Abe Ajay’s first solo exhibition was held in 1964 at the Rose Fried Gallery, a well-known venue for supporting and introducing modernism into the American art market. It was after this debut that Ajay began seriously seeking an artistic transition which would introduce elements of painting, architecture, and sculpture into his work. Incorporating a variety of found objects into his works, cigar molds, knobs, dowels, geometric blocks, and transparent paper, each combination of these elements served as a continuum of the unexpected and experience of perpetual surprise.

 

As an artist who challenged the boundaries of mid-century modernism, Ajay employed various tenets of the Hard-Edge, Assemblage, and Ready-made artistic movements, resulting in a precise, clean-cut and intricate art form resembling that of both sculpture and painting. Within his artwork resonates temperaments of vitality, invention, harmony, rhythm and balance. 

 

Ten other one-man exhibitions followed in Ajay’s career, as well as continuous coverage in art publications including Art in America, Arts Magazine and the New York Times art section.

 

His work remains in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim, Smithsonian, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Neuberger Museum of Art. His work was also included in the private collections of J.Walter Thompson Company, the U.S. Steel Corporation and Bank of America.

Bernece Berkman-Hunter was a pioneer painter, graphic artist, designer, and teacher born in 1911 in Chicago, Illinois. 

 
She studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago and privately with two of Chicago’s important early modernists, Todros Geller and Rudolph Weisenborn. Geller viewed art as a tool for social reform. Weisenborn was an avant-garde painter. Aligned against the academic establishment, both of these artists introduced Hunter to Cubism, Expressionism and the power of art as a visual “tool for social reform.” 

 

She was a member of the radical American Artists Conference and joined a printmaking group that circulated left-wing pamphlets advocating that artists and writers crusade for social reform. One of her themes was the 1937 steel strike in South Chicago where police and workers clashed and many people were injured and several killed. Berkman-Hunter also painted earlier work that belied “a true Regionalist” style which garnered her the distinction of being “a master at capturing the urban milieu around her” she eventually abandoned this more traditional form of painting. The primary focus of her artistic career became an increased commitment to political activism.

 

Eventually, an even greater artistic influence on her work would come from under the direction of one of “America’s leading abstractionists”, Stuart Davis. During the late 40s Hunter studied with Davis at The New School for Social Research in New York City, an emerging arts center that became renowned as a “home to the "modernist" impulse in painting, dance, politics, social policy and the “arts in general.” It was here that she further developed what would ultimately become her signature style, geometric colorist abstraction, a highly personalized synthesis of cubism, fauvism, and expressionism. This style was comprised of “angular shapes, compressed space, vibrant color and distorted forms” all of which culminate in a highly individualistic modernist style.

 

As an important first generation female abstractionist she never abandoned the strong commitment to “political activism” found in her early works. To the contrary, much like Davis’, who continually “strived to portray the tempo of American life” in his work, Hunter continued to infuse social commentary in her pieces as well. Her early participation in modernism puts her in the very rare position (along with other first generation luminaries such as Lee Krasner and Hedda Sterne) of being among a handful of female forerunner’s to the mid-century Abstract Expressionist American art movement.

 

Hunter’s paintings are included in important public and private collections throughout the country and she was a member of many prominent art associations. She also had the distinction of her art be included in the American art exhibition at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, an honor bestowed on a select group of artists.

Starting from his humble beginnings in Spain to his early international success in Paris, which was subsequently surpassed in America, Jose de Creeft forged his name in stone as a major American artist by the early 1940’s. Known as one of the major contributors in developing key techniques in modernist sculpting, de Creeft drew from a wide variety of resources, among them primitivism, tribalism, abstraction, linearism, Folk Art, and his imagination, to create works which duly supported his ingenuity as an artist and capitalized on his versatility in successfully using any medium, style and theme. His sculptures, paintings and drawings all retain a unique sensibility; one which simultaneously references the past and the future. Most importantly, de Creeft’s oeuvre retains all of the nuances and elements of human expression in its most intimate and fleeting moments. He successfully captured the soul of the medium and subject matter, transcending his emotional energy through his carving.  

