George Grosz, Saul Steinberg and Jim Nutt Exhibition
Adam Baumgold Gallery (40 E 75th St.)
This event has ended.
Adam Baumgold Gallery presents an exhibition of drawings and works on paper by George Grosz (1893 - 1959), Saul Steinberg (1914 - 1999) and Jim Nutt (b.1938). The exhibition brings together the work of these unique draftsmen from three different generations and focuses on how each artist portrays the human figure in their own distinctive ways.
George Grosz came of age in the turmoil of World War I and his drawings record the life and atmosphere of the Weimar Republic. Included in the exhibition is Grosz's drawing "Dr. Sand's End," 1926 which shows a mid-level profiteer who has fallen afoul of his bosses and contemplates his demise with a revolver. Another drawing, "New York Street Scene" 1932 shows the various characters of a teeming metropolis acting out their daily rituals. "All of Grosz's drawings are supported by two elements - the straight and curved line that is made up of "tiny broken pen scratches, overlapping, like barbed wires. "
"Saul Steinberg defined drawing as "a way of reasoning on paper"- "his art is about the ways artists make art… He used drawing to think about the semantics of art, reconfiguring stylistic signs into a new language suited to the fabricated temper of modern life. " Steinberg's "Physiognomy," 1972 is a portrait of a well heeled woman made up of fake calligraphic texts, and fake certifying rubber stamps - a speech balloon conveys similar unrecognizable text. Also included in the exhibition is "Turkish Studio," 1953, a richly colored work on paper with a group of Steinberg characters. It is a pastiche of art, luxury and the exotic that references Matisse's "Red Studio" utilizing Steinberg's pictorial vocabulary.
Jim Nutt's drawing "Untitled," 2005, is typical of his portraits on women, restrained, intimate creations that contain a whole world. "Beautifully fetishized graphite hair amplifying the texture of the paper, sits atop Cubist distortions of noses and ears. " Nutt absorbs pop, comic, surrealist and cubist affinities to create unique representations of the real. Included in the exhibition, are "a delicate display," 1976, "nice move," 1975 and "a little light, a little dark," 1986, where Nutt frames within the composition human conflicts or romantic interactions on empty stages - the grotesque naked characters are people at their most essential level.
Media
Schedule
from September 23, 2010 to October 30, 2010