Si Newhouse Collection at Christies: Jackson Pollock's Number 7A, 1948, 36 x 110 inches

The painting is 3 x 10 feet. It's strangely mounted on wood (see edge above) as if it were paper--but it's cheap canvas. Still, it's gorgeous. Also great to see as Frankenthaler's precursor, one she felt pointed to a new direction.

Poured together, edges fuse then disentangle.

JACKSON POLLOCK (1912-1956) Number 7A, 1948, oil and enamel on canvas, 35 x 131½ in. (88.9 x 334 cm.) Painted in 1948, Estimate on Request, in the region of $100 million. 

"Among the two top lots in the sale is Number 7A, 1948 by Jackson Pollock, a monumental and breathtaking canvas that measures 131 ½ inches (334 cm.) wide, making it the largest example of his monumental drip paintings remaining in private hands. The work represents a critical moment both in the artist's career as well as in the history of painting in its entirety; it was conceived during a pivotal three-year period for the artist that began in 1947, when he first fully embarked on the creation of purely abstract paintings, with his drip paintings standing as his most celebrated canonical contribution—now icons of post-war American painting. The cultural and historical significance of Number 7A, 1948 cannot be overstated. It has a rich history of provenance, beginning with the photographer Herber Matter, to whom Pollock gifted the work, followed by renowned collectors Kimiko and John Powers. For nearly half a century, the work has been unseen by the public, exhibited most recently at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1977. This will be the first and only large-scale drip painting to ever appear at auction, presenting collectors with a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

 

Similitudes: Frankenthaler and Caro at Yares

Welcome to Similitudes at Yares, featuring prime Anthony Caro and Helen Frankenthaler works. Caro and Frankenthaler were fast friends, visiting and even working in each others' studios. The linked exhibition title shows fantastic install shots with proper color. 

 I relate to Frankenthaler's attempt for effortlessness. The quote gives courage.

Straight ahead from entry to right; desk in first image on left. These paintings are shockingly contemporary. They look great with the sculpture, like natural landscapes filtered through industrial parks.

Into the first room. Sculptures cohabiting with paintings, informing each other, establishing moods. Wonderful to see in tandem with the Gagosian show, which follows a similar trajectory with the large oil soak stain paintings moving into acrylic veils and raised texture.

A detour down the hall in the old Mary Boone space for a tour de force painting in the back room akin to Borrowed Dream, 1992, in the Gagosian show. The painting combines multitudinous methods and perspectives while evincing a landscape out the window as if the wall were invisible. Geometry and grit undermine the color.

The application of heavy, combed paint emerges in the late 1980s as both shows make clear.

Tableaux ~ here, in the old Boone space.

This painting pours a heavy line to demarcate almost narrative space. But she holds back, ensuring the pours do heavy lifting--or rather our taking the time to decode and accept the full image despite the toggle between applications. As if the soak stain saturation is a space deconstructed by foreground and background. This work recalls Matisse's 1905 Joy of Life (Le Bonheur de Vivre) in the Barnes Collection.

A related painting, a real beauty, bringing the light and heavy applications together.

Caro summons early Brancusi's Woman With Her Throat Cut in several of his works. He is a worthy partner to Frankenthaler. These are major artists, and this show is deeply inspiring.

 

Tint and Frankenthaler: Liquid Light and Dark in Chelsea

At A Hug From The Art World, Francine Tint exhibits recent paintings in Open Color. 

The gallery, at 515 W 19th St., is a charming two-story brownstone with an open door beckoning visitors into the space, with an upstairs component with works on paper.

The green work on left is one of a dozen or so color explorations made from vividly hued, singular pours. The space they inhabit is welcoming: you can peruse the exhibition catalog and view the work in quiet.

Downstairs, two horizontal walls flank each other, framing these large works within. The ceilings are low, the room almost a passageway, albeit a beautiful one. Consequently the paintings are hung unusually low, inviting more intimate encounters with the liquid brushstrokes.

A penchant for pouring has struck New York. Painter Lindsey Walt suggested pouring was a great metaphor for women. The advantage to the diversity of pouring on view around the city is that diverse paint applications, once siloed, now coalesce as complex, contemporary viewpoints. 

Tint, a committed abstract painter for the duration of her long career, recognized as a stylist in the fashion and rock worlds, fully realizes abandon and wildness in the work.

Her paintings are filled with rhythm, poured from containers, dry brushed, and swipe in a final bravado gesture. Clots of paint dot bare canvas interstices. The landscape implied by orientation and pattern recognition remains cipher-like, conjuring multiple interpretations.

Don't miss it! On through June.

Helen Frankenthaler's Alassio, 1960, oil on linen, 85.25x131 inches, in the tour de force The Moment and The Distance at Gagosian on 21st St. This survey coalesces early and late work, showing for the first time the painter's shift toward dense paint application.

Gamut, 1968, 134 x 93 inches, after Frankenthaler's switch to acrylic. The space in this painting is akin to the desert that inspired it: vivid, perfect, spare, yet full.

Auguste, 1977, 96 x 108 inches - where things get interesting as Frankenthaler accumulates layers and density. These late paintings, some of which I saw in the 2021 Palm Springs Museum show, are a real surprise, revealing shifts and expansions normally suppressed in the Color Field narrative. Let us not forget that Pollock presented her point of departure. The texture forces us to locate ourselves anew. 

Hint from Bassano, 1973, 85 x 277 inches

Classic Color Field, first seen in Bonnie Clearwater's 2024 Glory of the World survey at NSU Museum, Fort Lauderdale.

A Green Thought in a Green Shade, 1981, 119 x 156.5 inches, my personal favorite. It featured in Frankenthaler's 2008 New York solo exhibition at Knoedler & Co., Frankenthaler at Eighty, which I visited on a snowy day and first recognized the moment/distance described by this exhibition's title.

Details from close to

Beautiful silvers and umbers

Code Blue, 1980, Acrylic on canvas, 79.25 x 170.25 inches (with a yellow filter)

Similar to A Green Thought in a Green Shade, Code Blue has innumerable painterly incidents within its pours and hints toward the denser textures to come already present in Auguste.

Eastern Light, 1982, acrylic on canvas, 69 x 118.5 inches. The shifting and variation in Frankenthaler's process revealing more complexity than a coherent, linear narrative. We see an imprimatur nonetheless.

Cathedral, 1982, acrylic on canvas, 70-5/8 x 120 inches; the most similar to Francine Tint.

Shippan October, 1981, Acrylic on canvas, 47.25 x 136 inches. The references almost pictorial here.

Borrowed Dream, 1992, Acrylic on canvas, 84.5 x 108.5 inches. In the 1990s Frankenthaler gets wild, layering and then combing through to the transparency, searchingly.