Jay Rosenblum

"Untitled, " Jay Rosenblum, Hard-Edge Color Field, Colorful Horizontal Stripes

1973

Oli T. Sihvonen (1921 - 1991) The Secrets in the Circle, 1962 Oil on canvas 25 x 34 in Signed lower right; signed, titled dated, and inscribed "Box 563 Taos, N.M." on the reverse Provenance: Private Collection, Nyack, New York Known for large, hard-edged abstractions, Oli T. Sihvonen, a Brooklyn native of Finnish ancestry, grew up in Connecticut. He attended the Norwich Art School before enrolling at the Art Students League in New York between 1938 and 1941. During World War II, Sihvonen served in the United States Army as a sergeant, specializing, as he later said, in “camouflage and deception.” His tour of duty took him to Europe where he encountered the work of Paul Cézanne. In the summer of 1946, Sihvonen traveled to western North Carolina to study at Black Mountain College, which experienced a boost in enrollment following the war years. He was greatly influenced by the progressive color theories of Josef Albers, and, later, the thinking of Buckminster Fuller. After leaving Black Mountain in 1948, Sihvonen continued his studies under the G.I. Bill at Louis Ribak’s Taos Valley Art School in New Mexico from 1949 to 1950. A year spent painting murals in Mexico included work for the Instituto Politécnico Nacional in Mexico City, an early example of his large-scale proficiency. Returning to the East Coast, Sihvonen held a succession of teaching posts: initially in Washington, DC, and then in New York City, first at Hunter College in 1954 and the following academic year at Cooper Union. Drawn to the southwestern landscape, Sihvonen moved to New Mexico, where he resided in Taos from 1956 through 1967. There, he painted sizeable geometric compositions with exuberant colors, which was atypical of Taos painters...

Sherron Francis Untitled, circa 1975 Acrylic on canvas 90 x 64 inches Artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Dan Christensen, and Sam Francis are already well-known name...

SHERRON FRANCIS (AMERICAN, B. 1940) Pete's Neck, 1981 Acrylic on canvas 34 1/2 x 22 inches Signed, titled and dated on the reverse A reappraisal is lo...

SHERRON FRANCIS (AMERICAN, B. 1940) Trap Rock, 1972 Acrylic on canvas 22 3/4 x 16 inches Signed, titled and dated on the reverse A reappraisal is long overdue for the second-generation abstract expressionists. Artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Dan Christensen, and Sam Francis are already well-known names. However, Sherron Francis, a female artist from the Midwestern United States, exhibited alongside many of these stars, yet has not been the recipient of a major exhibition in nearly 40 years. Francis was born in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove, Illinois in 1940. She studied fine art at the University of Oklahoma from 1958 to 1960 before transferring to the Kansas City Art Institute for better educational opportunities. At the time, Francis remained loyal to figurative art. Philip Pearlstein, a contemporary artist and visiting professor once remarked at the confidence of Francis’ draftsman abilities. In the early 1960s, art dealers and gallerists from New York would visit the Institute to recruit artists by offering scholarships, but they only offered these scholarships to men. Francis was forced to plead with deans to allow a scholarship for women so that she could continue her studies. She ultimately graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1963. In Missouri, Francis met Dan Christensen (Class of 1964), an artist friend, who would play a key role in her career throughout the next two decades. Francis then received her MFA from the University of Indiana, where she was housemates with Mernet Larsen, before assuming a teaching position at Eastern Michigan University. In 1968, with only $300 on hand, Francis moved to 16 Waverly Place in Soho. At the time, the neighborhood boasted some of the biggest names in abstract expressionism. She quickly became friends with Peter Reginato, Walter Darby Bannard, Michael Steiner, Peter Young, Larry Zox, and Larry Poons, who all lived and worked in the neighborhood. In fact, Francis introduced Larry Poons to his now wife, Paula, a friend and student of Sherron’s. Francis helped to found The Bowery Gallery in 1969 and received her first solo exhibition there in 1970 for her figurative works. After this exhibition, Francis decided to switch to abstraction. By 1971, Christensen, who was exhibiting with Andre Emmerich, introduced Francis to the legendary gallerist. There was no better gallery to be showcasing abstract expressionism and color field painting during this decade for an artist. For example, in 1972, Emmerich held solo exhibitions by art titans, such as Hans Hofmann, Al Held, Esteban Vicente, David Hockney, and Morris Louis. In 1973 alone, Emmerich gave one-person exhibitions to Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland, Hans Hofmann, Jack Bush and a new discovery: 32-year-old Sherron Francis. The January 27 - February 14 exhibition for Francis was a great success with Peter Schjeldahl commenting in the New York Times: “Francis has…sidestepped the danger of seeming hopelessly derivative of such artists as Mark Rothko, Morris Louis and Helen Frankenthaler —by, it seems to me, the use of a single canny formal device. All her canvases are tall, vertical rectangles. What this shape achieves is a physical presence that supports the paintings' fragile play of color and texture. Bearing roughly the proportions of the human body, but bigger in size, her pictures confront the viewer with a satisfying firmness, inviting delectation.” Francis’s career now took off with the stain paintings. In a 1974 article in Arts Magazine, Whee Kim writes, “She has asserted the credibility of her own answer to the problem of the outer edge of a canvas by limiting her investigations to a singular central image. In her variations on this theme, an intuitive sense of color and touch is given restricted free-play.” Schjeldahl added, “Her paintings, stained and brushed to a suavely grainy texture, each float an area of warm, soft color in a somewhat less‐intensely colored field. The areas are amorphous in shape and closely related, by hue, to the surrounding fields. Her colors run to luxurious brown‐golds, dreamy bluegreens and dusty pinks, though each canvas is alive with a variety of evanescent hues and tints. The goal of her art is to be at once as gorgeous and as delicate as possible: she intends to ravish.” In 1973, Francis exhibited at the Whitney Biennial and then received a second solo exhibition at Emmerich the following year. Corporate collections and private enthusiasts, including Helen Frankenthaler, rushed to purchase her paintings. More than sixty of her paintings sold in one year at Emmerich’s gallery. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Francis exhibited at other leading American galleries, including Janie C. Lee Gallery in Houston, Barbara Kornblatt Gallery in Baltimore, Douglas Drake in Kansas City, Rubiner Gallery in Detroit, and Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York. Francis always marched to the beat to her own drum. Although she admired the works of Jules Olitski, Jack Bush, and Kenneth Noland, Francis never felt that her work and lifestyle were influenced by others. When her friends summered in the...

