PAUL FEELEY | GARTH GREENAN GALLERY
AN ARTIST'S GAME WITH JACKS
April 7 - May 14, 2016
529 W 20th Street
Garth Greenan Gallery is pleased to announce Paul Feeley: An Artist’s Game with Jacks, an exhibition of paintings, watercolors, and drawings at 529 West 20th Street. Opening on Thursday, April 7, 2016, the exhibition is the first presentation of Feeley’s work since his recent retrospective at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (2014–2015; Columbus Museum of Art, 2015–2016). Seven of his brightly colored, abstract paintings will be on view, as well as a selection of related works on paper.
The exhibition charts the evolution of the jack, Feeley’s signature form, from 1963 to 1964. Its shape, in various guises and combinations, reappears in these works, where its curves give lively rhythm to symmetrical patterns. Such simple shapes, which at the same time seem both poised and exuberant, are Feeley’s hallmark. Also, the jack shape was uniquely suited to Feeley’s ongoing interest in seriality and repetition, one shared by many Minimal and Pop artists but comparatively few of his color field “peers.”
Born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1910, Paul Feeley studied painting at Menlo College, Menlo Park, California and the Art Students League. After completing his training, Feeley began teaching, first at Cooper Union (1935–1939) and later at Bennington College. The artist remained at Bennington for 27 years (1939–1966) and founded its celebrated art department. Committed to the art of his peers, Feeley exposed his students—among them, Helen Frankenthaler—to many of the most significant artists of his time. In addition, while at Bennington, he organized the first retrospective exhibitions of Hans Hoffmann, Jackson Pollock, and David Smith.
Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Feeley had solo exhibitions at many prominent institutions, including: Tibor de Nagy Gallery (1954, 1955, 1958, New York), Betty Parsons Gallery (1960, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1970, 1971, 1975, New York), and Kasmin Gallery (1964, London). During this period, his work was also featured in important museum exhibitions, such as Post Painterly Abstraction (1964, Los Angeles County Museum of Art), The Shaped Canvas (1964, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum), The Responsive Eye (1965, Museum of Modern Art), and Systemic Painting (1966, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum), among others. In 1968, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum mounted a memorial retrospective exhibition of Feeley’s work.
Feeley’s work is featured in the collections of major museums around the country, including: the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; the Columbus Museum of Art; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Fogg Museum, Harvard University; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution; the McNay Art Museum; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Modern Art; the Phoenix Art Museum; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; the Wadsworth Atheneum; and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Garth Greenan Gallery is pleased to represent the Estate of Paul Feeley.
Paul Feeley: An Artist's Game with Jacks will be on view at Garth Greenan Gallery, 529 West 20th Street (between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues), through Saturday, May 14, 2016. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. For more information, please contact Garth Greenan at (212) 929-1351, or email garth@garthgreenan.com.
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