"Flying Point Beach: The Photographs of John Jonas Gruen And Artwork of The New York School" Exhibition
(Art) Amalgamated
This event has ended.
The exhibition will feature over twenty-five portraits by Gruen, a photographer and culture writer known for documenting the rich cultural scene of the Hamptons during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. It will also include paintings by notable East End artists Fairfield Porter, Jane Wilson (wife of John Gruen), Larry Rivers, Jane Freilicher and Willem de Kooning.
Gruen began professionally taking photographs at the legendary photographic agency Rapho-Guillumette, where he apprenticed under the most famous photographers of the day including; Brassai, Kertesz, Doisneau, Sabine Weiss and Man Ray. As the art and music critic for The New York Herald Tribune (a position he held from 1960-67) he expanded his ever increasing circle of notable friends and acquaintances which included figures like Leonard Bernstein, Virgil Thomson, Arthur Gold, Robert Fizdale, and Lukas Foss. While he had always avidly taken photographs, his position as an arts reporter fueled his desire to document the historic scene that was taking shape all around him.
John Gruen and Jane Wilson, the artistic “power couple,” were both very much a part of and witness to the seismic changes in the cultural scene of New York. In 1959, the couple followed the new generation of artists to the Hamptons where they hosted parties at their home and invited friends (artists, writers, poets, actors and musicians) to nearby Flying Point Beach. It is here that Gruen took some of his most iconic photographs – Willem de Kooning standing “prophet-like” with a walking stick in hand, pop artist Jasper Johns, shirtless and tan with a radiating smile, Mary Abbott in a stylish 60’s one piece bathing suit and straw sun hat and Larry Rivers staring back at the camera with a piercing look.
The New York School artists are often cited as bridging the gap between Abstract Expressionism and the Pop art that would soon follow. Artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg helped usher in pop art. Add to this mix of influence, the close friendship many of these artists had with poets like Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Koch and John Ashberry, playwrights like Edward Albee, composers like Lukas Foss, Morton Feldman and Leonard Bernstein and a moveable feast of assorted intelligentsia, and it becomes clear why this period in the Hamptons continues to excite and fascinate.
ABOUT JOHN JONAS GRUEN
John Jonas Gruen wrote about culture for the New York Herald Tribune, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Vogue, ARTNews, Architectural Digest and Dance Magazine. His photographs are in the collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY and The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY. The Whitney Museum owns hundreds of Gruen photographs and held a 2010 exhibition of his work entitled “Facing The Artist: Portraits by John Jonas Gruen” which was organized by Elisabeth Sussman (Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography). His photographs of the World Trade Center tragedy were exhibited at The Middlebury College Museum of Art, VT. (2011). Additionally, he has had solo (and two-person) exhibitions Guild Hall in East Hampton, NY (1999), The Hammond Museum in North Salem, New York (2000), The Southampton Historical Museum in Southampton, New York (2004) and The Hecksher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York (2000). His works are in many public collections.
With camera and pen in hand, Gruen documented the scene in newsprint and his books including, The New Bohemia (1966) The Party’s Over Now (1972) The Artist Observed (1991) and his memoir, Callas Kissed Me. . . Lenny Too! (2008).
Media
Schedule
from May 17, 2012 to June 09, 2012
Opening Reception on 2012-05-17 from 18:00 to 20:00