 

SCULPTURE

 

In 1915 de Creeft was living in Paris among the modernist artists of the first wave of modernism. Picasso, Gris, Miro and Braque were all instrumental in the European and American modernist movements and the Parisian ambiance set the stage for invaluable discussions on art, criticism and methodology.      Desiring to formulate his own personal aesthetic, de Creeft departed from the traditional techniques and traditions of sculpting, which helped frame the conservative academic institutions worldwide, and instead wholeheartedly applied himself to the process of “taille direct”, direct carving. 

 

De Creeft’s earliest introduction to carving was in 1900 at the age of 16, where he was apprenticed to a workshop in Barcelona to carve wood reproductions of devotional figures. While the workshop served as an artistically developmental stage for de Creeft, it was an Eskimo exposition in Madrid two years later, which had a profound impact on his developing aesthetic. “The Eskimos impressed me [de Creeft] with their simplicity and their directness of expression. With tiny pieces of ivory they made monumental sculptures that had strength, power and serenity, though they were less than hand-sized”. [Mecklenburg, 1983] 

 

For de Creeft, the creative process was his life; if he wasn’t carving a piece of stone or wood, he was creating his own tools, which allowed him to produce more exacting results. His method of carving allowed him to be a part of the entire process of creating a finished piece, one which was not defined as the result of a preconceived determination, but instead as a result of the unbridled spontaneity necessary for artistic fulfillment. Each sculpture embodied his philosophy that the relationship between the artist and his body of work is reciprocal rather than hierarchical. De Creeft responded to each stone, marble block or piece of wood individually, allowing each to evolve from the relationship between the artisan and the innate personality of each material. 

 

In addition to direct carving, de Creeft received much accolade for his assemblages of found objects, most famously Le Picador. Created in 1925, this sculpture radically departed from his direct carving methodology. De Creeft created sculptures similar to this throughout his career, Ostrich, Source, Cat of My Concierge (004), and Bird, are just a few examples. It is obvious from each of his assemblages that de Creeft was still wholeheartedly interested in the innate nature of the material. “From my earliest youth I have always found pleasure in giving life to old objects that have lost their usefulness…..to deliver them from obscurity [ like a rock] and transform them into objects of art”. [Mecklenburg, 1983] It is with each of these assemblages that one can most intimately be a part of de Creeft’s humorous side.

 

DRAWING AND PAINTING

 

De Creeft thoroughly enjoyed the craft of painting, and drawing specifically, because it allowed him the most rapid documentation of his thoughts. It provided a means of expressing that which was too laborious to carve. These two-dimensional mediums and techniques allowed him to create an imaginary world, filled with animals, characters and landscapes, all which attested to his unwavering interest in “expressing his beliefs and feelings about life and to elevate mankind by demonstrating man’s creative aspirations”. (De Creeft, 1945). 

 

De Creeft’s early training as a draftsman began in Madrid and continued in Paris at the Academie Julien where he learned the techniques of perspective and precision, but similar to his path chosen in sculpting, he soon set into a world of his own, creating biomorphic creatures in imaginative environments. These creatures reflect much of de Creeft’s primitive and African influences and successfully capitalize on the transcendence of ideas pertaining to evolution, even more easily realized in his drawings than his sculptures. Nina del Mar (022), Fortaleza (011), and Frenzy (012), all draw on similar qualities of organic and biomorphic natures. The definition of characteristics associated with both land and sea animals are evident, while the final compositions incorporate a mélange of these associative references in an entangled and rather disassociated manner.

 

De Creeft used his drawings not as a technical tool or academic exercise, but instead as an expression. His early drawings of the 1900’s have a futuristic aesthetic, with their bold lines, hard contours and unshaded areas. However his drawings from the 1920’s represent a more romantic approach, filled with voluptuousness, sensuality and maternalness, as seen in Mallorca (018).

 

De Creeft’s paintings follow a much more abstract path than his drawing and sculpture. His paintings ranged from various themes of self-portraiture, abstraction, figuration, and landscape and similar to his carving, he used a variety of different mediums. Exuberance (030), a mixed media work incorporates elements of the stained glass technique within its context, while Chinatown (005) with its rich tonal values and syncopated brushstrokes visually references the abstraction of the fast-paced, hustle and bustle of downtown Manhattan. It is in this painting where de Creeft’s sensibility to color and his deliverance of only the most necessary features are most evident.

