CA NY POST-WAR MIGRATION OF ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISTS ANITA SHAPOLSKY GALLERY cover detail: JON SCHUELER December ‘68, 1968 (see page 31) CA NY POST-WAR MIGRATION OF ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISTS September 11 - November 22, 2019 ERNEST BRIGGS JOHN HULTBERG LAWRENCE CALCAGNO RICHARDS RUBEN HERMAN CHERRY JON SCHUELER Anita Shapolsky Gallery & A.S. Art Foundation 152 East 65th Street, New York, NY 10065 CA NY POST-WAR MIGRATION OF ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISTS Anita Shapolsky Gallery is pleased to present CA NY: scene convincing and he decided to continue his Post-War Migration of Abstract Expressionists, a group practice on the East Coast. Briggs, Calcagno, and exhibition of select Bay Area and Los Angeles artists Schueler followed suit in the early 1950s, a migration who followed the surge of Abstract Expressionists catalyzed both by Still’s decision to move to New York across the country in the 1950s to participate in the and also by the firing of MacAgy. LA-based abstract flourishing sister movement: the New York School of artists Richards Ruben and Herman Cherry would join Abstract Expressionism. the migration by the 1960s. The Bay Area School of Abstract Expressionism was The exhibition CA NY: Post-War Migration centered around the California School of Fine Arts of Abstract Expressionists attempts to visually (CSFA) in San Francisco and its director, Douglas demonstrate the exchange of ideas that occurred MacAgy. MacAgy was hired in 1945 in an effort between both the Bay Area and New York schools of to revitalize and modernize the overly-traditional Abstract Expressionism. While the two schools shared program. He began by hiring a plethora of young a belief in the active process of painting to express artists, including Richard Diebenkorn, Stanley Hayter, one’s innermost thoughts and feelings, the New and Clyfford Still, who, while largely inexperienced in York artists were more heavily affected by trends in teaching, were nevertheless instrumental in educating European art. The Californian artists in this exhibition a wave of second-generation Abstract Expressionists. created a style that was truly American, often rooted Like many of the students at the CSFA, Ernest Briggs, in natural forms rather than urban landscapes. Lawrence Calcagno, John Hultberg, and Jon Schueler used their assistance from the GI Bill to enroll in the After moving to New York City in 1953, Ernest program shortly after their return from service in World Briggs (b. 1923, San Diego, CA; d. 1984, New York, War II. Their shared experiences in the war, along NY) would shift his style multiple times through the with their closeness in age, allowed the professors 1960s and 70s due to the growing popularity of Pop and students to form a strong, supportive, and often Art, Minimalism, and Hard-edge painting on the East collaborative atmosphere. Coast. Briggs, however, consistently remained true to the practice of action painting. He also experimented While the CSFA cultivated its own unique school of with acrylic paint and small-scale works from 1963 to abstract art, it also exposed its students to New York 1975. His paintings in this exhibit exemplify Briggs’ abstract artists like Mark Rothko and Ad Reinhardt range of compositional strategies, canvas size, and through summer sessions from 1947 to 1949. Hultberg technique. Many of these works are from a period of found Rothko’s guest lectures about the New York art his oeuvre that are rarely shown. 4 | CA NY: Post-War Migration of Abstract Expressionists Lawrence Calcagno (b. 1913, San Francisco, CA; d. considered himself part of the latter group, including 1993, State College, PA) was exposed to nature at a images of ships and their harbors in the Bay Area young age, growing up on his family’s ranch outside of in his paintings and deriving inspiration from the Big Sur. His drawings of native plants and landscapes landscapes of his childhood spent in Concord, CA. encountered on horseback as a child informed his Hultberg never identified with any one particular abstract compositions like Blue Painting (p. 13), which style, combining elements from Surrealism, Cubism, suggests an infinite blue expanse where sea meets sky. Abstract Expressionism, and the various trends he The landscapes Calcagno witnessed while traveling encountered in both California and New York. around Europe and Northern Africa between 1950 and 1955, along with diverse ideas from artists he met While MacAgy was promoting abstract art in the while studying at Académie de la Grande Chaumiere Bay Area, Richards Ruben (b. 1925, Los Angeles, and Istituto d’arte Statale, were also extremely CA; d. 1998, Venice, Italy) - a Los Angeles native – foundational to his style. helped establish