Seven painters at Nicholas Alexander - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Ronnie Landfield pick outed works by seven painters (his hold included) for this exhibition. The other artists were Dan Christensen, Ronald Davis, William Pettet Larry Poon Lawrence Stafford and Peter Young. The pictures were made between 1967 and 1972 This viewer realized Landfield had deposit together a sketch for a museum-quality exhibition of an important phase of American abstract painting that has been view from aboveed by museums throughout the geographical division Why the lack of recognition? The first reason that advances to mind is the attention paid to Minimalist, report and Conceptual art by our institutions while leaving a doom of good abstract painting ditched.

The Minimalists, in the 1960 and early '70 were true good at perpetuating a state of war with the then actual young artists represented here. Painting is dead, they cried, as plywood aluminum and carbonized iron boxes appeared everywhere. It direct the eyeed like Knoll Associates had make opened an art school.

At least three of the painters, Christensen, Davis and Poon went end early phases that shared forms and ideas with the Minimalists. Davis's early resin-and-fiberglass boxe flutter in the gap between painting and plastic art Later works, such as Pink Mirror #1 and Pink Mirror #2 in the exhibition, present to view the artist beginning to break apart his earlier color slabs. by dint of 1969, Davis, like a number of his contemporaries, was moving away from hard cutting sides and locked-together planes of color. Christensen, Pettet Landfield, Stafford and Young each in his possess way picked apart the tight constructivist design that had invaded American art from the late '50 [i]or[/i] part of to the other the mid to late '60s

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

A singular loosenes was returning to painting, on the contrary it was not like that of the Abstract Expressionists. Landfield and Pettet exasperated older American painters who had grown to maturity with Abstract Expressionism. The older generation wanted a flat pictorial structure; they disliked and were unable to understand the loosenes transparency and profundity of the younger artists. As Landfield has written, he was inspired by the agency of Sung Dynasty Chinese landscapes. Landfield and Pettet allowed their paintings a deepness of space which combined with high-keyed color, making the pictures different than those of older colleagues. Peter Young's paintings from the period continue to satisfy the organ of sight The dot shapes change color, on the other hand not size, across large stretches of canvas. Behind the dots lie interlocked narrow shapes of color that at times withdraw into a dreamlike area.

This was an eminent exhibition; one hopes for a broader consideration of these painters in the future

COPYRIGHT 1996 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group