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Walls Fine Art
Gallery Brings Modern Masters To
Wilmington, NC For Two Weeks
Press
Release
August 26, 2005 - Wilmington,
North
Carolina (NC) - “Works on Paper: The Heavyweights,” opens at Walls
Fine Art Gallery in the heart of Wilmington, North Carolina at 6
p.m. on Thursday, September 8 and runs through Saturday, September
24. It is a show of original printmaking, drawings and watercolor
including Modern masters Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marie Laurencin, who painted in Europe in the early to mid 1900s and
American, one German, and New York City artists (mid 1900s to
present day) Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, Peter Milton, Janet
Fish, Christo, Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine, Jeanette Pasin Sloan,
Willi Kissmer and Judith Rothchild. Rarely does the public have
access to a collection of such important twentieth century artists
for both viewing and sale. Every one of the pieces in the show is of
museum quality. On opening night, master printer Steve Hoffman will
present a gallery talk entitled “Printmaking, the Process,” designed
to help collectors better understand the methods used to produce the
images in the show, as well as learn what is and is not an original
print. When contacted, Hoffman said, “It’s a pleasure to be involved
in a show of this quality and integrity.”
Walls Gallery owner David Leadman said, “What I love about this show
is that it is so representative of the twentieth century. There’s
such variety … artists working at the same time in the same medium
yet the types of work are poles apart.” The show includes the
traditional and archival techniques of drawing, watercolor and
printmaking such as intaglio and lithography.
Matisse, Picasso and Laurencin are known and loved for their
modernist figures, and this show does not disappoint. “Deux Modeles
Vetues,” an etching from the 1933 Suite Vollard with voluptuous
female forms, is classic Picasso. Another Picasso piece, “Nature
Morte a la Pasteque,” was featured in a Metropolitan Museum of Art
exhibition of Picasso’s linoleum cuts in 1985.
Helen Frankenthaler, whose work is considered a transition from
Abstract Expressionism, is a leader in color fields. “Causeway,” her
original intaglio print has a translucent quality that one might not
expect in the medium. Frankenthaler studied with Rufino Tamayo and
has had major exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art,
the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in
Washington, D.C. Representing the Pop Art genre are Rauschenberg,
Johns and Dine. Jasper Johns grew up in South Carolina where he
studied at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Johns
painted his first US flag piece in 1954 and began working with
lithography in 1960. He has been given exhibitions at the Whitney
Museum of American Art, Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris and
Seibu Museum of Art in Tokyo.
Christo is an artist/engineer known for his flamboyant installations
all over the world, most recently in Central Park. Fish is a
renegade traditionalist. Her realistic still-lifes painted in bold
bright colors are a vehement reaction to the overwhelming prevalence
of abstract work in the New York art establishment. Milton, Kissmer
and Rothchild are astounding printmakers whose work can only be
described as unique.
Many people confuse printmaking with reproduction. The prints in
“Works on Paper: The Heavyweights” are all original works of art. In
printmaking, the artist works by hand on the surface from which an
archival, rag paper impression will be pulled, whether that working
surface is a copper, steel or zinc plate as in intaglio, or a stone
as in lithography, or a block as in linoleum cuts. Only that artist
or a master printer with the artist’s supervision will pull the
prints. Original prints are part of an edition which is usually
quite small (200 is high average) because the image on the plates,
stones and blocks wears and the prints eventually do not meet the
artist’s standards. The original prints in “Works on Paper: The
Heavyweights” include etching, mezzotint, dry point, aquatint (which
all come under the intaglio heading), lithography, and linoleum cut.
Since Walls Gallery opened in 1984, David Leadman and gallery
director Nancy Marshall, painters themselves, have been passionately
involved in fine art. From the beginning they have willingly shared
their knowledge with visitors to the gallery, helping many art
collectors of the Southeast develop an understanding of the arts and
cultivate their own collections. The gallery is known for its
exhibits of original works by living, mid-career artists. “Works on
Paper: The Heavyweights” is something of a departure in that the
artists in this show are recognized all over the world, and Matisse,
Picassso and Laurencin lived in another era.
In an interview, Nancy Marshall said, “David and I both studied
printmaking, and we have a warm spot for it. In this age of
uncontrolled digital reproduction and the misunderstanding of the
word ‘print,’ the original graphic has nearly been lost in a
marketing contest. Even a simple etching shows workmanship and
artistry as well as a highly developed knowledge of the technical
aspects peculiar to printmaking that allow it to be honestly termed
‘original.’”
Walls Fine Art Gallery is located at 2173 Wrightsville Avenue in
Wilmington, North Carolina. For further information about “Works on
Paper: The Heavyweights,” contact Nancy Marshall by telephone at
910.343.1703 or via email at
info@wallsgallery.com.
Visit the website at
www.wallsgallery.com.
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