Abstract Expressionism in Southern California. After serving in WWII, he returned to Though he was born in Atlantic City and spent his his hometown in 1944 to attend the Chouinard Art adolescence in Philadelphia, Herman Cherry (b. 1909, Institute. Ruben would teach painting there, at the Atlantic City, NJ; d. 1992, New York, NY) received the Claremont Colleges, and UCLA until he moved to bulk of his formal education in Los Angeles. Cherry New York in the 1960s, where he continued teaching studied at the Otis Art Institute in 1927 and eventually at NYU, Columbia, and Pratt. The large-scale paintings the Art Student’s League, where his style was shaped in his “City” series captured the differing energies under synchronist Stanton MacDonald-Wright and of the urban landscapes he encountered in LA and Regionalist Thomas Hart Benton. Cherry left California New York. Ruben is most recognized, however, by his in 1941 to study murals in Mexico City before ultimately uniquely shaped canvases that enhance the geometric settling in Woodstock, making his migration to the forms and lines in his paintings. West Coast before MacAgy’s historic program at the CSFA even began. In 1947, Cherry would solidify his Skyscapes, rather than landscapes, were what place within the New York art scene with a show at fascinated Jon Schueler (b. 1916, Milwaukee, WI; d. the Weyhe Gallery of his signature “pictographs,” 1992, New York, NY). The sky permeated his childhood mixed media sculptures that materialized the playful spent in the open fields around Milwaukee, Wisconsin; geometric forms found in his abstract paintings like clouds of smoke surrounded the B-17 bomber plane Cocoon 5 (p. 18). he flew in the Air Force during WWII. Under Clyfford Still’s teachings, Schueler conformed to the impasto John Hultberg (b. 1922, Berkeley, CA; d. 2005, New technique that was popular at the CSFA when he York, NY) was part of the “Sausalito Six,” a group studied there from 1949 until he moved to New York of artists, including Diebenkorn, Frank Lobdell, in 1951. His transition towards softer, more blended and George Stillman, who lived just outside of San colors would only come in the 1960s, after he decided Francisco. Hultberg studied with them at the CSFA to leave the urban landscapes of San Francisco and after returning from the Navy in 1946, although his time New York behind in favor of the open sky in Mallaig, in the program was short. He felt a divide within the Scotland. His matured style applied the technical faculty MacAgy assembled: Still’s camp that favored aspects of both Bay Area and New York schools of purely abstract, metaphysical art and Diebenkorn’s Abstract Expressionism to the subject matter that more fluid incorporation of both figurative and captivated him the most: the sky. abstract forms, often inspired by nature. Hultberg Anita Shapolsky Gallery | 5 ERNEST BRIGGS ERNEST BRIGGS Untitled, 1958 Untitled, 1950 oil on canvas oil on canvas 31 x 25 in 64 x 71.5 in 6 | CA NY: Post-War Migration of Abstract Expressionists Anita Shapolsky Gallery | 7 ERNEST BRIGGS Untitled, 1961 oil on canvas 51 x 40 in 8 | CA NY: Post-War Migration of Abstract Expressionists ERNEST BRIGGS Untitled, 1961 oil on canvas 59.5 x 48 in Anita Shapolsky Gallery | 9 ERNEST BRIGGS Untitled, 1970s oil on canvas 36 x 34 in 10 | CA NY: Post-War Migration of Abstract Expressionists ERNEST BRIGGS Untitled, 1962 oil on canvas 34 x 32 in Anita Shapolsky Gallery | 11 LAWRENCE CALCAGNO LAWRENCE CALCAGNO Untitled, 1956 Blue Painting, 1971 watercolor on paper acrylic on canvas 12.75 x 11 in 52 x 48 in 12 | CA NY: Post-War Migration of Abstract Expressionists Anita Shapolsky Gallery | 13 LAWRENCE CALCAGNO LAWRENCE CALCAGNO Untitled, 1956 Untitled, 1988 watercolor on paper oil on canvas 31 x 23 in 48 x 54 in 14 | CA NY: Post-War Migration of Abstract Expressionists Anita Shapolsky Gallery | 15 LAWRENCE CALCAGNO Taos, 1982 acrylic on paper on canvas 24 x 32 in 16 | CA NY: Post-War Migration of Abstract Expressionists LAWRENCE CALCAGNO Untitled, 1972 watercolor on paper 41 x 31 in Anita Shapolsky Gallery | 17 HERMAN CHERRY HERMAN CHERRY Cocoon 5, 1988 Untitled, 1962 oil on canvas collage on paper 20 x 15 in 25.5 x 22 in 18 | CA NY: Post-War Migration of Abstract Expressionists Anita Shapolsky Gallery | 19 JOHN HULTBERG Twilight of the Iron Horse, 1960 oil on paper on board 22 x 30 in 20 | CA NY: Post-War Migration of Abstract Expressionists JOHN HULTBERG The Well, 1954 oil on canvas 27 x 32 in Anita Shapolsky Gallery | 21 JOHN HULTBERG Sphere, 1956 oil on canvas 25 x 32 in 22 | CA NY: Post-War Migration of Abstract Expressionists JOHN HULTBERG Sails, 1961 oil on canvas 24 x 30 in Anita Shapolsky Gallery | 23 24 | CA NY: Post-War Migration of Abstract Expressionists JOHN HULTBERG RICHARDS RUBEN German Night, 1973 Venetian Fragment