Cleve Gray

Red Mountain

1992

abstract painting

Born in 1934 in Brooklyn, New York, Ira Barkoff’s paintings feature empty, Zen-like landscapes whose stillness reflects a location’s essence. Barkoff seeks to “portray a sense of vastness” and instill feelings of awe in his viewers, he says. Furthering his exploration of the abstract, Barkoff paints in his studio, rather than en plein air, fabricating landscapes from his visual and emotional memories. The Impressionist-turned-Expressionist painter is inspired by the atmospheric qualities of works by Claude Monet and J. M. W. Turner and cites Gerhard Richter as a more contemporary influence. He recently transitioned from using a paintbrush to using a squeegee and palette knives for his work, as the latter allow for greater spontaneity and manipulation of color. He says of his work: “Looking at a blank canvas can be both exciting and frightening at the same time. Most of the time exciting wins out and I plunge in. That is, I paint the landscape, which for me is what it’s all about. The landscape represents nature and contemplating nature is being in touch with God. You could cast me as a modern-day Luminist-Tonalist-Impressionist. Monet’s Water Lilies have been a big influence, along with the landscape painter Wolf Kahn.” “The landscape is what I see before me or from my mind’s eye. When I paint a mountain or a tree, I’m not trying to capture the mountain or tree literally (that’s what a photograph does). I’m trying to express my inner spirit in the painting – to transcend the physical to reach the spiritual.” “My most successful pictures are not those that are the most accurate in terms of nature, but are the ones where the state of my consciousness allowed me to translate my feelings – my deepest inner feelings – to the canvas. When I get into this altered state...

American, b. 1934 Born in 1934 in Brooklyn, New York, Ira Barkoff’s paintings feature empty, Zen-like landscapes whose stillness reflects a location’s essence. Barkoff seeks to “por...

American, b. 1934 Born in 1934 in Brooklyn, New York, Ira Barkoff’s paintings feature empty, Zen-like landscapes whose stillness reflects a location’s essence. Barkoff seeks to “por...

Large Red Abstract Composition Artist signed, dated verso. Peter Kuckei 1938 born in Husum, Holstein Germany. 1960-1961 studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts, Bremen 1961-1963 studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart, under Heinrich Wildeman 1986-1987 professorship at the State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart 1993-2010 studios in San Francisco, California and Miami, Florida since 1963 lives and works in Berlin and Beckmannsfeld/Butjadingen. Landscape is the key theme of Peter Kuckei’s painting. However, he is not only concerned with its mimetic representation, but with the implementation of substantial concepts through abstracting formulations. Instead of reproducing directly visible phenomena, he draws and paints, with his own unique absoluteness, situations that evolve before his inner...

acrylic on canvas

Modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas, circa 1960. Unsigned. Displayed in a linen frame. Image size, 20"L x 18"H, overall, 23"L x 21"H.

Cleve Gray 'End of October,' 1978 Acrylic on canvas 55 x 55 inches Signed verso This work was donated to the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA) by the The Estate of Cleve Gray for FCA's 2021 benefit exhibition held at Greene Naftali.