Anthe Zacharias “Natural: Paintings from 1963 to 1966”

David Richard Gallery

poster for Anthe Zacharias “Natural: Paintings from 1963 to 1966”
[Image: Anthe Zacharias "Untitled (AZ-116)" (1965) Oil on canvas, 48 x 52 in.]

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David Richard Gallery presents Natural: Paintings from 1963 to 1966, an exhibition of artworks by Anthe Zacharias in her first solo exhibition with David Richard Gallery and her first in New York since 1974.

The presentation will focus on a series of paintings from a seminal period in the artist’s career that punctuated a transitional period in the early 1960s in which Zacharias developed her own visual language and moved away from Abstract Expressionistic painting. Most of these paintings were presented at the Great Jones Gallery in New York in 1965 and 1966. This presentation also chronicles further progression during that three-year period towards realizing the artist’s bigger vision and aspirations for her artworks. Specifically, the paintings opened up with more breathing room, had brighter color palettes, and greater influence from forms observed in nature.

An Abstract Expressionist painter in the 1950s, Zacharias’s approach to painting emphasized mark-making using the palette knife and brush, her focus was on the “stroke” within a tightly controlled color palette. In the early1960s, she wanted to loosen and open up her work, move away from uniform brush strokes and shift her focus to the application of pigment. This expanded her color palette as she explored the oil medium with thin translucent glazes to make her paintings more luminous, subtly transitioning from one color to the next and creating fluid movement across the canvas.

Zacharias said in a personal communication dated March 8, 1963, “It is exciting for me because now I am involved with many elements of painting at the same time such as space, form, line, color, light and movement. Before I could only handle a few of these elements at a time, but now working with all of them seems natural.” She further stated, “I no longer paint small strokes but spread my paint on with a brush so that you cannot tell when a color ends and another begins… It seems that my knowing how to handle paint has caught up somewhat with my ideas on painting.”

Later, Zacharias said on July 24, 1963, “The pictures are really swinging and moving around and no longer are placid color experiments. I have large areas and focuses of detail when you look close… The movement and the liveliness of the pictures is what strikes you most.”

The Director of the Great Jones Gallery, Janet Kayshian, visited Zacharias in the 1964-65 timeframe at her Pearl Street studio. Zacharias was invited to participate in the inaugural exhibition titled, “Drawings”, in autumn 1965 at the gallery’s new location at 645 Madison Ave in New York City. She exhibited pencil drawings alongside other artists, including Louise Bourgeois. Zahcarias was also included in a three-person show in January of 1966 and had a solo exhibition in Autumn of 1966.

Media

Schedule

from January 27, 2019 to February 24, 2019

Opening Reception on 2019-01-27 from 15:00 to 19:00

Artist(s)

Anthe Zacharias

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