 

 

 

 

COMMISSIONS, EXHIBITIONS, AND MUSEUMS

 

De Creeft was not only admired by his peers, but also by the public. Within his lifetime he was awarded the opportunity for several important public commissions including two hundred stone sculptures for the Fortaleza in Mallorca (1927-29), the Alice and Wonderland bronze group in New York City (1957-59), and the Nurses mosaic mural at the Bronx Municipal Hospital (1961-62) to name a few. 

 

His work was included in numerous solo exhibitions around the world including a major retrospective at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona in 1980, which circulated throughout seven different cities in Spain, a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1960 and major exhibition at the National Museum of Art, Washington D.C. in 1983. In addition, de Creeft has a long group exhibition history at landmark institutions such as the Art Institute of Chicago, The Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.

Although Dehner’s artistic recognition came undeservedly late in her career, her early artistic training proved extremely formative in developing her future aesthetic. Beginning at the Art Student’s League in 1925 and continuing private studies with Jan Matulka in 1929, Dehner was introduced to some of the great modernists including John Graham, Milton Avery, Stuart Davis and Arshile Gorky.

 

Trained first as a painter and draftswoman, Dehner’s delicate drawings and watercolors are a prelude to her work as a sculptor beginning in 1955. They represent the possibilities available to an artist and suggest an "affinity with the understated aesthetic of Paul Klee with each line, color and form emphasizing both a visual and a symbolic isolation". [Grove]   These works draw upon the primitive, calligraphic nature of oriental art.

 

Creating only original works using welding and the lost-wax process, Dehner’s sculptures are monumental in concept and delicate in their deliverance. They reference elements of Constructivism, nature and architecture, and each work remains a testament to the personal and universal symbolic message of art, a mentality implicit of the New York School.

 

Unfortunately Dehner’s artistic career was overshadowed by the career of her husband, David Smith; it would not be until after she left Smith in 1950 that Dehner would begin to gain recognition for her drawings and sculpture. Major peer recognition from greats like Louise Nevelson came about just as the Abstract Expressionist movement would wane.  

 

Throughout her career, Dehner had over 50 solo exhibitions and her works are included in the permanent collections of numerous major institutions including the Whitney, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

 

 

 

A candid reflection on the artistic career of Budd Hopkins reveals a style imbued with the emotional dynamism of the 1950’s, the cool sensibility of the 1960’s, and the linear geometricism of the 1970’s. Works from all points of his illustrious career are in the collection of thirty-two museums including the Guggenheim Museum, The Corcoran Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney.

 

Hopkins’ oeuvre conveys a sense of uninhibited ‘harmony and life-like complexity’, an intensity that continues to dominate his work today. The multiplicity which exists in his canvases pay tremendous homage to Mondrian’s geometric canon, Rothko’s color and depth experiments, and the Abstract Expressionist’s unbridled emotional expressiveness.  

 

It was during the early stages of Abstract Expressionism that Hopkins’ artistic career first took hold and he openly embraced the current aesthetic using equally charged brushstrokes, heavily applied paint, and massive canvases, just as his peers. Forging relationships with Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, Hopkins received constructive criticism which helped shape his art form and develop his growing aesthetic.

 

By the mid-1960’s, Hopkins found a style to call his own, one in which angles and circles, blacks and whites, flatness and depth and color field and abstraction harmoniously exist. This unique style primarily developed from his response to Leger’s later hard-edged works, and also a general increased interest in collages. The collages provided Hopkins with “a method of concretizing the implicit geometries of Abstract Expressionism without sacrificing any of its energy” (Kingsley, 1972)

 

While the works from the 1960’s reveal a more static moment in time, the works from the 1970’s and 80’s reach far beyond a multi-dimensional atmosphere. Using variable color and shape arrangements, Hopkins created “layers” of multi-dimensional planes which transcend both time and movement. These works exemplify Hopkins’ ability to transcend movement on a two-dimensional plane, revealing a struggle for “time and attention” within one space. 

