Estate of Robert Arneson
Beginning on January 8th, the GEORGE ADAMS GALLERY will present “Different Strokes,” an exhibition of 20TH Century drawings. The exhibition, which makes no pretense of being either encyclopedic or scholarly, includes 40 works by 33 artists. A broad range of styles are represented, including realism, surrealism and abstraction in a variety of media including pencil, ink, watercolor, collage and acrylic spray paint.
The earliest work in the exhibition is “Study for ‘The Hare’,” 1923 by Lovis Corinth, while one of the most recent is “Samurai No.9,” 1987, a large, gestural abstraction in black and white tempera by Jay DeFeo. In between are such works as George Grosz’s pen and ink “Dr. Sand’s End,” 1924-25, Pavel Tchelitchew’s haunting “Interior Landscape,” c.1940, Theodore Roszack’s dynamic ink wash “The Furies of Folly Cove,” c.1950, Morris Graves’ “Ant War,” part of an unusual series from 1958, and Jacob Lawrence’s Picasso-esque “Carnival,” 1967.
The exhibition begins with a group of life drawings: William Beckman’s
“Study for ‘Diana IV’,” 1980, Gaston Lachaise’s “Male Nude with Arms Raised,” c.1930, a watercolor portrait by Red Grooms from 1976, Elmer Bischoff’s ”Standing Nude – Partially Clothed,” c.1965, and Bob Thompsons’s animated “Abby,” a pencil portrait from 1960. Abstraction is represented by such diverse artists as Jay DeFeo, Dorothy Dehner, Lee Krasner, Norman Lewis and Alfonso Ossorio.
Other artists included in the exhibition are Walter Anderson, Robert Arneson, Milton Avery, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Jose Bedia, Joan Brown, Enrique Chagoya, Roy DeForest, Minnie Evans, Arshile Gorky, John Graham, Nancy Grossman, Jacob Lawrence, Ben Shahn, Joseph Stella, Saul Steinberg, Bob Thompson, Joyce Treiman, and David Wojnarowicz.
Checklist:
MAIN GALLERY
1.
William Beckman (b.1942)
Study for Diana IV, 1980
Pencil on paper
32 x 28 inches
WBd 10
Signed and dated lower left
This portrait of the artist’s former wife, the sculptor Diana More, is a study for the life-size oil in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and is the last of s series of portraits of her for which she posed.
2.
Gaston Lachaise (1882-1935)
Male Nude with Arms Raised, c.1930
Graphite and ink on paper
17 7/8 x 12 inches
GLd 1
Signed center left
The model for this nude is reputed to be Lincoln Kirstein, founder, with George Balanchine, of the New York City Ballet.
3.
Red Grooms (b.1937)
Untitled Portrait, 1976
Ink and watercolor on paper
14 x 11 inches
Signed lower right
4.
Elmer Bischoff (1913-1991)
Standing Nude, c.1965
Ink wash on paper
18 x 15 inches
EBd 5
Unsigned
Beginning in the early 1950s Bischoff was part of a group that met weekly to draw from the model. Other members of the original group – the sessions continued into the 1970s – included Richard Diebenkorn, David Park and Paul Wonner.
5.
Robert Arneson (1930 – 1992)
J.P.’s Shadow, 1987
Charcoal on paper
48 x 31 ¾ inches
RAd 69
Signed and dated bottom
While best-known for his self-portraits, Arneson frequently made portraits of other artists whether friends such as Roy DeForest and William Wiley, or artists he admired such as Picasso and Francis Bacon. Jackson Pollock, however, was different: between 1982 and his death in 1992 Arneson made over 90 drawings and sculptures with Jackson Pollock as the subject, rendering not only his likeness but frequently delving into his work and even psyche.
6.
Bob Thompson (1937-1966)
Abby, 1960
Pencil on paper
16 ¾ x 13 7/8 inches
BTd 3
Signed and dated bottom
7.
Joan Brown (1938 – 1990)
Study of a Retriever, 1964
Acrylic, collage on paper
23 x 24 inches
JBRd 66
Signed, titled, dated lower right
In the early 1960s Brown made a number of large-scale collages in which she used torn pieces of paper to make alterations to the drawings and often combined elements from different drawings in a single work. This collage is the study for the head of a dog from her 1964 oil “Noel in the Kitchen” in the collection of SFMoMA.
