation.  

These timeless compositions invite the viewer to discern the similarities in form, scale, perspective, movement, balance, and color. Viewers can find pairings of works from artists such as Leonard Nelson and Mary Sipp Green, Tadashi Asoma and Henrik Simonsen, Robert Antoine Pinchon and Ronnie Landfield, and others. The exhibition seeks to illustrate common subjects painted in both representational and abstract manners. It also aims to demonstrate that works of art of different styles, periods, and subjects can, broadly speaking, share a similar composition.

A highlight of the show is the comparison of Albert Malet’s Marais Poitevin alongside Chuang Che’s Untitled. These two works share a similar palette and little else on the surface. However, examined more closely, striking compositional similarities emerge.

In Marais Poitevin, Malet depicts a river and marshland in Western France and relies on form and color to balance the composition. The downward movement created by the sun-dappled slope is met with the curvilinear motion of the river, which itself is defined by dark areas of open water within an algae-covered surface. The reflection in these voids reveal hints of foliage and even the blue sky above. Further compositional elements include the roof of the small house and its downward continuation into the bridge wall. On the other side of the canvas, vertical movement is provided by the tree that rises from the stream’s edge.

Chuang Che’s abstraction Untitled, 1972 bears no resemblance to Marais Poitevin, nonetheless, the works share a similar composition. In Che’s work, a pale-yellow area seems to cascade down toward a darker green and almost black area that is itself part of a curvilinear form. This intersection is very similar to the central composition in Marais Poitevin. The black and blue areas of this form are reminiscent of the algae-free areas and reflected sky of Malet’s painting. Likewise, the top edge of the pale-yellow area seems to mimic the roof of the small building, and the vertical movement of the tree is present in the dark black linear brushwork on the right side of the work.

Each pair is a discrete vignette unto itself that, taken together, reveals the understanding that composition transcends time, period style and movement and can bind seemingly disparate works of art.

“Traditional and Contemporary: Timeless Composition” will be on view at Findlay Galleries New York from March 16 – April 30.

About Findlay Galleries

Celebrating 152 years in business, Findlay Galleries is an iconic family business founded in 1870. Specializing in Impressionism, European Modernism, l’Ecole de Rouen, L’Ecole de Paris, and 20th Century American Art, the gallery represents over 100 artists and artist estates.

Called Wally Findlay Galleries since 1965, the business was acquired in 1998 by James R. Borynack, a longtime Findlay executive. In 2016, Borynack acquired the David Findlay Jr. Gallery. Since then, the merged business has operated under its original name from 1870, Findlay Galleries.