 

 

 

 

A leading modernist of the New Hope artist colony in Pennsylvania, Lloyd Ney’s body of work is expressive of a well-rounded and skillful artist who constantly experimented with modernist styles and techniques. His bright use of colors, experimental styles and multi-dimensional perspectives provide corroboration for his early training in Europe. 

 

His artistic independence truly flourished after he won the Cresson Fellowship in 1918, allowing him to study and travel in Europe during the early 1920’s. It is evident from these earlier years that Ney embraced a more ‘expressive contemporary style’, with which he always experimented, but never departed. 

 

Upon his return from Europe, Ney settled down in the artist colony of New Hope, Pennsylvania and became an integral part of the group known as the Independents; a group of artists who challenged the traditional subject matter of the regional artists. They formed a new exhibition group called the New Hope Modernist School, of which Ney exhibited in for most of his life.

 

Ney’s career also included fifteen years of exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, with three of his works kept in their permanent collection. 

Considered the most avid Bauhaus proponent in the United States, Irene Rice Pereira’s oeuvre reflects her commitment to machine-age materials and a philosophy that called for a merging of technology and the transcendental. (Smithsonian Archives)   Her works emphasize the importance of light, space and its continuum; ideas inherent throughout Pereira’s entire oeuvre. 

 

As a founding member of the Design Laboratory in New York, which encouraged experimentation with all art forms and mediums, Pereira was also an early member of the American Abstract Artist’s, a group dedicated to the promotion of abstract art.

 

She created her first glass painting in 1939. The illusionistic three-dimensional quality of these works on glass created a responsive and independent movement between light and color; a transcendence of space.

 

Pereira’s works from the 1950’s and 1960’s are her most comprehensive and successful attempts at creating works which were both technically satisfying and philosophically transcendental.  Works from this time period represent Pereira’s newly developed vocabulary, one in which geometric symbolism is used in place of visually interpretable objects; The tripartite represents the earth, the sky and the infinite space in between (also known as the light penetrating space); the periscope-shaped symbols represent the infinite expansion of the mind; and the yellow square, in the middle, represents the lapis, or philosopher’s stone, a source which would bring enlightenment upon the maker. 

 

Pereira’s unique voice and style earned her major retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art in 1946 and the Whitney in 1953. After the closing of her 1953 retrospective, Pereira became extremely vocal about her assertions that the museums were systematically suppressing her work; a similar claim made by the Irascibles only three years earlier. In addition she fervently published her criticism of the Abstract Expressionists, a position which slowly alienated her from her peers, the dealers, the institutions and ultimately the entire art world. 

 

Milton Resnick and Willem de Kooning met in 1938 and became close friends.  By 1946, they were actively exchanging artistic ideas. They would debate the importance of drawing verus painting or discuss the salient critique by Arshile Gorky of the eyes in Willem’s figure painting, and how they should be removed.

 

As a leading member of the Abstract Expressionist movement and “Club” member, Milton Resnick was able to develop his own artistic sensibilities using the dialogue within these forums as a means of theorizing about and critiquing his own work. The process of painting was much more personal than it had been in earlier decades. Artists painted the reflections of their belief structure, in essence their souls. 

 

Resnick, like many other artists, came to desire an “overall quality for his pictures”. He wanted to make paintings which had no specific focus, where one part of the canvas was not more important than another. “There is no eccentricity in the way I paint….I have processes. It is when I pull the brush across that I look for a painting. What I like is for a painting to act in many different directions at once, so strongly, that it will shatter itself and open up a small crack, which will suck the world in.” (Resnick, 2006)

 

It was in the early 1960’s, after more than a full decade of painting, that Resnick found his niche. He had become obsessed with the viscosity of the paint, the fervor of total detachment of the recognizable, and the transient ability of sustaining snapshots of utter honesty within a work. With a new artistic impetus in movement, Resnick began creating a series of virtually monochromatic paintings which incorporated his invention of the wax-impregnated board and could hold almost double the amount of paint than that of the average canvas and stretcher. These monochromatic, heavily laden paintings provided only a glimpse or “key” of contrasting color; an ode to Resnick’s artistic premise.

 

Resnick’s work is in included in the permanent collections of numerous museums including the National Gallery, the Whitney, and the Smithsonian.