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Elaine de Kooning, Dore Ashton, Lawrence Campbell, Parker Tyler and Bernard Pfriem are just a few of the critics who have given acclaim to Jeanne Reynal.   Known primarily as a mosaic artist, Reynal had an important role in the Abstract Expressionist movement in New York as a pioneering mosaic artist, rediscovering the lost qualities of ancient mosaic and giving new meaning to the form through abstraction and its removal from architecture. Yet her work is almost unknown to the collecting public. 

Having apprenticed with Boris Anrep at the Atelier, in Paris, France from 1930 to 1938, she settled into her studio in New York City in 1946. Stable Gallery exhibited her work in the 50’s along with that of Robert Indiana, Joseph Cornell, Conrad Marca-Relli, Joan Mitchell, Isamu Noguchi, Cy Twombly, Jack Tworkov, and other important artists of the time. In 1955, Reynal married Thomas Sills

Reynal explored the sensuality of surface with her work. In searching for a means to a direct mosaic, she developed mosaics using a variety of materials cemented directly within a structural form. Influenced by her close friends Gorky and Rothko, Reynal created works that echoed the fluid lines and curves of Gorky’s early works. Her compositions emphasize swelling, biomorphic shapes, solidified in almost fossil-like constructions. (Denise Morris, Askart)

 
Reynals works are in numerous private collections and museums including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Denver Art Museum, The Ford Foundation, New York University and Phillips Academy.
Rolph Scarlett was the first American artist selected to provide paintings alongside Kandinsky, Klee and Bauer for Solomon Guggenheim’s Museum of Non-objective Painting beginning in 1940. Throughout his life Rolph Scarlett wavered between representational, geometric, Non-Objective and abstraction, the latter three representing his true voice and passion.
 
His body of work reflects an artist truly devoted to the exploration and continuation of abstract art, while simultaneously holding onto the romantic conception of the artist being the creator, an idea wholeheartedly rejected by the tenets of Non-Objective art, which is ironically what he is most well-known for.
 
Scarlett’s acceptance into the Museum of Non-objective painting resulted in a close friendship with its founder, Hilla Rebay and by 1940, Scarlett had become the new museum’s chief lecturer and within a decade the Guggenheim owned nearly sixty of his paintings and monoprints. With artists such as Rudolph Bauer, also working at the Guggenheim, and Rebay, offering their constructive criticism, Scarlett was guided through the Non-objective art world by the hand, but was never was blinded by their personal artistic philosophies.
 
Although Rebay’s support of Scarlett forced him to explore the geometric abstractions (Non-Objective) with pursuit, he continuously stood by his artistic methodology which is described as ”creating an organization that is alive as to color, and form, with challenging and stimulating rhythms, making full use of one’s emotional and intuitive creative programming and keeping it under cerebral control, so that when it is finished it is a visual experience that is alive with mysticism and inner order, and has grown into a new world of art governed by authority” (Struve, 1990). 
 
According to Scarlett scholar and author, Harriet Tannin (also his student), Scarlett created a substantial body of pure abstractions, beginning in the 1930’s and would continue to do them in secret during his tenure of creating non-objective works for Rebay’s Guggenheim. The two Scarlett oils chosen for the Whitney Museum’s 1951 Annual were indeed his abstract expressionist works.
 
His works are represented in the permanent collections of numerous museums including the Guggenheim, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian.
The power in the art of Brancusi and Mondrian would have an early and profound effect on Leon Polk Smith who would become one of the leading American non-objective color-field precisionists. Smith’s success lies in his ability to have created works which have a simple, hard-edge, colorful presence; “a divergence from the seriousness of Minimalism by virtue that they can be hung in variable arrangements, or viewed from a variety of perspectives” (Ratcliff, 1996). His strongest examples of these artistic tenets can be found in his Constellation Series, begun in 1967.
 
Native American born artist Leon Polk Smith came to New York City, at 30 years of age, in 1936 to study at Columbia University’s Teachers’ College. The young artist began his career depicting subjects inspired by life in Oklahoma and New York in an amalgam of Surrealist and Expressionist styles. The power of Brancusi and Mondrian’s art was ultimately irresistible to Smith and in 1945 he began to explore the formal problems inherent in the creation of non-objective art. 
 
Smith shared Mondrian’s affection for New York, writing in 1989, "New York City revealed its physical self to me through the mountains and canyons of the Southwest. There were the ups and downs–the high peaks, the in-betweens, or the canyons, and topped with the great dome….I felt the city to be a perfect equation for a great abstraction." (Ratcliff, 1996). The New York experience was a turning point, and he never looked back. His genius in extending their geometric tenants truly takes hard-edge minimalism to the next level. His free-hand approach, use of diagonals and circles and the abandonment of the European geometricians’ grids would “re-invent the purpose of geometric abstraction”.
 