8.
Lovis Corinth (1858-1925)
Study for The Hare, 1923
Pencil on paper
7 x 9 ½ inches
Signed and dated “Dec. 1923” in pencil lower left
Prussian-born Corinth was a major figure in German art in the early 1900s, assuming the presidency of the Berlin Sezession in 1915. Owing to a stroke suffered in 1911, his late work became increasingly expressionistic. This sketch of a dead hare is a study for an equally sketchy oil made two years before the artist’s death in 1925.
9.
Walter Anderson (1903-1965)
Dead Loon, c.1960
Watercolor on paper
8 ½ x 11 inches
WAd 1
Anderson attended Parsons and the Pennsylvania Academy, and worked as a WPA muralist in the 1930s. A native of Louisiana, as an adult he lived in Mississippi, first in Ocean Springs and, after 1947, on Horn Island on the Gulf Coast where he lived alone and created most of his extant body of work.
10.
Joan Brown (1938 – 1990)
Rufus, 1967
graphite pencil on paper
25 1/2 x 30 ½ inches
JBRd 68
Unsigned
Throughout her career Brown’s pet cats and dogs figure prominently in her work. Rufus was one of several dogs owned by Joan Brown when she was married to fellow artist Gordon Cook, and he is given pride of place in one of Brown’s most ambitious paintings, “Gordon, Joan and Rufus Outside the SF Opera House,” a large-scale diptych painted in 1969.
11.
Joyce Treiman (1922-1991)
Pink and Key, 1991
Pastel on paper
14 x 11 inches
JTd 6
Signed, dated and titled lower left
12.
Joseph Stella (1877-1946)
Untitled, c. 1940
Crayon on paper
17 x 12 inches sheet size, 16 x 11 ½ inches sight size
JoSd 4
Signed with estate stamp
13.
Nancy Grossman (b.1940)
Untitled, 1966
Pen and ink on paper
17 x 14 inches sheet size, 16 1/4 x 13 inches sight size
NGd 2
Signed and dated lower left
During the 1960s, before beginning her well-known series of leather “masks,” Grossman made assemblages out of found materials such as leather and cloth which often became the subject of her drawings.
14.
Theodore Roszak (1907-1981)
Study for Fledgling, 1952
Ink and wash on paper
19 1/2 x 14 inches
TRd 2
Signed lower right: Theodore Roszak numbered lower right: 15
15.
Arshile Gorky (1904-1948)
Study for “Bull in the Sun,” 1942
Tempera and ink on board
14 x 10 inches
AGord 1
Unsigned
“Bull in the Sun” was a large-scale rug Gorky designed for an exhibition titled “New Rugs by American Artists” mounted at the Museum of Modern Art in New York during the summer of 1942. Gorky told the curator Dorothy Miller that the image was that of the hide of a water buffalo stretched in a sunny wheat field. “Bull in the Sun” is reproduced on the cover of Julian Levy’s 1962 Gorky biography.
16.
Theodore Roszak (1907-1981)
The Furies of Folly Cove, c.1950
Ink, sepia ink, and wash on paper
23 x 28 ¾ inches
Signed upper right: T.J. Rosazk N.Y.C.
17.
Norman Lewis (1909-1979)
Frolic, c.1958
Pastel, charcoal and ink on paper
17 3/4 x 24 inches
NLd 1
18.
Dorothy Dehner (1909-1979)
Untitled (Red/Grey/Black), 1953
Ink and watercolor on paper
9 x 11 ½ inches
DDehnd 3
Signed and dated lower left
19.
Alfonso Ossorio (1916-1990)
Untitled, c.1951
Ink, wax and watercolor on paper
19 ¾ x 25 ½ inches
Notation verso, top right corner: A23 / D R W 14
20.
Alfonso Ossorio (1916-1990)
Couple, 1950
Ink, wax and watercolor on paper
11 x 8 ½ inches
AOd 1
Signed, dated and titled verso: (Ossorio Monogram) / Couple / A50.118
21.
Jay DeFeo (1929-1989)
Samurai No. 9, 1987
Tempera, pastel and charcoal on paperboard
39 1/2 x 31 ½ inches (sight)
JDd 1
Signed, dated lower right
22.
