"Raisons d’Être" Exhibition
Peter Freeman
This event has ended.
Peter Freeman, Inc. presents Raisons d’Être, an exhibition of painted works, mostly on canvas and also some sculpture.
The exhibition is unusual for including both a group of extraordinary 19th-century American paintings by Victor Dubreuil (active in New York City 1886-circa 1900), John Haberle (1856-1933), William Michael Harnett (1848-1892), and John Frederick Peto (1854-1907), together with works from our moment by David Adamo, Alex Hay, Catherine Murphy, and Sylvia Plimack Mangold.
While the 19th-century works might have been most easily described in the past as Trompe l'Oeil, and the contemporary works could, with as easily flawed a shorthand, be described perhaps as photorealist, the dialogue between all the works from these two groups undermines both assumptions. Rather, a connecting vein of painting is revealed from both periods that is as much about a joy of paint and painting as it might be about careful depiction, deception, or a hyper-realistic, concentrated depiction of an object or a space that brings into focus what might otherwise remain unnoticed.
Of particular note in the exhibition are four works being shown for the first time: an 1883 Munich-period Harnett of a dead bird, a work certainly related to the first “After the Hunt” pictures of the same year; a rare 1976 painted sculpture by Sylvia Plimack Mangold of a metal ruler; Catherine Murphy’s 2011 “Studio Floor,” an exceedingly precise depiction of her paint-spattered studio floor that, as an image shifted to the wall, becomes an odd surrogate for abstract painting; and a recent Alex Hay painting after a scrap of wood.
[Image: JOHN FREDERICK PETO (1854 - 1907) "Almanac and Pipe" c. 1890s, oil on paperboard, 18 1/2 x 14 in.]
Media
Schedule
from September 27, 2012 to December 01, 2012