TOKYO NIGHTVIEWS Digitized by the Internet
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YVONNE JACQUEHE TOKYO NIGHTVIEWS Digitized by the Internet. Arcn IVG in 2015 https://arcliive.org/cletails/tokyoniglitviewsOObowd TOKYO NIGHTVIEWS Brooke Alexander 59 Wooster Street New York, New York 10012 (212) f)2r)-4:W8 April 5-May 3, 1986 Bowdoin College Museum of Art Brunswick, Maine 04011 (207) 725-8731 June 27-August 24, 1986 Dksk.n: Kay Dougkus PRiNTiN(i: Prevton Offset Printing, Inc. T^ i'K.shrrriNCi: Centennial (iraphic s, Inc. Ski'AH/VFK )Ns: Trinity Color (iraphics. Inc. Piii>T(i(,i{.M'iis: Ivan DallaTana ISBN: ()-<tl()()0()-ll-2 ( ( ( Library of 'onf»res.s 'atalog ';ir(i Number: 86-060688 Copyriglit li)H(i by the President and Trustees of Bowdoin CoUege All rights reserved Shinjuku Pleasure District, Tokyo IJ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ho Bovvdoin Collcj^e Museum of Art and Brooke Alexander. Inc ., ;ire pleased to collaborate in pre.sent- X ing U\is exliibilion of recent drawings and paintings by Yvonne Jacquette, an arti.st with long ties of affection to Maine and New York. We iiiv giateful for the organizing talent.s of .Jolm Cofifey, curator of the Bowdoin College Mu.seum of Art and Ted Bonin, Director of Brooke Alexander, Inc. Mr. Coffey also wrote the introduction to the catalogue. The staffs of the nui.seum and gallery ably ;issisted in all aspec t.s of the project. Special thanks are due to.Jo.se Ribas, mu.seum preparator and Catherine Little, gallery archivist. In conc-lusion, we express our profound appreciation to the arti.st. Kathiume J. Wat.son Brooke Alexander Director President Bowdoin ( 'oll(>ge Mu.seum of Art Brooke Alexander, Inc. Akasaka Traffic, Tokyo II Tokyo Billboards I Tokyo Diptych voiint' Jacquette has a preference for high places, The paintings are purely studio constructions, begun a circling plane, a penthouse window, an aerie from after the artist's return from Japan. They are essentially which to watch the world. Her work has often free translations of selected drawings. Oil colors were depicted the city and man-made landscape from mixed to match the pastels. Even so, the painter gave Y'the vantage of angels. It Ls a privileged perspective, herself scope for free development, making allowances for long loved by i^hotographers, who were perhaps the first to differences of scale and medium. The increased size of the recognize the geometric grandeur of the city below. That paintings permits a clarity of image that is neither possible grandeur structures Jacquette's images but is not its full nor desirable in the drawings. What Ls suggested in the content. Her work attempts to resolve the visual and pastels is now made explicit. Qualities of space and light emotional pardoxes of the modern metropolis. Only from are again questioned and defined. Size also enhances the the tower is there the possibility of order and context. And sense of giddy height, even vertigo. With an imaginative milaced beauty. push one might pitch through these windows. Jacquette first visited Japan in 1982. Nighttime Tokyo, its In style each painting retains the vibrant immediacy of cars and crowds and canyons of loud Vegas neon, made a the drawings. But the smaller versions are too cursory to vivid and bewilderuig impression on her. The neon signs, serve as more than cues for the varied textures of painted pulsing, scaling the walls of high rises, fascinated the artist, marks. Instead, the artist has invented new but equivalent "like Times Square spread over miles." Her fascination was textures, layering strokes of unblended color against the equal parts marvel, confusion, and curiosity—the sparks gray mauve ground. The gestures are fluid, dancing, almost of art. She returned to Tokyo in May of 1985, choosing calligraphic—the most expressive painting of Jacquette's hotel rooms with expansive vistas. FYom these views career. Up close, the canvas is a tense surface of varied Jacquette excerpted images for a series of pastel night pattern—shoots and lattices of color. Take a few steps scenes. The basic forms and colors of each drawing were back, and the marks recede into a deep ether. The surface blocked in during night sessions by the window. She is transfigured. The city forms emerge, built not of solid worked in the dark, selecting colors by flashlight. In substance but of loosely knit filaments of light and shade. daylight, she sharpened the geometry and corrected Strangely, marvelously it all makes sense. ambiguous passages. She refined the drawings further in the