Luis Hernandez Cruz

Desnudo abstracto - Abstract Puerto Rican Art

1981

Larry Zox Lexington, 1973 Acrylic on canvas 61 x 49 inches Provenance: Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York Janie C. Lee Gallery, Houston, Texas Private Collection, Greenwood Village, Colorado Exhibited: New York, Andre Emmerich Gallery, Larry Zox: New Paintings, March 10 - 28, 1973. Houston, Texas, Janie C. Lee Gallery, Larry Zox, February - April, 1974. A painter who played an essential role in the Color Field discourse of the 1960s and 1970s, Larry Zox is best known for his intensely and brilliantly colored geometric abstractions, which question and violate symmetry. Zox stated in 1965: “Being contrary is the only way I can get at anything.” To Zox, this position was not necessarily arbitrary, but instead meant “responding to something in an examination of it [such as] using a mechanical format with X number of possibilities." What he sought was to “get at the specific character and quality of each painting in and for itself,” as James Monte stated in his introductory essay in the catalogue for Zox’s 1973–74 solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Zox also at times used a freer, more intuitive method, while maintaining coloristic autonomy, which became increasingly important to him in his later career. Zox began to receive attention in the 1960s, when he was included in several groundbreaking exhibitions of Color Field and Minimalist art, including Shape and Structure (1965), organized by Henry Geldzahler and Frank Stella for Tibor de Nagy, New York, and Systemic Painting (1966), organized by Lawrence Alloway for the Guggenheim Museum. In 1973–74, the Whitney’s solo exhibition of Zox’s work gave recognition to his significance in the art scene of the preceding decade. In the following year, he was represented in the inaugural exhibition of the Hirshhorn Museum, which acquired fourteen of his works. Zox was born in Des Moines, Iowa. He attended the University of Oklahoma and Drake University, and then studied under George Grosz at the Des Moines Art Center. In 1958, Zox moved to New York, joining the downtown art scene. His studio on 20th Street became a gathering place for artists, jazz musicians, bikers, and boxers. He occasionally sparred with visiting fighters. He later established a studio in East Hampton, a former black smithy used previously by Jackson Pollock. Zox’s earliest works were collages consisting of pieces of painted paper stapled onto sheets of plywood. He then produced paintings that were illusions of collages, including both torn- and trued-edged forms, to which he added a wide range of strong hues that created ambiguous surfaces. Next, he omitted the collage aspect of his work and applied flat color areas to create more complete statements of pure color and shape. He then replaced these torn and expressive edges with clean and impersonal lines that would define his work for the next decade. From 1962 to 1965, he produced his Rotation series, at first creating plywood and Plexiglas reliefs, which turned squares into dynamic polygons. He used these shapes in his paintings as well, employing white as a foil between colors to produce negative spaces that suggest that the colored shapes had only been cut out and laid down instead of painted. The New York Times noted in 1964: “The artist is hip, cool, adventurous, not content to stay with the mere exercise of sensibility that one sees in smaller works.” In 1965, he began the Scissors Jack series, in which he arranged opposing triangular shapes with inverted Vs of bare canvas at their centers that threaten to split their compositions apart. In several works from this series, Zox was inspired by ancient Chinese water vessels...

Blue Gaze, 1977, by Robert Natkin (1930-2010) Acrylic on canvas 66 x 66 inches framed 25.98 x 25.98 cm) Signed on bottom right In childhood, Natkin recalls a dream where he dives into an Oriental rug and as he floats down into the rug he passes through bejeweled mazes of color that appear exotic to him. This recurring dream is not surprising to anyone familiar with this artist's work, since much of Natkin's work reminds one of textiles. He achieves this look by his use of cross-hatching, blottings, dottings and his own technique of transferring textures right onto the canvas by pressing with a heavy cloth or paper towel. Exhibitions: In 1957, Momentum, Chicago, IL In 1968, Pointdexter Gallery, New York, NY (solo) In 1969, San Francisco Museum of Art (retrospective 1952-1969), San Francisco, CA (solo) In 1974, Within the Decade: Selections from the Guggenheim Museum Permanent Collection, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY In 1980, Masters of American Watercolor, The Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, OK In 1992, Gimpel Fils Gallery, London, UK (solo) In 2007, LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe...

Gallery # 455 1963 Apollo Series Acrylic on Canvas. 76 x 76 in. In childhood, Natkin recalls a dream where he dives into an Oriental rug and as he floats down into the rug he passes...

