Gary Lee Shaffer

"In Between the Houses", Charcoal & Gouache Abstract, 1981

1981

Richard Snyder (American, born 1951) Untitled Mixed media painting including charcoal and watercolor Hand signed to lower right Dimensions: 30.0" W x 22.5" H x 0.1" D Richard Snyder is particularly known for his large-scale abstract expressionist paintings exhibiting vibrant colors, often applied in an irregular manner with large gestural brushstrokes. He also was an accomplished sculptor and was amongst the downtown New York art-furniture scene spawned in the 1980s by the Soho gallery ‘Art et Industrie’ founded by Rick Kaufmann. Downtown New York, circa 1977-1980 was a hothouse of creative impulses that flew in the face of restrictions and ran headlong toward riotous expression. Punk, hip-hop, graffiti or neo-expressionism, Kaufmann looked around for new talent that could create a new kind of art furniture. He felt the design of the day was so standardised, and he wanted to give voice to young artists and bring new ideas to market. After receiving a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Snyder made his career in the fields of art and design, practicing sculpture, painting, furniture design and fabrication, interior design, cabinetmaking, construction and industrial design. Along with extensive experience in a wide variety of materials and processes, Snyder also possesses a wide range of visual and experiential vocabulary acquired in his many travels through the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Central and Southeast Asia. Snyder considers his objects to be not just about form, function, color, material and process, but rather to be fantasies with spirit, magic and story. During his seventeen years with the Art et Industrie gallery, Snyder participated in five solo shows and more than twenty group shows, which established him as a major player in the American Art Furniture movement. His pieces have appeared in numerous publications and media around the world; and they are included in numerous private collections worldwide as well as in the permanent collection of The Art Institute of Chicago. Snyder guest-lectures at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, the New School in New York, and SUNY Purchase. He was included in the seminal Magen H Gallery retrospective of Art et Industrie—a New York Movement. Art et Industrie was the first to exhibit Studio Alchemia, Shiro Takahama, and Ron Arad. The retrospective included artists such as Forrest Myers, Terence Main...

The Summer Bloom Series is an ongoing project that Shizico Yi returns to each summer, painting en plein air in her garden. She began gardening in 2015 to create a healing space for h...