April 12 – May 10, 1986
Artists Space
Moderns in Mind
In 1986, the Mark Rothko Foundation sponsored a third exhibition program to bring attention to the work of older artists who were deemed not to have received the critical attention they deserved over the course of their careers. Gerome Kamrowski, Lee Mullican, and Gordon Onslow-Ford were chosen for that year's program, and unlike previous groupings, these artists were bound by certain similarities in their work. All three artists came of age in the 1940s and had found themselves wrapped up early on in the discourse surrounding both Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism (Onslow-Ford and Kamrowski were both officially accepted as members of André Breton's movement). In the year of this exhibition, all three artists were still working through some of the critical problems of that period, though in distinct ways. It was this fact that prompted the art critic and curator Dan Cameron to characterize them as "modern in mind" in the age of postmodernism.
Without fully negating it, all three artists had cultivated an almost playful attitude toward the highly serious, late-Modernist, Abstract-Expressionist doctrine. Kamrowski's colorful, toy-sized figurines of mythical creatures retain some hint of the spiritual sublime at the same time that they present themselves as formations of found materials. Lee Mullican's oil paintings recite the language of the Abstract Expressionist picture, albeit indirectly, using paint to evoke textile, with each brushstroke functioning as a single stitch, rather than as a heroic gesture. Gordon Onslow-Ford's abstract fields present "mental universes" replete with signs and characters derived from his careful study of Chinese calligraphy, all of which strangely resemble galaxy patterns from outer space. Though painted in acrylic on linen, his works are not entirely "medium-specific," borrowing much from the language of photography.
Gerome Kamrowski joined the faculty at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1946. In 1958 in Detroit, he organized the Hylozoist Group whose purpose was to explore the use of industrial materials in their work. Kamrowski's first solo exhibition was at Mortimer Brandt Gallery, New York in 1946. Since that time he was shown at galleries and museums across the country, with the most recent in New York, a group exhibition entitled, "Decades of American Modernism, 1901-49" , Martin Diamond Fine Arts, New York (1982). Other group shows include The Whitney Museum of Art, New York (1979); and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1978). Solo exhibitions include "Paintings and Works on Paper 40-47," Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York (1978); Gallery 2269, Chicago (1978); Scarab Club, Detroit (1966), Galerie Creuze, Paris (1957); and many exhibitions at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of this Century Gallery, New York. Past exhibitions have focused on Kamrowski's early works, while Artists Space will show the first body of recent work to be seen in New York. Born in Warren, Minnesota in 1914, Kamrowski now lives in Ann Harbor, Michigan.
Lee Mullican was co-founder of the Dynaton group in 1951. His most recent solo exhibition include the Herbert Palmer Gallery, Los Angeles (1986); the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (1973 and 1976); the Willard Gallery, New York (1950-1967); the San Francisco Museum of Art (1945 and 1965); and the Pasadena Art Museum (1961). Group exhibitions included Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; the Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.; and the Museum of Modern Art, Paris. Mullican is represented by the Herbert Palmer Gallery, Los Angeles. Mullican has not shown in New York since 1967. Born in Chicakasha Oklahoma in 1919, Mullican now lives in Santa Monica, California.
Gordon Onslow-Ford has his first group exhibition in 1942 at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, entitled "Artists in Exile". In 1951, he co-founded the Dynaton Group. His work has been featured in recent retrospective exhibitions at the Oakland Museum (1977); the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia (1971); and the San Francisco Museum of Art (1948 and 1964); as well as group shows at the Newport Harbor Art Museum (1982); Arnold Herstand Gallery, New York (1984), and the Krakow Gallery, Boston (1985). His most recent work has shown at a one-man exhibition at Galerie Samy Kinge in Paris in September 1985. This recent work has not been seen in New York. He has written two books: Creation, published by Galerie Schriener, Basel, and Yves Tanguy and Automatism, Bishop Pine Press, 1983. Born in Wendover, England in 1912, Onslow-Ford lives in Inverness, California.
Artists Space activities are made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency; New York State Council on the Arts, Institute for Museum Services, and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; Art Matters, Inc., Jerome Foundation, Leonhardt Foundation, Betty Parsons Foundation, Mark Rothko Foundatio, Samuel Rubin Foundation, and The Wallace Funds; the American Express Company, AT&T Communications, Citibank, Consolidated Edison, EXXON, R.H. Macy Company, Mobil Foundation, Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York, Paine Webber, and Phillip Morris, as well as numerous friends.
