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Dorothy Dehner, the Creative Process Rarely Viewed Drawings and Watercolors from 1930 to 1950 Showcase the Artist’S Early Work

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Dorothy Dehner, the Creative Process Rarely Viewed Drawings and Watercolors from 1930 to 1950 Showcase the Artist’S Early Work PREVIEWING UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS, EVENTS, SALES AND AUCTIONS OF HISTORIC FINE ART AM"rICAN ISSUE 20 Mar/apr 2015 FMAGAZINEI! AFA20.indd 2 2/6/15 2:28 PM GALLERY PREVIEW: NEW YORK, NY Dorothy Dehner, The Creative Process Rarely viewed drawings and watercolors from 1930 to 1950 showcase the artist’s early work relationship with Smith also infiltrates gouache on paper Sea Forms in Rock. Through April 10 her work, as their residences in Bolton “I think this work indicates she was Kraushaar Galleries Landing, New York City, and the capable of experimentation,” says Joan 15 E. 71st Street, #2B Virgin Islands served as influences Marter, art historian and president New York, NY 10021 for pieces such as 1933 watercolor of the Dorothy Dehner Foundation t: (212) 288-2558 on paper Bolton Landing Highway and for the Visual Arts. “She had ideas www.kraushaargalleries.com circa 1943 ink on paper Untitled (Still that fit very closely with the leading Life with Hands, St. Johns). interests of the abstract expressionists The Dorothy Dehner Foundation groups, such as spontaneity and for the Visual Arts, represented improvisation.” orothy Dehner (1901-1994) exclusively by Kraushaar Galleries, Dehner’s drawings strongly never really achieved the provided the dozen rarely exhibited informed her sculptural work, says Drecognition she may have works in the gallery’s current exhibit, Katherine Degn, director at Kraushaar deserved while she was an active artist, Dorothy Dehner, The Creative Process, Galleries, noting many of the drawings but today, her inclusion in several 1930-1950. Works in the exhibit have three-dimensional qualities that museum and gallery exhibits reassesses were made during the rise of abstract anticipate sculpture. Degn says the use her career and legacy. Her ex-husband, expressionism, which is evident in of line and form is also consistent in sculptor David Smith, overshadowed the music-inspired 1947 ink on paper Dehner’s work. her own artistic endeavors, including Balloon Ascension #3: Dithyrambe Dehner, who showed an interest in sculpture, drawing and watercolor. Played by the Ashraf and 1948 ink and modernism, studied with Jan Matulka, Today, at Kraushaar Galleries in New watercolor on paper [Abstraction]. As known for his own version of cubism. York City, a collection of her works someone known primarily for her Marter says the drawings in the on paper shows off her early years as sculptures, the assortment of drawings exhibit are in good condition and are an artist, exploring her development gives collectors unique insight to the surprisingly fresh-looking, showing as a student of The Arts Student artist, who also often included sea the whole range of Dehner’s skills, League of New York and her time motifs, in works such as 1946 ink and featuring pen and ink and watercolor spent during a 1925 trip to Paris. Her watercolor on paper [Shells] and 1944 mediums. Linda Lichtenberg Kaplan, a trustee at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., with more than 50 years of professional museum experience, purchased Dehner’s 1949 ink and pastel Drum Beats from Kraushaar Galleries. She says while Dehner was not a giant in the art world, she was a very competent artist who made beautiful personal drawings. “I like the movement and interesting gestural images [in Drum Beats],” Kaplan says. “I think she was compromised by the fact she was female at the time [she was an artist], but she was really productive. If you Dorothy Dehner (1901-1994), Bolton Landing Highway, 1933. like that kind of narrative, then she’s Watercolor on paper, 6 x 13¾ in. de!nitely worth looking at.” 90 Dorthy Dehner.indd 90 2/11/15 4:03 PM Dorothy Dehner (1901-1994), Untitled (Still Life with Hands, St. Johns), ca. 1943. Tempera on paper, 11½ x 14 in. Dorothy Dehner in her studio at 41 Union Square, New York City, surrounded by her bronze sculptures, circa 1965. Photo courtesy the Dorothy Dehner Foundation for the Visual Arts. 91 Dorthy Dehner.indd 91 2/11/15 4:04 PM Dorothy Dehner (1901-1994), Another gallery currently featuring [Abstraction], Dehner’s drawings is Valerie Carberry 1948. Ink and Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. The watercolor on exhibit Compositions and Constructions, paper, 4½ x 5¾ in. running through March 14, includes eight works on paper from the ’70s, many of which were exhibited in The Betty Parsons Gallery in New Dorothy Dehner York City in 1979. Carberry says (1901-1994), Balloon Ascension Dehner’s work has a strong visual #3: Dithyrambe aesthetic that has lasting in!uence Played by the Ashraf, and relevance today. 1947. Ink on paper, “For anyone who appreciates 17½ x 26 in. work on paper, her composition have an elegance and subtlety to them,” Carberry says. “The drawings have a Graham, whose 1937 book System and because many of these works have quiet power to them, and while the Dialects of Art resonated with Dehner’s either not been seen or not been interplay is something we enjoy in own artistic philosophy. Degn says seen in a long time,” Degn says. “The the exhibition, any one drawing on its the Kraushaar Galleries exhibit gives context and the story is important own can communicate quite well.” collectors a unique view into Dehner’s in the history of Dehner’s work and Degn points out Dehner’s in!uence artistic evolution. is an enriching visual and emotional by her mentor, modernist painter John “Collectors should see the show experience.” 92 Dorthy Dehner.indd 92 2/11/15 4:05 PM.
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