Regarding his Constellation Series Carter Ratcliff wrote, “If we are to understand at full scale, the trajectories that carry a pattern from canvas to canvas in his multi-part Constellations, we must remember how it feels for the eye to reach across space to a far-off horizon.”  
 
Smith’s work is including in the permanent collections of numerous museums including the Guggenheim, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the National Gallery of Art.
As the youngest member of The Irascibles, Theodoros Stamos developed his artistic style during the highpoint of Abstract Expressionism. His style changed dramatically during his career, beginning with biomorphic forms and later advancing into pure color abstraction. His adventurous approach, transient style and expressive color palettes give credit to his association with the Abstract Expressionists and reign him in the top ranks among his contemporaries. His ingenuity is most expressive in his works which create the effect of luminosity using a medium that is, by definition, opaque.
 
Born and raised in Manhattan, Stamos sought refuge from the stark and vapid environment in the Museum of Natural History. The fossil, mineral and single-celled organism exhibits both intrigued and perplexed him. With an affinity for nature and its biomorphic components, Stamos created his earliest works as a metaphor for the world he saw before him; one of simplicity forever lost in the hurricane of complexity.
 
Between 1949 and 1955, Stamos’ works were juxtapositions of “shadowy presences, translucent hazes, and delicate calmness alongside the encroachment of an orientalizing type of calligraphy”. (Knoedler Zurich Catalogue: Stamos) These works have a delicate soft side to them; their brushstrokes are graceful and lyrical and their palettes hold a melancholic weight to them.
 
Stamos’ later works are explosive in color and in size. Their initial impact is one of strength and dominance, yet at closer observation they are filled with endless ambiguities and uncertainties.
 
Stamos’ career as an artist has proven to be extremely successful, despite the changes the art market has undergone over the past decades. The irony in his work is not accidental, it is reasoned through by concrete means and as a result it reflects a sense of solidity. The true testament to Stamos’ world, whether it be imaginative, tangible, explosive or subtle, stems from the natural world of chaos and order. 
 
Stamos’ works are in more than forty-five museums and numerous private collections. 
The entire body of Hedda Sterne’s work has been completely overlooked in the art historical narrative of the mid-20th century, especially considering her prominent placement as the only female member in the rebel group, “The Irascibles”.
 
The year 1941 was a landmark year for Sterne as her move to New York was overshadowed by her inclusion in the Art of This Century exhibition, funded by Peggy Guggenheim. It was here where notable dealer Betty Parsons discovered Sterne’s work and gave her a solo exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1943 and it was for this exhibition that Sterne first presented her use of circular canvases to create the Tondo Series.  These tondos are mounted on a central axis so the viewer can turn them at will to gain varying perspectives. A pioneer in her use of both medium and form, Sterne used the tondo throughout the balance of her career. Similar to Pollock, Sterne was also recognized for her divergence from using mediums and forms contemporaneous with the times.
 
The theme of Sterne’s works during the 1940’s and 1950’s was essentially machine-based, whether their nature was Surrealist or completely abstract. Some of her works, including New York Apt. #5, 1955, shown here, arepart of her New York series. Depicted in this series are “hurtling trains, derricks, and bridges as though they were looming monsters, in an attempt to portray the pace and power of the big city”. Both Pollock and his “drip” and Sterne and her spray paint had a unique relationship with their mediums; the precision of their objectives set the terms upon which their deliverance was so successful.   Sterne’s use of acrylic spray paint allowed her to echo speed and motion while also discovering that illusion of depth could be achieved without the use of perspective. 
 
It was also during this time period that she became associated with the New York School, and as a result began using more primary and muted colors. As a result Sterne is also well-known for her semi-abstract cityscapes, and non-objective paintings with horizontal bands and stripes of color, as shown here.
 
Sterne was primarily interested in the desire for invisibility and abandonment of self, in her work, in exchange for receptivity to her environment. While Sterne constantly changed her styles and techniques, regardless of the positive reviews she received, her resistance to imposing any kind of personal identity upon her work was an idea which contrasted sharply with her contemporaries and a desire which ultimately buried her successes as they came along.
 
Sterne’s work is represented in the permanent collections of numerous museums including the Whitney, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work is seldom available. 
 
Recognized as one of the youngest artists of the Abstract Expressionist movement to achieve major exhibition status, Walter Plate’s ascent in the early post-war movement was remarkable. By the mid-1950s Plate’s work was being eagerly purchased by the Whitney, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the National Gallery of Art. In addition, his solo exhibitions and impressive reviews gained him respect amongst his contemporaries. His impressive exhibition history, which spanned several continents, attests to his unique and powerful voice.  
 
