FreedmanArt is pleased to present Caro and Olitski: Masters of Abstraction Draw the Figure curated by Karen Wilkin.
These drawings, many seen for the first time, convincingly express for Anthony Caro and Jules Olitski their common interest and long commitment to working directly from the model, also known as “life drawing”.
Our exhibition is a reprisal of the one in 1996, held at The New York Studio School. An expanded selection and publication is being planned for institutional venues.
Prime examples of the abstract work of Olitski and Caro will offer both a context as well as further understanding to the relationships between their figurative and abstract forces.
Karen Wilkin, curator of the original exhibition in 1996, and gratefully here again, brings a new perspective in the accompanying essay for this show: “Caro and Olitski were friends for more than four decades, from early 1960s teaching at Bennington College, until Olitski’s death in 2007. Knowing that these restless, unconventional radicals also relished working in traditional ways, in response to that most time-honored of subjects, the female nude, enlarges our understanding of their celebrated abstract works, as well as rewarding our attention for their own abundant merits as drawings.”
The exhibition, in co-operation with the New York gallery representing Caro, Mitchell-Inness & Nash, will open at FreedmanArt, Thursday, October 11 from 5:30 to 7:30pm.