Ben WilsonChartres, 19891989
1989
About the Item
- Creator:Ben Wilson (1913-2001, American)
- Creation Year:1989
- Dimensions:Height: 48 in (121.92 cm)Width: 36 in (91.44 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Quogue, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU131215338022
Ben Wilson
Born in Philadelphia, Ben Wilson was a New York Abstract Expressionist painter. His work was exhibited frequently from the mid-1930s through the 1960s, and less frequently but consistently through the rest of the century. Decade by decade beginning in the 1930s his painting comprises a micro history of the period’s art, while depicting what was foremost in the American consciousness of the time.
Wilson’s earliest work shows an intense awareness of social and economic turmoil of the 1930s. Dominating the content was the flow of world events beginning with the Spanish Civil War and followed by the rise of fascism, the Second World War and the plight of the persecuted, displaced and slaughtered minorities. Wilson was concerned with representing humanity and suffering in a changed world.
By the late 1950s Wilson began using abstraction in his paintings, merging himself with the “New York School” of art. He shared many of the values of Abstract Expressionists like Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns.
Through the 1960s, Wilson completed his transition to abstraction, exhibited in New York and Paris and received a Ford Foundation artist-in-residence grant. As the decade progressed he became increasingly experimental with his mediums, using house paint, sand and other unorthodox materials.
Ever one to pursue a personal aesthetic path regardless of popular movements and critical reactions, Wilson increasingly withdrew from the New York art scene from the 1970s on.
Throughout his life Wilson painted and drew every day. He left behind a large body of work and an extensive archive, including exhibition catalogues, reviews, and correspondence that are now part of the permanent collection of the George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University. A portion of his archives is in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
Wilson is listed in Who’s Who in Art; Who’s Who in the East; Dictionary of International Biography; American Artists of Renown and International Encyclopedia of Artists. His work is in numerous public collections, including the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum, New York, NY; Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum, New Brunswick, NJ; Rutgers University Art Library and Classics Department, New Brunswick, NJ; Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA; Norfolk Museum, Norfolk, VA; and Fairleigh Dickinson University Collection of Self-Portraits, NJ.
Find original Ben Wilson paintings and other art on 1stDibs.
(Biography provided by Quogue Gallery)
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Quogue, NY
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 3 days of delivery.
- Untitled, 55By Ben WilsonLocated in Quogue, NYBorn in Philadelphia, Ben Wilson was a New York abstract expressionist painter. His work was exhibited frequently from the mid-thirties through sixties, and less frequently but consi...Category
1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsMasonite, Oil
- Untitled, 87By Ben WilsonLocated in Quogue, NYBorn in Philadelphia, Ben Wilson was a New York abstract expressionist painter. His work was exhibited frequently from the mid-thirties through sixties, and less frequently but consi...Category
1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsMasonite, Oil
- Abstract Flowers ( 497), 1968By Bob Paul KaneLocated in Quogue, NYOil on linenCategory
1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsLinen, Oil
- Room with a View, 1980sBy Bob Paul KaneLocated in Quogue, NYOil on linenCategory
1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsLinen, Oil
- Beautiful Day ( 241), 1980sBy Bob Paul KaneLocated in Quogue, NYOil on linenCategory
1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsLinen, Oil
- Cinzano (Provincetown), 1968By Bob Paul KaneLocated in Quogue, NYOil on linenCategory
1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsLinen, Oil
- " Albero rosa" by Enzio Wenk, 2018 - Oil Paint on Masonite, ExpressionismBy Enzio WenkLocated in Bresso, ITTranslated title: "Pink tree". Oil paint on masonite.Category
2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsMasonite, Oil
- Bold German American Abstract Expressionist Color Field Oil Painting Carl HoltyBy Carl HoltyLocated in Surfside, FLCarl Robert Holty (American 1900-1973) Abstract Expressionism Oil on Masonite board. Abstract with greens blues and red, Dimensions 12 x 9-1/2 inches. Framed 17 X 14 inches Hand...Category
20th Century Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsMasonite, Oil
- EdgeLocated in Austin, TXOil on board. Signed and dated lower right and verso, titled verso. 36.25 x 48 in. 40.5 x 52.25 in. (framed) Framed in contemporary silver, tiered floater frame. Dennis Eugene Norman Burton was a Canadian modernist who was born in Lethbridge, Ontario. He attended the Ontario College of Art from 1952 to 1956, and worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as a graphic designer until 1960. Inspired by a 1955 exhibition of the “Painters Eleven” at Toronto’s Hart House, as well as American Abstract Expressionist artists such as Robert Motherwell, Jack Tworkov, and Willem de Kooning, Burton shifted his focus toward abstraction in the mid-1950s. Burton showed with the famed Isaacs Gallery in Toronto, becoming one of the youngest members on the gallery’s roster. A talented musician, he also played saxophone in the Artist’s Jazz Band in Toronto - a pioneering Canadian free-jazz group...Category
1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsMasonite, Oil, Board
