Ira Barkoff

Mountain Series, Summer Haze

2024

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...

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...

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 vas...

Ira Barkoff Biography 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....

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When it comes to abstract painting, the creation date is important. At the height of Abstraction Expressionism, overlooked Academic Artist John Atherton created a wonderfully complex painting that embodies many of the characteristics of what was going on in Mid-Century American Art. The work is simultaneously abstract as it is representational. Like a Bento Box, it's divided into sections by dividers. On close inspection, each section stands on it's own as a beautiful mini-painting yet coalesces as part of the whole. From a distance, it is eye-pleasing, but as the view gets closer and closer, new structures and details gloriously reveal themselves. This is an important painting and not unlike the work of Joaquín Torres-García. It was done in the last year of the artist's life. Signed lower right. Canvas is relined. Framed size: 30 x 41.25. The work is best viewed with top gallery lights to bring out color. Color will look different under different lighting conditions. Atherton exhibited at the famous Julien Levy Gallery in New York and his fine art is mainly associated with Magic Realism. He participated in the seminal 1943 Museum of Modern Art exhibition, American Realists and Magic Realists. The Museum of Modern Art has 4 Atherton paintings in its collection. As an Illustrator, Atherton did covers for the Saturday Evening Post, Fortune and Holiday Magazine...