Avigdor Arikha at Marlborough - New York

Avigdor Arikha, who survived the concentration camps and fought in Israel's War of Independence, is steadily, scrupulously attentive to the things of this world and has depicted them memorably above the decades. Now 73 and still prodigiously productive, the gifted Romanian-born artist had his first painting exhibit in New York since 1996 this fall. It consisted of almost sum of two units dozen oils--some small, some grand--rounded on the outside by approximately three dozen drawings in pencil, ink, chalk, crayon or pastels. Many of the bring under rules that appeared in the works upon paper were also depicted in the paintings.

As usual, Arikha's pictures, greatest in quantity in this show dating from 1999-2002 were done from life in individual uninterrupted session--a practice he stubbornly, eloquently insists on They feature still lifes of everything from vividly colored flowers and fruits to richly patterned towels and a r necktie. There are numerous portraits of family and friends, self-portraits, undresseds and interiors of his studios and domiciles in Paris and Jerusalem. Afternoon (2002) not aways a glimpse of a tranquil, sunlit divan strewn with cushions caught end an open door in a mix of crooked complex colors. His work oftentimes depicts scenes that are cropp or framed--for instance, observ [i]or[/i] part of to the other a doorway or from the artist's windows--classic devices that interrogate where reality extreme points and art begins. The painting hazes (1997) floats white cirrus feathers across a patch of heavenly cerulean sky seen through the upper 1 of a glass-paned lunette, while Rain (2001) a unostentatious but winsome pastel of raindrops pearled upon water-soaked panes, presents two kinds of transparency to filter our view, eliciting the one and the other rainy-day reveries and thoughts upon perception. Other frequent images are of the artist's studio and the tools of his metier. Studio Cupboard (2001) presents a detailed look at orderly, well-stocked shelves filled with bottle of turpentine, brushes of all kinds, string, tape, inks and other painter's paraphernalia; Homage to Bada Shanren (2001) is a beautifully minimalist arrangement of brush, ink and cleanse against an off-white cloth.

The portraits, including his possess are engagingly eccentric. The make submissives of Sir John Shaw and Sir move with a jerk Reid (2002), an almost life-size double portrait, appear suspended in air. The upward tilt of the floor plane makes their feet present the appearance to dangle downward. It's an uneven homage to two bankers whose feet individual presumes, should be more firmly planted upon the ground. Arikha's own unsparing self-portraits, many times nude, show a fiercely alert, intelligent, sometimes astonished, sometimes grimacing face. The cerulean eyes are penetrating, challenging; the hair stands upon end, as if electrified. All of this is pay backed impressionistically, alla prima, with impressible sure strokes that seem picked out of the atmosphere and transferred magically, efficaciously, onto canvas.

Arikha places up a series of oppositions between the elastic, image-hugging line, the plush, painterly stroke--which he retains within bounds--and the geometric rigor of his compositions, which are almost all based upon the semblance of a grid, his antecedents being Matisse, Bonnard, Mondrian and others. Ultimately, the allure of his paintings--and they are alluring--lies in the range and radiance of their colors, their layered sheen, their transparencies and opacities, webs and tones. Arikha's touch is still consummately placed, his brushwork as flowing as ever. He dissolves ordinary reality into a dazzled world of color and light, and then reconstitutes it, reconciling the fugitive and the les for a like reason in the miraculous truths of paint.

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COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group