- ByzantiumBy Ben WilsonLocated in New York, NYBen Wilson Byzantium, 1975 Oil on Masonite painting Hand signed reverse, Titled, "Byzantium", dated 1975 by the artist and also with estate stamp - in addition to Ben Wilson's hand signature Frame included: elegantly framed in a handmade white wood frame with UV plexiglass This painting is done by the second generation Abstract Expressionist artist Ben Wilson - one of the youngest artists to be given a show at ACA Gallery in 1940. The work is signed by the artist on the back and also signed with the Estate Stamp and signature on the back. Ben Wilson was born in Philadelphia in 1913 to Jewish parents who had emigrated from Kiev and settled in New York City. He was educated in Manhattan public schools and graduated from City College in 1935. To gain exposure to a wider range of styles, he also studied at the National Academy of Design and at the Educational Alliance. Admired by critics throughout his long career, Wilson was singled out as a “discovery” by the New York Times art critic Edward Alden Jewel even before his first one-man show at the Galerie Neuf in 1946. His paintings of the ’30s and ’40s were expressionistically rendered, often Biblical parables, filled with what he called “the grief of the intolerable” and reflecting an acute awareness of the agony of the time, from the Holocaust to the Spanish Civil War. A WPA artist who identified strongly with the plight of the Jews in Europe, he relentlessly explored themes of war, torment, and futility in his early decades of painting. When times changed and social pressures subsided, Wilson’s mood lifted. He spent 1952-54 in Paris working at the Academie Julien. During the ’50s his involvement with specific imagery persisted but became more psychological and mythic in orientation. Influenced by Cubism, he created a vocabulary of interlocking shapes and bold, sweeping gestures that served as a transition between his early figurative expressionism and his later abstract constructivist concerns. Towards the end of the decade Wilson reached a crossroads, moving towards abstraction and searching for what he called “a scaffolding under the externals.” By 1960, influenced by the Russian Constructivists, Mondrian, and Abstract Expressionism, Wilson turned to abstraction. Reexamining the basic elements of painting, he evolved his own personal vocabulary and structure, fusing the cerebral and the emotive. He became increasingly experimental, using house paint, sand, and other unorthodox materials in paintings that he worked from all directions, dripping, spraying, stenciling, and collaging. He employed elements of disjunction, repetitions of geometric motifs, linear networks, and complex overlays to create the transparent, multi-layer development of space that characterizes his later paintings. A consummate draftsman, Wilson filled notebook after notebook with drawings that he amplified in his paintings. Eschewing popular movements, Wilson was always one to pursue a personal aesthetic. Despite more than 30 one-man shows and 50 years of teaching, he increasingly withdrew from the gallery scene but continued to paint daily until his death at age 88 in 2001 in Blairstown, New Jersey, where he and his sculptor wife Evelyn Wilson...Category
1970s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsMasonite, Oil
- Untitled 1963 Abstract Oil Painting by Jimmy ErnstBy Jimmy ErnstLocated in Hudson, NYThis abstract is signed and dated "Jimmy Ernst 63" on the lower right. Measurement of artwork is 8 ½" x 8 ¼" and framed measures 15 ½" x 15" x 1 ¼" in a painted frame. Provenance: Gift from the artist to his personal friend architect John Johansen...Category
1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsMasonite, Oil
- Concert (unique, signed Abstract Expressionist painting by celebrated artist)By Ben WilsonLocated in New York, NYBen Wilson Concert, ca. 1989 Oil on masonite board (Hand Signed by the artist; also bears the Estate Stamp) Boldly signed front and back, titled and dated on the back by Ben Wilson and also stamped on the back by the estate of Ben Wilson 42 × 48 inches Unframed This stunning painting is done by the second generation Abstract Expressionist artist Ben Wilson - one of the youngest artists to be given a show at prestigious ACA Gallery in 1940. This work "Concert" - depicting instruments, in a light, lyrically abstract painting. Exquisite colors and subtle imagery. In 2017, he was the subject of a retrospective at the George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University from September 6 to November 4 and it was accompanied by a catalogue. About Ben Wilson: Ben Wilson was born in Philadelphia in 1913 to Jewish parents who had emigrated from Kiev and settled in New York City. He was educated in Manhattan public schools and graduated from City College in 1935. To gain exposure to a wider range of styles, he also studied at the National Academy of Design and at the Educational Alliance. Admired by critics throughout his long career, Wilson was singled out as a “discovery” by the New York Times art critic Edward Alden Jewel even before his first one-man show at the Galerie Neuf in 1946. His paintings of the ’30s and ’40s were expressionistically rendered, often Biblical parables, filled with what he called “the grief of the intolerable” and reflecting an acute awareness of the agony of the time, from the Holocaust to the Spanish Civil War. A WPA artist who identified strongly with the plight of the Jews in Europe, he relentlessly explored themes of war, torment, and futility in his early decades of painting. When times changed and social pressures subsided, Wilson’s mood lifted. He spent 1952-54 in Paris working at the Academie Julien. During the ’50s his involvement with specific imagery persisted but became more psychological and mythic in orientation. Influenced by Cubism, he created a vocabulary of interlocking shapes and bold, sweeping gestures that served as a transition between his early figurative expressionism and his later abstract constructivist concerns. Towards the end of the decade Wilson reached a crossroads, moving towards abstraction and searching for what he called “a scaffolding under the externals.” By 1960, influenced by the Russian Constructivists, Mondrian, and Abstract Expressionism, Wilson turned to abstraction. Reexamining the basic elements of painting, he evolved his own personal vocabulary and structure, fusing the cerebral and the emotive. He became increasingly experimental, using house paint, sand, and other unorthodox materials in paintings that he worked from all directions, dripping, spraying, stenciling, and collaging. He employed elements of disjunction, repetitions of geometric motifs, linear networks, and complex overlays to create the transparent, multi-layer development of space that characterizes his later paintings. A consummate draftsman, Wilson filled notebook after notebook with drawings that he amplified in his paintings. Eschewing popular movements, Wilson was always one to pursue a personal aesthetic. Despite more than 30 one-man shows and 50 years of teaching, he increasingly withdrew from the gallery scene but continued to paint daily until his death at age 88 in 2001 in Blairstown, New Jersey, where he and his sculptor wife Evelyn Wilson...Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsMasonite, Oil