JACK ROTH POETRY I N MOTION
Untitled, 1975, Acrylic on canvas, 43 x 43 inches Signed and dated verso
JACK ROTH POETRY I N MOTION January 23 – March 6, 2020
Opening Reception and Style Show Featuring NINES Apparel Thursday, January 23, 6 – 9 pm Style Show begins at 7 pm Cocktails and Hors d’oeuvres
MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY
Ally Village 200 Spring Park Drive, Suite 105 Midland, Texas
Spring - 1, 1981 Acrylic on canvas, 66 x 66 inches Signed titled and dated verso
It takes all sorts to a poet make: I like plump poets singing the song of now, happy, joyous, but mostly I like tall poets searching. Excerpt from The Blue Jaguar by Jack Roth
JAC K R OT H dedicated his life to that search. Poet, photographer, mathematician, university professor, and Abstract Expressionist painter, Roth relentlessly pursued art and science. Ultimately, he was represented by Knoedler & Co, one of the most renowned galleries of all time, whose stable included Calder, Motherwell, Stella, and Diebenkorn, among others. Roth considered himself a color field painter. His paintings are recognizable for thin contour lines or sharp edges, and soft forms, in addition to an expressive use of color. In 1980, John Russell of The Times said of Roth’s works, “These paintings are almost dangerously easy to like, but they have teeth…” Born in Brockway, Pennsylvania in 1927, Jack Roth earned a scholarship to Pennsylvania State University in 1943 where he studied chemistry, but his tenure there was interrupted by his service in World War II. Roth moved to San Francisco in 1949 and enrolled in the California School of Fine Arts where he studied under Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, and Richard Diebenkorn. He re-enrolled at Penn State in 1951 and earned his Bachelor’s in chemistry, an achievement later followed by a Master of Fine Arts from the State University of Iowa in 1952, and a PhD in mathematics from Duke University in 1962. In 1954, shortly after he relocated to New York, Roth’s paintings were included in the Guggenheim Museum’s exhibition “Younger American Painters” alongside many of the leading artists of the Abstract Expressionist group, including Pollock, de Kooning, and Motherwell. The exhibition traveled to major art museums throughout the US, serving as the nation’s primary introduction to this new American- born movement. In 1978, Knoedler & Co. in New York began their representation of Roth’s work, placing him in the prestigious company of artists such as Gottlieb, Frankenthaler, Calder, Motherwell, and Kline. Roth was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for painting the following year and continued on with his academic career, teaching mathematics at colleges in Kentucky, Florida and New Jersey. Of his unique career, Roth said, “I am looking for a mathematical explanation of art…the art of painting is a search for reality; a search for understanding.” He died in 2004, just shy of his 78th birthday. We are pleased to feature Abstract Expressionist Jack Roth at BAKER SCHORR FINE ART, and delighted to partner with NINES Apparel to present a style show at our Opening which complements the color, form, and passion of Jack Roth’s life and works: Poetry in Motion!
Cover/back cover: Untitled (Rope Dancer Series), 1980 Acrylic on canvas, 59 x 90 inches, signed and dated ‘80
New Synthesis #35, 1981 Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 40 inches Signed, titled and dated ‘81
Untitled, 1968 Acrylic on canvas, 47 x 47 inches Signed and dated verso
Rope Dancer #11, 1980 Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 67 inches Signed and dated lower right ‘80
Untitled, 1976 Acrylic on canvas, 80 x 69 inches Signed verso and dated ‘76