Reginald Pollack

Affirmation

1986

Artist Comments
Artist Gary J. Noland Jr. explores color and balance in this abstract piece. Deliberate pours, strokes, and drips create an interplay between control and sponta...

The title, “Destiny,” serves as a poignant descriptor, adding an extra layer of meaning to the artwork. It resonates with the powerful idea of a woman confidently claiming her deserv...

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In Robert Standish’s piece “Colorways Continued,” viewers are met with a mesmerizing array of colors that cascade and intertwine like a kaleidoscope. The vibrant hues blend seamlessl...

In the work entitled 1986, the observer is greeted by an abundance of intricately interwoven shapes, pulsating with vibrant blues, aquas, greens, fuchsia, and red hues, delineated by bold black or white brushstrokes...

Artist: Robert Kautz, Austrian Title: untitled Year: 2001 Medium: Acrylic and Mixed Media on Paper, signed Size: 25.5 in. x 19.5 in. (59.69 cm x 49.53 cm)

Waterline Fine Art, Austin, TX is pleased to present the following work: Oil, pastel, and paper collage on canvas. Signed and dated verso. 52.75 x 47.75 in. 54 x 49 in. (framed) Gilded floater frame. Provenance Compass Rose, Chicago Born Sylvan Irwin Goldberg in 1924 and raised in the Bronx, Michael Goldberg was an important figure in American Abstract Expressionism, who began taking art classes at the Art Students League in 1938. A gifted student, Goldberg finished high school at the age of 14 and enrolled in City College. He soon found New York’s jazz scene to be a more compelling environment, and he began skipping classes in favor of the Harlem jazz clubs near campus. Goldberg’s love of jazz would become a lifelong passion and a key component to his approach to composition in his paintings. From 1940 to 1942, like many of the leading artists of the New York School, Goldberg studied with Hans Hofmann. In 1943, he put his pursuit of painting on hold and enlisted in the U.S. Army. Serving in North Africa, Burma, and India, Goldberg received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star before being discharged in 1946. After his service, he traveled and worked in Venezuela before returning to the United States, settling back in New York and resuming studies with Hofmann and at the Art Students League. Living downtown and frequenting the Cedar Bar, Goldberg befriended many of the artists of the New York School. In 1951, his work was included in the groundbreaking Ninth Street Show, co-organized by Leo Castelli, Conrad Marca-Relli, and the Eighth Street Club, and featuring the work of - among others - Hofmann, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline. In 1953, the Tibor de Nagy...

Signed lower right. A major exponent of non-objective painting, Rolph Scarlett's career and artistic philosophy is closely linked with the early history of the Solomon R. Guggenheim...

Roland Ayers (1932-2017). Untitled, 1983. Ink on paper, measures 17 x 23 inches. Unframed and unmounted. Signed and dated lower left. Ayers holds the distinction of having participated in the first important survey of African-Americans, Contemporary Black Artists in America, a 1971 show at The Whitney. Biography: Artist and art educator, Roland Ayers was born on July 2, 1932, the only child of Alice and Lorenzo Ayers, and grew up in the Germantown district of Philadelphia. Ayers served in the US Army (stationed in Germany) before studying at the Philadelphia College of Art (currently University of the Arts). He graduated with a BFA in Art Education, 1954. He traveled Europe 1966-67, spending time in Amsterdam and Greece in particular. During this period, he drifted away from painting to focus on linear figurative drawings of a surreal nature. His return home inaugurated the artist’s most prolific and inspired period (1968-1975). Shorty before his second major trip abroad in 1971-72 to West Africa, Ayers began to focus on African themes, and African American figures populated his work almost exclusively. In spite of Ayers’ travel and exploration of the world, he gravitated back to his beloved Germantown, a place he endowed with mythological qualities in his work and literature. His auto-biographical writing focuses on the importance of place during his childhood. Ayers’ journals meticulously document the ethnic and cultural make-up of Germantown, and tell a compelling story of class marginalization that brought together poor families despite racial differences. The distinctive look and design of Germantown inform Ayers’ visual vocabulary. It is a setting with distinctive Gothic Revival architecture and haunting natural beauty. These characteristics are translated and recur in the artist’s imagery. During his childhood, one of the only books in the Ayers household was an illustrated Bible. The images within had a profound effect on the themes and subjects that would appear in his adult work. Figures in an Ayers’ drawing often seem trapped in a narrative of loss and redemption. Powerful women loom large in the drawings: they suggest the female role models his journals record in early life. The drawings can sometimes convey a strong sense of conflict, and at other times, harmony. Nature and architecture seem to have an antagonistic relationship that is, ironically, symbiotic. A critical turning point in the artist’s career came in 1971 when he was included in the extremely controversial Whitney Museum show, Contemporary Black Artists in America. The exhibition gave Ayers an international audience and served as a calling card for introductions he would soon make in Europe. Ayers is a particularly compelling figure in a period when black artists struggled with the idea of authenticity. A questioned often asked was “Is your work too black, or not black enough?” Abstractionists were considered by some peers to be sell-outs, frauds or worse. Figurative* work was accused of being either sentimental or politically radical depending on the critical source. Ayers made the choice early on to be a figurative artist, but considered his work devoid of political content. Organizations such as Chicago’ s Afri-Cobra in the late 1960‘s asserted that the only true black art of any relevance must depict the black man and woman...

AFTER THE BANG Size: 30 x 25 cm (including frame) Oil on canvas A small yet impactful and very striking contemporary abstract painting, executed in oil onto canvas and dated 2022. ...