Mary Ryan Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of prints by Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) and Joan Mitchell (1926-1992). The exhibition will focus on a selection of prints by two of the preeminent Abstract Expressionist painters.
Although Willem de Kooning explored print making at different points throughout his career, the period between 1970 and 1971 was his most productive. After a trip to Japan where de Kooning was exposed to Sumi brush painting (traditional Japanese ink and wash painting done with various concentrations of black ink) and calligraphy, he made a series of lithographs at the Hollander Workshop in New York. Ranging from subtle and spare to layered and complex, these prints retain all of the wild gesture that de Kooning is known for. Landscape at Stanton Street (1971), is a full, playful composition that explores the expressive capacity of ink on stone: washes, droplets, heavily inked passages and delicate lines overlap to create this energetic scene.
Joan Mitchell, while having expolored printmaking throughout her four-decade career ultimately made relatively few prints. This exhibition includes a selection of prints from the Sunflowers Series (1972), the Bedford Series (1981), and the last prints she made in 1992. The works from 1981 and 1992, all of which she collaborated on with master printer Kenneth Tyler, are some of her largest and most celebrated lithographs. Like most of her work, these prints are landscape-based, including the monumental diptychs Sunflowers IV and Trees I (both 1992). Her prints maintain the complexity, intensity, fluidity of line, and abstract marks that have become synonymous with the visual language of Joan Mitchell's work. The late works in particular, bold and vigorous, retain an openness from the balanced relationship between her marks and the whiteness of the paper, which acts as the source of light.
Please to download the press release for the exhibition.
For more information please contact Jordan Karney at 212.397.0669 or jordan@maryryangallery.com
Gallery hours: Tue - Sat 10am - 6pm
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