John Ashbery Exhibition

Paul Kasmin Gallery (297 10th Ave.)

[Image: Joe Brainard "Untitled (The Avant-garde)" (1968) ink on paper, 14 x 11 in.]

This event has ended.

Kasmin presents an exhibition of selected works from the collection of the celebrated New York poet and art critic, John Ashbery (1927 –2017). Bringing together paintings, drawings, and collages by artists such as Alex Katz, Jane Freilicher, Helen Frankenthaler, Fairfield Porter, Joe Brainard, and Larry Rivers, the presentation reflects the deep-rooted artistic and personal associations amongst a group of artists and poets who, between them, defined New York’s downtown scene for almost two decades from the 1950s onwards. Ashbery’s collection reveals the composite of styles that were burgeoning contemporaneously during what is now perceived to be one of the century’s most radically productive artistic periods.

John Ashbery died at the age of 90 in September 2017. It was Ashbery’s wish that upon his death his collection of art be sold with the proceeds supporting experimental artists in various fields. Many of the works have never before been exhibited. Artists represented in the exhibition include James Bishop, Joe Brainard, Rudy Burckhardt, Anne Dunn, Helen Frankenthaler, Jane Freilicher, Jean Hélion, Alex Katz, R.B. Kitaj, Rodrigo Moynihan, Philip Pearlstein, Fairfield Porter, Larry Rivers, Anne Ryan, Neil Welliver, and Trevor Winkfield.