Sherron Francis Untitled, 1973 Acrylic on canvas 70 x 48 inches Artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Dan Christensen, and Sam Francis are already well-known names. How...

Knox Martin (1923 - 2022) Untitled Signed to lower edge Acrylic and gold foil on canvas 9 x 9 inches Knox Martin (1923-2022) was an esteemed New York School painter. Knox Martin was born in 1923 in Barranquilla, Colombia. He was the son of the aviator, painter, and poet William Knox Martin, the first man to fly over the Andes Mountains. After serving in World War II, Knox Martin attended the Art Students League of New York on the G.I. Bill from 1946-1950, where he studied with Harry Sternberg, Vaclav Vytlacil, Will Barnet, and Morris Kantor. In 1954, Knox Martin's friend Franz Kline placed a painting of his in the Stable Gallery Annual. Charles Egan of the renowned Charles Egan Gallery saw Knox Martin's painting at the Stable Gallery and asked Martin to show his work in a one-man show for the tenth anniversary of the Egan Gallery. Since then, Knox Martin was a celebrated painter, sculptor and muralist. Knox Martin had an extensive exhibition record and his work is in museum, corporate and private collections worldwide. His two best-known murals in NYC are Venus and Woman with Bicycle...

"Woman in Pink, Blue, and Gray" is an acrylic on canvas painting measuring 24" tall by 18" wide. It's very active, with a woman wearing a colorful cap with feather, her tresses falling down behind/beside her, portrayed with cubist abandon as the artist folds in Picasso with Philip Guston... Note all the formal elements are present – her eyes, her smile, her dress and bosom – yet assemble and disassemble in front of our eyes. From Peter Schenck...

"Rembrandt Woman" is an intriguing painting, a woman in classic Dutch master portrait pose with a hand modestly holding her secrets dear, yet por...

About the series COLOR BOMBS I want the Color Bombs to be beacons of positivity that can radiate across the room or whisper quietly beside you. I love the freedom and openness of co...

About the series COLOR BOMBS I want the Color Bombs to be beacons of positivity that can radiate across the room or whisper quietly beside you. I love the freedom and openness of co...

Our shaped canvas which also is a sculptural form in essence for a wall, is a geometric play of optical illusion. Hinman is an important pioneer of exploration in the contemporary world, away from the idea of the “square” and flat canvas. He is linked to such artists as Robert Indiana, James Rosenquist, Tom Wesselman and he pre-dated Frank Stella’s exploration of canvas as wall relief structures...

"Strengths and Weaknesses" is a portrait exploring several elements and strategies that fascinate the artist – notably the performance anxiety induced by simply being an artist, staring down the freight train of art history as it hurtles toward you every time you pick up a brush. Luck? Talent? Maybe. There are signposts and guides in this painting, of course (Cubism! Surrealism! Brancusi! Guston!), but they can clobber you too if you're not careful. Even the phrase "strengths and weaknesses" smacks of compromises and rationalization – deadly to an artist looking to construct their own integral world. "Strengths and Weaknesses" is an acrylic and charcoal on canvas measuring 54" tall by 54" wide. It was included in the artist's solo show "Comedy Cellar" at Freight + Volume Gallery, New York City in July 2018. (See last photograph for an installation view.) From Daniel Gerwin – "Schenck’s color is vibrant, wild, saturated to the point of overheating, and altogether brilliant in the balancing of hues, temperatures, shapes, and color quantities. The paintings have a remarkable coherence for their dizzying juxtaposition of so many small chromatic passages." (Essay: The Anxiety and the Ecstasy) Peter Schenck...