studio until the images read clearly. Photographic correctness was not important. The firushed drawings are complete statements, not simply preparatory sketches for paintings. They have the authority of expert witness. In clear, discreet jots of pastel they record the performance John Coflfey of seeing, each touch of color attesting to a moment's Curator close scrutiny. Bowdoin College Museum of Art Tokyo Street with Pachinko Parlor II YVONNE JACQUETTE TOKYO NIGHTVIEWS PASTELS PAINTINGS AKASAKA TRAFFIC, TOKYO I AKASAKA TRAFFIC, TOKYO 11 1985 1986 pastel on paper oil on canvas 22'/4x27 inches 85'/hX lOO'/ir, inches SHINJUKU PLEASURE DISTRICT, TOKYO 1 SHINJUKU PLEASURE DISTRICT, TOKYO II 1985 1985 pastel on paper oil on canvas 22'/) X 26% inches 76'/. X 92% inches TOKYO BILLBOARDS I TOKYO BILLBOARDS II 1985 1986 pastel on paper oil on canvas 22'/i X 27 inches 85'/hX 100'/i,i inches TOKY(J DIPTYCH TOKYO STREET WITH PACHINKO PARLOR 11 1985 1985 pastel on paper: diptych oil on canvas 17 '/4 X 14 '/i inches each 86yiB X 55yi(i inches TOKYO NIGHTVIEW WITH SHINJUKU PARK YASUKUNI DORI, TOKYO II 1985 1986 pastel on paper oil on canvas 17 '/hX WA inches 91'/2X76'/. inches TOKYO STREET WITH PACHINKO PARLOR 1 1985 pastel on paper 20 'Ax 13 inches YASUKUNI DORl, TOKYO I 1985 pastel on paper 26% X 22 '/4 inches Yasukimi Dori, Tokyo II BIOGRAPHY 1934 Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania PUBLICATIONS 1952-56 Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island Fast Lanes by Jayne Anne Philips, drawings by Yvonne ONE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS Jacquette. Vehicle Editions and Brooke Alexander, Inc., New York 1984. 1986 Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine Aerial, A Collection of Poetry, Edited by Edwin Denby, Brooke Alexander, New York Aerial Images by Yvonne Jacquette, Eyelight Press, New 1985 Yurakucho Seibu/Takanawa Art, Tokyo York 1982. 1984 John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco 2 Poems by Jeff Wright and drawings by Yvonne Jacquette, 1983 St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis Toothpaste Press, Iowa 1982. Brooke Alexander, New York 1982, 81 Brooke Alexander, New York SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 1980 Belfast Free Library, Belfast, Maine 1979, 76 Brooke Alexander, New York 1985 Leslie Brody, "Yvonne Jacquette —Aerial Art," Ibkyo 1974 Brooke Alexander, New York Journal, (July) Fischbach Gallery, New York Ron Hill, "Yvonne Jacquette," Catalogue published by 1972 Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia Yurakucho Seibu/Takanawa Art, Tokyo to accompany 1971 Fischbach Gallery, New York exhibition, (May) 1965 Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 1983 James D. Burke, "Currents: 22. Yvonne Jacquette," Catalogue published by St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis to SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS accompany exhibition, (December 13^anuary 15, 1984) 1982 Robert Berlind, "Yvonne Jacquette at Brooke Alexander," 1985 Drawing Acquisitions 1981-1985, Whitney Museum of Art in America, (October) American Art, New York 1981 Carter Ratcliff, "Yvonne Jacquette: American Visionary" Yvonne Jacquette and Sylvia Plimack Mangold: New Paintings The Print Collector's Newsletter, (Vol. XII, No. 3) (July/ and Pastels, John C. Stoller & Co., Minneapolis August) 1984 An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture, The Deborah C. Phillips, "Yvonne Jacquette" Arts Magazine, Museum of Modern Art, New York (April) Drawings Since 1974, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture John Russell, "Yvonne Jacquette," The New York Times, Garden Washington, DC (February 20) 1983 The Great East River Bridge, The Brooklyn Museum, 1979 Susan Fillin Yeh, "Yvonne Jacquette," Arts Magazine, (May) Brooklyn, New York Hilton Kramer, "Art: Yvonne Jacquette," The New York Times, Twentieth-Century Art from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: (April 27) Recent Acquisitions, The Queens Museum, New York 1976 Carter Ratcliff, "Yvonne Jacquette," Catalogue published by 1981 New Work on Paper I, The Museum of Modern Art, New York Brooke Alexander, Inc., New York to accompany exhibition, Collector's Choice, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis (November) 1973 Recent Acquisitions: Drawings, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1972 Painting Annual, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York BOWDOIN COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART BROOKE ALEXANDER.