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JULES OLITSKI: On the Edge
Salacion Touch-3, 1978, Acrylic on canvas

Salacion Touch-3, 1978

Acrylic on canvas

56 x 26 inches

 

JULES OLITSKI: On the Edge
11th Radical Love, 1972, Acrylic on canvas

11th Radical Love, 1972

Acrylic on canvas

80 x 42 inches

 

JULES OLITSKI: On the Edge
Samaria Sin-Kir.-2, 1978, Waterbase acrylic on canvas

Samaria Sin-Kir.-2, 1978

Waterbase acrylic on canvas

57 x 36 inches

 

Hyksos Factor-Four, 1975, Acrylic on canvas

Hyksos Factor-Four, 1975

Acrylic on canvas

38 x 103 inches

 

JULES OLITSKI: On the Edge
Cythera-2, 1977, Acrylic on canvas

Cythera-2, 1977

Acrylic on canvas

79 x 51 inches

 

Beauty Mouth 16, 1972, Acrylic on canvas

Beauty Mouth 16, 1972

Acrylic on canvas

75 x 30 inches

 

Absalom Passage-Seventeen, 1973, Acrylic on canvas

Absalom Passage-Seventeen, 1973

Acrylic on canvas

35 x 100 inches

 

JULES OLITSKI: On the Edge
Jules Olitski, First Love-5, 1972

Jules Olitski

First Love-5, 1972

Acrylic on canvas

53 x 46 inches

 

Nimrod Measure 10, 1978, Acrylic on canvas

Nimrod Measure 10, 1978

Acrylic on canvas

84 x 24 inches

 

JULES OLITSKI: On the Edge
Moab Plain-3, 1975, Acrylic on canvas

Moab Plain-3, 1975

Acrylic on canvas

105 x 27.8 inches

 

JULES OLITSKI: On the Edge
JULES OLITSKI: On the Edge
Absalom Passage-14, 1973, Acrylic on canvas

Absalom Passage-14, 1973

Acrylic on canvas

120 x 67 inches

 

Hyksos Factor III, 1975, Acrylic on canvas

Hyksos Factor III, 1975

Acrylic on canvas

90 x 35 inches

 

JULES OLITSKI: On the Edge
Moab Plain-3, 1975, Acrylic on canvas

Moab Plain-3, 1975

Acrylic on canvas

105 x 27.8 inches

 

JULES OLITSKI: On the Edge

A Decade of Innovation

November 5, 2015 – January 16, 2016

A selection of paintings by Jules Olitski from 1970 to 1980 will be on view from Nov. 5, 2015 - Jan. 16, 2016 at Leslie Feely Gallery. 

 

This exhibition will explore the artist's continued investigation of light and color through varying painting techniques, processes and materials. Dubbed the Baroque paintings, the artist pursued this exploration with new instruments such as paint guns, acrylic gels, brooms, squeegees and sponges. Departing from the stain paintings of the 1960s, Olitski's canvases of the 1970s feature lush surfaces in inspired compositions. 

 

The artist points out, "I was trying to extend Rembrandt's use of flowing paint, his chiaroscuro, and just as much, his impasto into modern painting."  Influenced by the work of the Old Masters of the Renaissance, the Baroque and the Dutch Golden Age, Olitski's  raised, bas-relief surfaces explore a dimensional quality in modern abstraction. 

 

On view is the seminal, Hyksos Factor III, 1975, which recalls Pablo Picasso's Nude Woman, 1910 in surface, illumination and dimensionality. Painted in four separate steps, Olitski began by rolling a grey color onto the canvas leaving an irregular overall texture. This ground was then sculpted with a transparent glaze or gel to reinforce the surface. Next, Olitski squeezed across the surface a black pigment in medium before applying another transparent medium with a squeegee, manipulating the black vertical strokes. The result is a lustrous balance of shifts from light to dark suspended above the grisaille canvas.

 

Also included in the exhibition is Cythera-2, 1977 evocative of Jean-Antoine Watteau's, The Embarkation for Cythera, 1717. Olitski's title is a reference to the island Kythira (Cythera) considered to be the birthplace of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Here, the artist introduces abstract forms in a delicate wash of pastel blue and yellow atop an undulating surface.

 

Jules Olitski was born in Snovsk, Soviet Russia in 1922. His work is included in many collections world-wide, including: the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Tate Modern, London. In 1966, Olitski was selected as one of four artist to represent the United States in the Venice Biennale and became the first living American artist to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 1969. In 2011, the gallery staged an exhibition of Jules Olitiski and Anthony Caro: Marking Art as Naked as Possible. Jules Olitski died in New York in 2007.