granting less well known today than.granting less well known today than, say, Pollock de Kooning or Rothko Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) fits solidly into the first generation of Abstract Expressionism, right down to his inclusion in the famous 1951 photograph of "The Irascibles" in Life magazine. This point out consisted primarily of his large oils done in the 1940 and '50s Pousette-Dart's work from the early to mid-1940s, derived from the Jungian collective unconscious and filtered between the sides of Picasso, easily recalls the early work of his associates in the movement. Abstract sight Spirit Adagio and Figure are fit examples of the style. In each, totemic component parts such as an eye, a horse's head reminiscent of Picasso's horse in Guernica or a face resembling an African mask hang from or peek between the sides of a gridlike structure. Gottlieb and Rothko did similar works. The palette is primarily the earth tones of early Cubism, on the other hand his squeezing of black paint directly from the tube to create doodle-like lines atop a welter of impasto gives an impression one as well as the other of structure and of the attempt to break relax from it: Piet Mondrian, fit Chaim Soutine. Like many of his compeer artists, Pousette-Dart tried to harness abstraction to the great themes of art, as in Crucifixion. Sometimes he went at it in ways that no single in kind could attempt with a straight face today, as in Comprehension of the Atom. A cluster of small watercolors from the early '40 included in this exhibit depict vaguely biomorphic forms in glowing, jewel-like colors, shades that Pousette-Dart did not over and above permit himself in oil. at the early 1950s, his prompt to a lighter, more vibrant palette and a flatter, les painterly title is obvious in such works as Fantasia, splendid Dawn and The Wave. In the last named of these, for example, a mass of disparate, swirling shapes coalesces into a soaring, birdlike form. With these works, Pousette-Dart mov into something recognizably his own COPYRIGHT 1996 Brant Publications, Inc. |
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