Larry Zox Jean Jean, 1964 Signed, dated, and titled on the stretcher Liquitex on canvas 58 x 62 inches Provenance: Solomon & Co., New York Private Collection, NJ Estate of the above, 2023 Committed to abstraction throughout his career, Larry Zox played a central role in the Color Field discourse of the 1960s and 1970s. His work of the time, consisting of brilliantly colored geometric shapes in dynamic juxtapositions, demonstrated that hard-edge painting was neither cold nor formalistic. He reused certain motifs, but he did so less to explore their aspects than to “get at the specific character and quality of each painting in and for itself,” as James Monte stated in his essay for Zox’s solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1973. By the 1970s, Zox was using a freer, more emotive method, while maintaining the autonomy of color, which increasingly became more important to him than structure in his late years. Zox began to receive attention in the 1960s, when he was included in several groundbreaking exhibitions of Color Field and Minimalist art, including Shape and Structure (1965), organized by Henry Geldzahler for the Gallery of Modern Art, New York, and Systemic Painting (1966), organized by Lawrence Alloway for the Guggenheim Museum. In 1973, the Whitney’s solo exhibition of Zox’s work gave recognition to his significance in the art scene of the preceding decade. In the following year, Zox was represented in the inaugural exhibition of the Hirshhorn Museum, which owns fourteen of his works. Zox was born in Des Moines, Iowa. He attended the University of Oklahoma and Drake University. While studying at the Des Moines Art Center, he was mentored by George Grosz, who despite his own figurative approach encouraged Zox’s forays into abstraction. In 1958, Zox moved to New York, joining the downtown art scene. His studio on 20th Street became a gathering place for artists, jazz musicians, bikers, and boxers. He occasionally sparred with the visiting fighters. He later established a studio in East Hampton, where he painted and fished including using a helicopter to spot fish. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Zox’s works were collages consisting of painted pieces of paper stapled onto sheets of plywood. He then produced paintings that were illusions of collages, including both torn- and trued-edged forms, to which he added a wide range of intense hues that created ambiguous surfaces. Next, he omitted the collage aspect of his work and applied flat color areas to create more complete statements of pure color and shape. From 1962 to 1965, he produced his Rotation Series, at first creating plywood and Plexiglas reliefs, which turned squares into dynamic polygons. He used these shapes in his paintings as well, employing white as a foil between colors to produce negative spaces that suggest that the colored shapes had only been cut out and laid down instead of painted. The New York Times noted in 1964: “The artist is hip, cool, adventurous, not content to stay with the mere exercise of sensibility that one sees in smaller works.” In 1965, he began the Scissors Jack...

Phenomena Celtic Fire Torc by Paul Jenkins (1923-2012) Acrylic on canvas 76 x 61 cm (29⁷/₈ x 24 inches) Signed lower left Paul Jenkins Signed, dated and titled on the reverse Executed in 1995 Provenance Private collection, Germany Biography Born at Kansas City in Missouri (USA), the multi-media artist, poet and playwright Paul Jenkins studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Students League in New York City. After his discharge from military service at the end of February 1946, he briefly studied playwriting with dramatist George McCalmon at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. Thereafter, Jenkins spent four years studying with Japanese American artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi in New York City. His first solo exhibitions were held at Studio Paul Facchetti in Paris in 1954 and the Martha Graham Gallery in New York City in 1956. Over the past thirty years, numerous retrospectives have been curated across the globe and Jenkins’ work can found in national collections from Europe and the United States to Israel, Australia and Japan. The diversity of his work springs from Jenkins’ wealth of eclectic influences. Some of his earliest works included what he called "interior landscapes" influenced by ancient natural forms like the caves he visited in the Ozark Mountains in his native-Missouri. Frequent student visits to the Frick Collection in New York fostered a love of the great masters: Bellini, Holbein, Vermeer, Rembrandt, de la Tour, Turner and Goya. In compliment, lingering student visits to the renowned Eastern collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City evoked powerful sympathy for a monumental Chinese fresco...

*UK BUYERS WILL PAY AN ADDITIONAL 5% IMPORT DUTY ON TOP OF THE ABOVE PRICE Phenomena Prism Mirror by Paul Jenkins (1923-2012) Acrylic on canvas 147.3 x 1...

*UK BUYERS WILL PAY AN ADDITIONAL 5% IMPORT DUTY ON TOP OF THE ABOVE PRICE Phenomena High Born by Paul Jenkins (1923-2012) Acrylic on canvas 91.44 x 50.8 cm (36 x 20 inches) Signed lower left Jenkins Signed, dated and titled on the reverse Executed in 1964 which makes this a very early work and so more valuable Biography Born at Kansas City in Missouri (USA), the multi-media artist, poet and playwright Paul Jenkins studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Students League in New York City. After his discharge from military service at the end of February 1946, he briefly studied playwriting with dramatist George McCalmon at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. Thereafter, Jenkins spent four years studying with Japanese American artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi in New York City. His first solo exhibitions were held at Studio Paul Facchetti in Paris in 1954 and the Martha Graham Gallery in New York City in 1956. Over the past thirty years, numerous retrospectives have been curated across the globe and Jenkins’ work can found in national collections from Europe and the United States to Israel, Australia and Japan. The diversity of his work springs from Jenkins’ wealth of eclectic influences. Some of his earliest works included what he called "interior landscapes" influenced by ancient natural forms like the caves he visited in the Ozark Mountains in his native-Missouri. Frequent student visits to the Frick Collection in New York fostered a love of the great masters: Bellini, Holbein, Vermeer, Rembrandt, de la Tour, Turner and Goya. In compliment, lingering student visits to the renowned Eastern collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City evoked powerful sympathy for a monumental Chinese fresco...

