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Diane Rosenstein is pleased to announce Cleve Gray: The
Connecticut Paintings, the inaugural exhibition in her new
gallery - Diane Rosenstein Fine Art - in Beverly Hills.
Cleve Gray: The Connecticut Paintings is the first major
exhibition of Gray's work in Los Angeles, and includes fifteen
paintings dating from 1963: his breakthrough into color-based
gestural expressionism. During this period Gray developed a
lasting friendship with Barnett Newman and experienced an
artistic metamorphosis, dissolving earlier Cubist compositions
in a sea of distilled color. Here he has infused the ethos of
Abstract Expressionism with the discretion of Chinese art,
creating work that speaks to the supremacy of redemptive
content.
Also on view are a series of watercolors, dating from 1967.
These works are mystical abstractions, revealing Gray's
inclinations toward Chinese landscape painting.
“Above all else, Cleve Gray is a painter whose work exemplifies
his belief that art in its highest form is visual philosophy.”
(John Yau)
Cleve Gray exhibited at Staempfli; then at Betty Parsons
Gallery (New York) from 1970-1983. His paintings are in over
40 Museums and Public Collections, including the Albright-Knox
Art Gallery, The Brooklyn Museum, The Corcoran Gallery of Art,
the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Smithsonian, The
Jewish Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum
of Fine Arts (Boston), The Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), The
Museum of Modern Art, The Newark Museum, The Phillips
Collection, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
ABOUT THE ARTIST Cleve Gray was born in New York in
1918. In 1940 he graduated from Princeton, and wrote his
thesis on Chinese landscape painting under the tutelage of
George Rowley. In 1957 he married Francine du Plessix, who
became well known as a novelist and essayist. He also wrote
frequently about art and was a contributing editor for Art in
America. Cleve Gray died in 2004 at the home in Warren,
Connecticut where he had lived since 1949.
ABOUT THE GALLERY Diane Rosenstein Fine Art (DRFA) is a
new contemporary gallery located at 9399 Wilshire Boulevard
in Beverly Hills. Built in 2010 by Pritzker Prize-winning architect
Richard Meier, DRFA has 4,000 square feet of exhibition space
on the ground floor level. Exhibition plans for Diane Rosenstein
Fine Art (DRFA) include alternating 20th Century Post-Warhistorical exhibitions with presentations of Mid-Career and
Emerging Artists from Los Angeles.
Diane Rosenstein has previously been a curator, private art
dealer, and art consultant to residential and corporate
collections. Recently, she curated the exhibition “Farrah
Karapetian: Accessory to Protest” at LeadApron in West
Hollywood from December 2011 – February 2012.
Cleve Gray: The Connecticut Paintings will be on view from
April 12 – June 10th from 11:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. at 9399
Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills. For further information,
please contact DRFA via email info@dianerosenstein.com
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