Andrew Lenaghan: New Large-Scale Paintings

During September and October, the George Adams Gallery will present an exhibition of new large-scale paintings by Andrew Lenaghan. The seven large-scale works, all painted in 2008 and 2009, depict the interior of the artist’s own home in Brooklyn, his back yard and views of his neighbor’s house. The one exception in the exhibition is a view of the soaring F-train station over the Gowanus Canal measuring 5x8 feet that was executed on site during the course of this past summer. However, it is not the lone city-scape in his body of work for the past year, which also includes a panoramic view of the city of Greenville, SC commissioned by the Greenville County Museum of Art and a series of smaller works on panel painted in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Lenaghan is forging new ground in his work in terms of figuration as well as scale. The artist’s young son Charlie appears in three of the paintings included in the exhibition adding a narrative element that Lenaghan has been gradually developing over the past ten years. In “Charlie by the Garage,” 2009, for example, the artist’s son is depicted standing just off to the side looking into the garage’s interior watching his father in the act of creating the picture. In “Charlie in the Wading Pool,” 2008, Charlie is shown gripping the edge of the inflatable pool as if deciding whether or not to climb out and retrieve his toys that appear just out of reach at the bottom of the canvas.

Lenaghan earned a BA in painting from Cornell University and an MFA from Brooklyn College. He has been exhibiting his work at George Adams Gallery since 1995. His work has been included in exhibitions and collections of museums including Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI; Greenville County Museum of Art, SC; Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN; and has been shown in many galleries in New York and around the country.

On view concurrently in the Drawing Gallery is a group of figure drawing from the early 1960s by the Bay Area figurative artist Elmer Bischoff (1916-1991). The four drawings of female models, rapidly worked ink or charcoal studies as well as one more carefully modulated watercolor and gouache, were all made during the weekly drawing sessions held in Alvin Light’s Montgomery Street (San Francisco) studio which also included such artists as Richard Diebenkorn, David Park and Paul Wonner.

Checklist

1.
Studio Interior, 2009
oil on canvas
68 ½ x 93 inches
AnLp530

2.
Charlie in the Backyard, 2008
oil on canvas
57 x 77 inches
AnLp499

3.
Charlie in the Garage, 2009
oil on canvas
60 x 89 inches
AnLp529

4.
Jill’s House, 2008
oil on canvas
66 ½ x 55 inches
AnLp501

5.
Charlie in the Wading Pool, 2008
oil on canvas
61 x 64 inches
AnLp502

6.
F Train over the Gowanus Canal, 2009
oil on canvas
60 x 96 inches
AnLp550

7.
Whiting on E. 19th Street, 2008
oil on linen
48 ¾ x 66 ¾ inches
AnLp496

In the window:

8.
Self-Portrait in the Garret II, 2007
oil on linen
82 x 60 inches
AnLp473