Lee Krasner (1908-1984)
Hieroglyphics No. 2 (CR477), 1969
Gouache on Douglas Howell paper
17 x 13 ½ inches
LKsnd 1
Signed, dated lower right
23.
Enrique Chagoya (b. 1953)
LA-K-LA-K, 1987
Charcoal, pastel on paper
80 x 80 inches
LA-K-LA-K
Signed lower right
DRAWING GALLERY
1.
George Grosz (1893-1959)
Der Kleine Mann Am Ende, 1924-1925
(Kobes/Dr. Sand's End)
Brush, reed pen and pen and ink on paper
25 3/4 x 20 ¾ inches
GGzd 2
Signature stamp lower right and on reverse with the Estate stamp and number "2-136-1"
Before emigrating to the US in 1932, Grosz became well-know for his bitingly satirical renderings of life in Berlin during the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). This drawing is an illustration for a short story by Heinrich Mann, elder brother of Thomas Mann and author of the novel on which the film “The Blue Angel” was based.
2.
Ben Shahn (1898-1969)
Man in Top Hat, c.1941
Wash and brush and ink on paper
17 1/2 x 11 inches
BShad 2
Signed lower right in ink: Ben Shahn, inscribed verso: Z-681
3.
George Grosz (1893-1959)
Untitled (The Tryst), c.1923
Black ink on paper
25 3/4 x 20 ¾ inches sheet size, 24 3/8 x 19 ¾ inches sight size
GGzd 1
Signed lower right: Grosz verso stamped: George Grosz Nachlass 3622
4.
Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000)
Carnival, 1967
Black ink and graphite on paper
17 5/8 x 12 7/8 inches sheet size, 16 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches sight size
JLwd 1
Signed and dated lower right: Jacob Lawrence 67
5.
David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992)
Running Soldier with Gunsight, 1982
Enamel spray paint on paper
23 ¾ x 18 inches
DWd 2
6.
John D. Graham (1891-1961)
Untitled, c.1950
Pen and ink on vellum
16 1/8 x 13 5/8 inches
JGrmd 1
Inscribed lower right: IOAN TWS MAGUS SD
7.
John D. Graham (1891-1961)
Untitled, c.1950
Ballpoint pen and crayon on vellum
9 7/8 x 13 7/8 inches sheet size, 9 1/2 x 13 ¼ inches sight size
JGrmd 2
Inscribed lower edge: Sloanus Magus Seruvs Domini San Germanus LParisis
8.
Pavel Tchelitchew (1898-1957)
Interior Landscape, c.1945
Black ink and wash on paper
15 x 10 inches sheet size, 14 3/4 x 9 ¾ inches sight size
PTd 1
Signed lower right: P. Tchelitchew
9.
Jose Bedia (b. 1959)
Transformacion, 1997
Ink on paper
17 x 14 inches
JoBd 112
Signed and dated lower left
10.
Morris Graves (1910-2001)
Ant War, 1958
Sumi ink and watercolor on paper
10 x 21 ½ inches
NGvd1
Signed and dated at lower right: Graves '58
11.
Saul Steinberg (1914-1999)
Egypt, 1967
Ink and colored pencil on paper
18 ½ x 12 inches
Signed and dated lower right
12.
Minnie Evans (1892-1987)
Untitled (central portrait), c.1946/51/68
Collage, oil on paperboard
20 x 24 inches
MEvd 2
Signed lower right
13.
Minnie Evans (1892-1987)
Untitled (floral design), c.1965
Oil on paper
12 x 9 inches
MEvd 1
14.
Roy De Forest (1930-2007)
Untitled (shooting gun and devil), 1976
Pastel on paper
22 ½ x 30 inches
RDd 3
Signed and dated top and center
15.
Milton Avery (1885-1965)
Gulls at Sea, 1956
Gouache on paper
20 x 26 inches
MAd 1
Signed and dated lower right: Milton Avery 1956, pencil notation verso: 11828 "D"
16.
Roy De Forest (1930-2007)
Untitled (Canoe), 1975
Pastel and charcoal on paper
22 x 30 inches
RDd 43
Signed and dated lower right
WINDOW
1.
Luis Cruz Azaceta (b.1942)
Self-Portrait – Bound Head, 1984
Oil pastel on paper
60 x 47 ¾ inches
LCAd 11
Signed and dated lower left