Charlotte Licthblau & Sy Gresser “Chthonic/Sublime”
George Billis Gallery
This event has ended.
Chthonic/Sublime is a retrospective exhibition featuring the painter Charlotte Lichtblau and the sculptor Sy Gresser. These two artists first began exhibiting together in New York City in 1966.
Born in Vienna in 1925, Charlotte Lichtblau lived and worked in New York City from 1953 until her death in 2013. Many of her paintings focus on her homeland of Austria or on themes and characters from both the Old and New Testaments. While her paintings of religious subjects are boldly contemporary, they honor both the history of Biblical imagery and the artistic traditions of German Expressionism. For five decades, Lichtblau exhibited her works in galleries, museums, universities and churches throughout the United States as well as at the Palais Palffy in Vienna and the Pfarrheim Arts Center in Bad Aussee, Austria. Lichtblau was also an art critic writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Herald Tribune, and Arts Magazine.
Although his family hoped for a career in business, a gift of stone carving tools changed Sy Gresser’s path. He attended the Institute for Contemporary Art in Washington D.C. from 1948-49. Over the years Gresser held residencies at the Sculpture Studio, Washington D.C., Yale University, Wesley Theological Seminary and Mt. Rushmore National Memorial. His work appeared in group and museum exhibitions throughout the USA, Mexico and Belgium as well as in the American Embassies in Switzerland, France, Nigeria, Madagascar, The Fiji Islands and Abu Dhabi. Influenced by Brancusi, Barlach and his mentor in Maryland, Bill Taylor, Gresser’s direct carving was both figurative and abstract. While the works reflect Gresser’s belief that art celebrates the human existence on a spiritual level, his greatest inspiration came from the strong women in his life. The long dialogue with Lichtblau is evident in a range of works on Old Testament themes.
The two artists exhibited together at The Museum of Religious Art, Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC, at the University
Chapel, Duke University, Durham, NC, and at Greene St. Gallery in NYC. The Chthonic/ Sublime exhibition will be the first pairing of their work in more than two decades.
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Schedule
from November 18, 2015 to December 12, 2015
Opening Reception on 2015-11-19 from 18:00 to 20:00