In each work, Plate’s flat planes and gestural brushstrokes compete with one another creating various chaotic energies within a thoughtful, functional order. The opaque and lucid quality of his surface and palette, somewhat reminiscent of stained glass windows, highlight his superiority as a master colorist. In Plate’s early 1960s compositions, he transitions from a linear to more concentrated and complex composition, perhaps a testament to his influential friendship with Philip Guston. 
Bullfighting would clearly have evoked a strong interest for Martin, as he was partial to sports of a more violent and dangerous nature, his favorite subject to paint being boxing. He also worked with Mexican painters and traveled around the Mexican border in the mid 1920’s. The popularity of bullfighting in Mexico extended to Martin who found it to be dynamic subject matter for a series of works he executed depicting his memories of it.
 
Martin had been a muralist during the the WPA period of the late 1930’s. He worked on large commissions in California and Texas. As a young man he had worked as a harvest hand, lumberjack and construction worker. This experience perhaps had a significant influence on Martin’s focus and ability to depict the worker, the sportsman or the everyday man with an empathy and strength that is clearly evident. 
Ezio Martinelli, along with Theodore Roszak, David Smith and Charles Seliger, formed the group of influential abstract artists who taught and worked at Sarah Lawrence College in the late 1940s and 1950s.  Martinelli’s style was both gestural and sophisticated, coinciding with the language of painting that emerged with Abstract Expressionism in the mid-1940s.
 
Martinelli’s career is both diverse and complex. Receiving his training at the Fine Arts Academy in Bologna, Italy and the National Academy of Design in New York. He was primarily recognized as a painter, for which he won numerous awards. Later in his career he also turned to a successful career as a sculptor, acting as the resident sculptor at the American Academy in Rome and won the commission for a sculpture at the United Nations General Assembly Building. He won such prestigious awards as the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship from 1956 to 1962.

Paul Wilhelm Keller-Reutlingen was born in Reutlingen, Germany on February 2nd, 1854. An engineer and painter, he specialized in painting landscapes as part of the German school around the turn of the century. Keller-Reutlingen was a prized pupil at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Stuttgard and later at the Academy in Munich. He started exhibiting in 1870 in Munich, Vienna, Dusseldorf, Stuttgard and Berlin. He was a gold medal winner in Munich in 1892. Keller-Reutlingen died in Munich in 1920.

 

Museums:

Frankfurt Museum, Moulin a Bruck; Leipzig Museum, Crepuscule; Munich Museum, Peux le Toit de Mousse; Stuttgard Museum, Sonneries du Poir.

PERCY GRAY (1869-1952) Born in San Francisco, California on October 3, 1869, Percy Gray was from a long line of British artists. He studied locally at the School of Design under Emil Carlsen, and then worked as a quick-sketch artist for the San Francisco Call newspaper. In 1895 he moved to New York City where he spent 11 years working as head of the art department for the New York Journal. While in NYC he studied at the Art Students League and with William Merritt Chase. Gray returned to San Francisco in 1906 and joined the art department of the Examiner where he remained until about 1915. By that time he had established himself as a professional landscape painter. From 1918-23 he maintained a studio in San Francisco’s old Monkey Block (now the Transamerica Pyramid), which also served as his living quarters. About 1910 he began signing his paintings in script instead of the block letters he had used since student days. In 1923 Gray married and settled in Monterey where the newlyweds purchased for their home and had rebuilt on another site, the historic Casa Bonifacio. Working from his studio attached to the house, Gray attained total mastery of his watercolor technique during his Monterey years. In 1939 they sold the home, and after two years in San Francisco, settled in San Anselmo in Marin County. The last year of Gray’s life was spent as a resident of the Bohemian Club in his native city. He died of a heart attack in his studio on October 10, 1952. Although he painted oils and produced 20 etchings, he is best known for his atmospheric watercolors. His works most often depict the glades and valleys of northern California, with slopes of poppies and lupines under oak and eucalyptus trees. The rocky California coast was often his subject as well as Southwestern desert scenes; while 25 portraits of American Indians represent the bulk of his portraiture. Member: SFAA; The Family (SF); Bohemian Club; Sequoia Club; Carmel AA; SWA. Exh: Mechanics’ Inst. (SF), 1888; Golden Gate Park Museum, 1910; Del Monte Art Gallery (Monterey), 1910; Arizona State Fair, 1915 (1st prize); PPIE, 1915 (medal); Bohemian Club, 1922. In: CHS; NMAA; Oakland Museum; Brooklyn Museum; Bohemian Club; Bancroft Library (UC Berkeley); CPLH; Crocker Museum (Sacramento); Stanford Museum; Monterey Peninsula Museum; Santa Barbara Museum. Source: Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940" American Art Annual 1909-1933; Who’s Who in American Art 1936-41; Percy Gray (Whitton & Johnson); Monterey: The Artist’s View,1925-45; Art in California (R. L. Bernier, 1916); California Design, 1910.

Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
American Art Annual 1909-1933; Who’s Who in American Art 1936-41; Percy Gray (Whitton & Johnson); Monterey: The Artist’s View,1925-45; Art in California (R. L. Bernier, 1916); California Design, 1910.