Grid/ Off the Grid Walk-through with Francis Cunningham (Video)

Francis Cunningham is in a group show, "Grid/ Off the Grid" at Westbeth focusing on the use of the grid in landscape. Most of the artists in the show, Violet Baxter, Bill Kennon, Simon Carr, Valerie Mendelson, Robert Feinland, Robert Ludwig, Francis Cunningham and Peter Colquhoun, live at Westbeth. We decided to do something new for our YouTube channel and cover the show with a long walk-through. The video is quite long, but with 60 or so paintings by eight artists, it was only fair to spend a long time with them in the great exhibition space Westbeth Gallery is.

More details on NY Art Beat http://www.nyartbeat.com/event/2011/672D
Note, the exhibition ends on Sunday, April 17, 2011.

Francis Cunningham: Over the Years (Paintings from 1962-2011)

Since March 19th about two dozen paintings, large and small: still lifes, premier coup, landscapes, portraits and a major landscape, which were completed between 1962 and 2011 have been hanging on the walls of the Laurel Tracey Gallery in NJ. If have not seen that show, which is due to come down on April 9, or would like to have a walk through with the artist, we have a video report narrated by Francis Cunningham ready. Take a walk through the gallery and through the years of his painting.

In Plain Sight - Francis Cunningham Exhibition Video Walk-Through

Francis Cunningham exhibition of paintings and drawings is currently on display in Midtown.  Today we're bringing you a video walk-through with the artist.  It was recorded one day after the show opened last week.

An invitation to a show in Jerusalem

The following invitation, including the text, recently arrived at Francis Cunningham's studio. Alas, Dick will not be able to attend. 

The image in the invitation is a portrait of Pesach Slabosky by Francis Cunningham.  The text explains it and the origins of the exhibition.

בחברה הכי יפה



In the Finest Company

פראנסיס קנינגהאם, פסח סלבוסקי, נעמי בריקמן, אבי סבח, מאשה זוסמן, ינאי סגל, ג'אורג' גרוס

Francis Cunningham, Pesach Slabosky, Nomi Bruckmann, Avi Sabah, Masha Zusman, Yanai Segal, George Grosz 

     When we both were younger, Francis (Dick) Cunningham was my teacher at the Brooklyn Museum Art School (of blessed memory*).  We have been close friends ever since.  Dick has made five trips to Israel, where he has traveled and painted.  He has given workshops at Bezalel, and his work was exhibited in the exhibit, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, 1909-1999, Contemporary Views,   [תל אביב-יפו 1909-1999 נופים עכשיויים] at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, in 1999. 
     The name of the exhibit, In the Finest Company, is meant to express my pleasure in friendship and collegiality towards me on the part of the participants, over long and shorter periods of time.  The name and conceptualizing of the exhibition  are mine, but Cunningham has the credit for the fact that there is an exhibition. His desire that he and I should have an exhibit together in Israel was what made me want to do it.
    These are the artists.  Dick and myself.  Nomi Bruckmann, who is my wife.  Nomi was not formally Dick’s student, but she has maintained her own close relationship with him since the days when we three met at the Brooklyn Museum. The members of Barbur: Avi Sabah, Yanai Segal, and Masha Zusman. I thank them for not just hosting the exhibition, but also for agreeing to respond to the works of Dick, Nomi, and myself, with their own works.  We are fortunate, too, to have available a work by George Grosz, the German master.  Cunningham studied with Grosz in New York and remembers him fondly.  His principal teacher, according to him, was the American painter, Edwin Dickinson.  (There is a painting by Dickinson in the collection of the Israel Museum, which I have been told has never been exhibited.) 
    Most unfortunately, despite Cunningham’s desire to be present, he was not able to make the trip.  We shall be raising a glass to him.

Pesach Slabosky
*This is a story in itself.  Since the 1970’s, The Borough of Brooklyn, in New York, has had a monumental upgrading, in which The Brooklyn Museum has taken part.  From being a little-visited site, it has become a major New York art venue.  As part of making that happen, the museum closed the art school, which had operated for more than fifty years, and was making a profit, to make more exhibition space.

Image: Nomi Bruckmann

Image: Francis Cunningham "Pesach Slabosky" 

Image: Pesach Slabosky "Francis Cunningham"

                                                        

Arthur Cohen & Francis Cunningham Exhibition, May 2010 in Red Bank NJ

Those who could not make it to Francis Cunningham and Arthur Cohen "The Landscape Cape Code and the Berkshires" show's opening reception at Laurel Tracey Gallery last weekend, we managed to glean some images from the gallery and a guest and bring your a slideshow.  Click here for the slideshow. You can also see the exhibition at the gallery until May 20, 2010.

Laurel Tracey, Francis Cunnigham, Arthur Cohen, Kitty Cunningham before the show in the gallery.

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Arthur Cohen, who is showing Provincetown Harbor paintings in the exhibition, just like Francis Cunningham studied with Edwin Dickinson, although at an earlier time.  Laurel Tracey Gallery page says the following about Arthur Cohen, his style and technique:

Cohen's sweeping panoramas of Provincetown Harbor are developed from storied layering and scraping - thin levels of paint build up over a day. week, or even over several years, referred to by Cohen as the "ghost" in his painting. It is this "buried" sense of time and continuity that evokes a sense of timelessness and spatial infinity. Working with a focused palette of blues and grays, occasionally some pink and green, Cohen repeatedly brings the viewer a synthesis of light from different moments;

Keeping in mind the common denominator, it is interesting to see the difference and similarities between the two painters' work in this exhibition.