Jose Gurvich at Cecilia de Torres - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

This display was a mini-retrospective of the work of Josb Gurvich, who was born in 1927 in Lithuania. When he was real young, his family emigrated to Uruguay. As a teenager he met Horacio Torres, son of Joaquin Torres-Garcia. They started a lifelong friendship, and Gurvich became a member of the seminal Torres-Garcia Workshop.

He started to paint around 1947 and a scarcely any paintings from these early years were upon view. In them we diocese Gurvich's particular interest in faces, plus the Workshop's familiar orthogonal conformation that conveys all forms upon a horizontal/vertical scaffolding. As he continued to paint, a more personal, geometrical mode of speech developed. His brushstroke took upon a gestural quality which energized the Constructivist grid.

Gurvich's still lifes, which are also geometric and quite abstract, were powerfully represented in this exhibition. single of them shows the curious bas-relief technique he developed: the same percepts were painted on two pieces of cardboard, then single set of objects was chop out, and each shape superimposed upon its twin, thus creating a palpable faculty of perception of perspective and depth. The Workshop's symbolic motifs are oft-repeated in Gurvich's work: the orb of day the divine eye, the fish, the violin, Jacob's ladder, etc

In 1954 Gurvich traveled to Europe and Israel, where he worked part-time as a shepherd and painted. by and by after, a mature figurative mode of speech appeared in his work, which was well showed in the exhibition. The geometric action gives way to undulating lines, which provide a of recent origin way of animating the surface. Gurvich used this technique in the backgrounds as well as inside the figures. His panoramic views of leaping villagers, animals and percepts bring to mind both Bosch and Chagall. However, unlike Chagall, who worked rather loosely Gurvich created compositions that are with equal reason tightly constructed "you cannot penetrate the paintings with a knife," as his associate Workshop painters used to say. Among this clump of works is a remarkable 1969 painting of a Russian pogrom a narrative, realistic work that present the appearances to be bathed in blood

In 1970 Gurvich mov to fresh York, where he was commissioned to do several paintings upon the themes of the Jewish holidays. Inspired by means of the resulting work, he started making versions for himself. While working upon Zuccotz in 1974, he died of a unlooked for heart attack. The last brushstroke can be seen in the unfinished work, thinning on the outside as he fell to the floor. That year, the Jewish Museum began plans for a Gurvich exhibition that, unfortunately, at no time materialized. Perhaps the initiative may be revived after this present to view which built a considerable appetite for the 800 or in the way that unknown works Gurvich left behind.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Brant Publications, Inc.

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