There have been strong reactions to Abstract Expressionism over the course of the more than half century since its mold-breaking beginnings. Abstractionist painting being done today is often quickly labeled as derivative. But there’s something compelling about the energy and engagement in the work of artists who were committed to it at the time of its historic rise. Abstract Expressionism spanned both coasts, as a uniquely American phenomenon, cementing the nation’s place, pa

Bay Area Abstraction: 1945-1965” featuring paintings by Jack Jefferson, Frank Lobdell and Charles Strong is the best exhibition to date that I’ve seen at David Richard Contemporary. They always have some good work, but the space is usually so overhung and cluttered that it is impossible to see anything. This time, thankfully, there was no sculpture to back into or get in the way of the paintings. While New York is considered the center of Post-War American Art, abstract expr

The bearer of its passion. Locus is Latin for “place”—“where it’s happening,” in English—as in: “By the early 1950s,New York had emerged as the locus of Postwar abstraction.” In his introduction to 50 West Coast Artists, published three decades later (1981) by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, its director framed “the question of local designation” as an abiding problem for art history as well as for artists and the art world: “It seems to emerge from the unspoken and c

Click here to view catalog BAY AREA ABSTRACTION: 1945-1965 by David Eichholtz Abstract Expressionism dominated Post-War American art and was explored in parallel on the two coasts—in New York with notable figures such as Pollock, DeKooning, Motherwell, and Newman, and in San Francisco with painters such as Diebenkorn, Francis, Bischoff, Dugmore, Smith, Jefferson and Lobdell. There were striking similarities in the work produced from the two cities in terms of thick gestural b

Jack Jefferson, Embarcadero #4, 1962, Oil on canvas, 74" x 60" FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: BAY AREA ABSTRACTION: 1945-1965 Jack Jefferson, Frank Lobdell and Charles Strong November 11 – December 31, 2011 Opening reception: Friday, December 11, 2011, 5:00-7:00 PM David Richard Contemporary 130 Lincoln Avenue, Suite D, Santa Fe, NM 87501 p 505-983-9555 | f 505-983-1284 | www.DavidRichardContemporary.com David Richard Contemporary is pleased to present BAY AREA ABSTRACTION: 1945-1965