Phenomena Spectrum Guardian by Paul Jenkins (1923 - 2012) Acrylic on canvas 76 x 101.5 cm (29 ⁷/₈ x 40 inches) Signed lower middle Paul Jenkins Executed in 1970 Provenance: Gallerie Iris Wazzau, Davos, Switzerland Private collection, Cologne, Germany Artist biography: Born at Kansas City in Missouri (USA), the multi-media artist, poet and playwright Paul Jenkins studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Students League in New York City. After his discharge from military service at the end of February 1946, he briefly studied playwriting with dramatist George McCalmon at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. Thereafter, Jenkins spent four years studying with Japanese American artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi in New York City. His first solo exhibitions were held at Studio Paul Facchetti in Paris in 1954 and the Martha Graham Gallery in New York City in 1956. Over the past thirty years, numerous retrospectives have been curated across the globe and Jenkins’ work can found in national collections from Europe and the United States to Israel, Australia and Japan. The diversity of his work springs from Jenkins’ wealth of eclectic influences. Some of his earliest works included what he called "interior landscapes" influenced by ancient natural forms like the caves he visited in the Ozark Mountains in his native-Missouri. Frequent student visits to the Frick Collection in New York fostered a love of the great masters: Bellini, Holbein, Vermeer, Rembrandt, de la Tour, Turner and Goya. In compliment, lingering student visits to the renowned Eastern collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City evoked powerful sympathy for a monumental Chinese fresco...

Phenomena Entreat the Caves by Paul Jenkins (1923-2012) Acrylic on canvas 61 x 50 cm (24 x 19 ³/₄ inches) Signed lower left, Paul Jenkins Executed in 1998-2001 Provenance: Private collection, Italy Literature: Prato, Galleria Open Art, Paul Jenkins, 12 November 2005 - 31 January 2006, p. 61 (illustrated) Artist biography: Born at Kansas City in Missouri (USA), the multi-media artist, poet and playwright Paul Jenkins studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Students League in New York City. After his discharge from military service at the end of February 1946, he briefly studied playwriting with dramatist George McCalmon at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. Thereafter, Jenkins spent four years studying with Japanese American artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi in New York City. His first solo exhibitions were held at Studio Paul Facchetti in Paris in 1954 and the Martha Graham Gallery in New York City in 1956. Over the past thirty years, numerous retrospectives have been curated across the globe and Jenkins’ work can found in national collections from Europe and the United States to Israel, Australia and Japan. The diversity of his work springs from Jenkins’ wealth of eclectic influences. Some of his earliest works included what he called "interior landscapes" influenced by ancient natural forms like the caves he visited in the Ozark Mountains in his native-Missouri. Frequent student visits to the Frick Collection in New York fostered a love of the great masters: Bellini, Holbein, Vermeer, Rembrandt, de la Tour, Turner and Goya. In compliment, lingering student visits to the renowned Eastern collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City evoked powerful sympathy for a monumental Chinese fresco...

Phenomena Quoth by Paul Jenkins (1923-2012) Acrylic on canvas 76 x 100 cm (29 ⁷/₈ x 39 ³/₈ inches) Signed lower center, Paul Jenkins Signed, titled and dated on the reverse Executed in 1963-64 Provenance Kenmore Galleries, Philadelphia Dr. Theodore A. Feinstein collection Sotheby's New York, 24th February 1995 Crozier Fine Arts, New York Private collection, New York Artist biography Born at Kansas City in Missouri (USA), the multi-media artist, poet and playwright Paul Jenkins studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Students League in New York City. After his discharge from military service at the end of February 1946, he briefly studied playwriting with dramatist George McCalmon at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. Thereafter, Jenkins spent four years studying with Japanese American artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi in New York City. His first solo exhibitions were held at Studio Paul Facchetti in Paris in 1954 and the Martha Graham Gallery in New York City in 1956. Over the past thirty years, numerous retrospectives have been curated across the globe and Jenkins’ work can found in national collections from Europe and the United States to Israel, Australia and Japan. The diversity of his work springs from Jenkins’ wealth of eclectic influences. Some of his earliest works included what he called "interior landscapes" influenced by ancient natural forms like the caves he visited in the Ozark Mountains in his native-Missouri. Frequent student visits to the Frick Collection in New York fostered a love of the great masters: Bellini, Holbein, Vermeer, Rembrandt, de la Tour, Turner and Goya. In compliment, lingering student visits to the renowned Eastern collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City evoked powerful sympathy for a monumental Chinese fresco of Buddha, polychrome sculptures of the enlightened Bodhisattva, the Buddhist goddess of mercy Kuan-Yin, Indian bronzes of Hindu god Shiva, and statues of meditative Buddhist lohans. Serving in the US Naval Air Corps during the Second World War, Jenkins painted watercolours of Japanese Kabuki dancers and read the ancient Chinese poetic teachings of the I Ching and Lao Tse Tung’s Tao Te Ching...