This loan exhibition will consist of approximately 35 paintings borrowed from public and private collections; the works date from the early 1960s until the early 1990s, when YORK stopped painting. A number of these paintings have not been shown in many years; and several have never before been seen. The exhibition honors the memory of ALBERT YORK, who died in October 2009, and whom Calvin Tompkins once described as “the most highly admired unknown artist in America.”
ALBERT YORK was born in Detroit in 1928 and studied at the Ontario College of Art and at the Society of Arts and Crafts in Detroit; he passed away in Southampton, New York in 2009.
Davis & Langdale Company has represented York since 1963. In that time, YORK has had numerous one-man shows at Davis & Langdale (once Davis Galleries; then Davis & Long Company). A group of twenty paintings by YORK was exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1982. His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including the widely traveled American Still Life: 1945 - 1983, organized by the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas, in 1983 - 1984. In 1989, paintings by YORK were included in the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York, exhibition Painting Horizons:
Jane Freilicher, Albert York, April Gornik. In 1990, his work could be seen simultaneously at the Heckscher Museum, Huntington, New York, in Long Island Landscape Painting: The 20th Century, and at The Art Museum at Stonybrook, New York, in 20th Century Long Island Landscape Painting. More recently, in 1992, YORK was the subject of a solo exhibition at Mills College Art Gallery, Oakland, California, organized by Bill Berkson. YORK gave his only interview in 1995 to Calvin Tomkins, who subsequently wrote a profile of the artist for The New Yorker.
YORK was selected by Werner Kramarsky to receive the 2001 Francis J.
Greenburger Award. This award is given to artists who, in the opinion of the nominator, should be better known to the public.
ALBERT YORK is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska, and the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York.