Myron Barnstone 2018 Exhibit Catalog

Myron Barnstone 2018 Exhibit Catalogue

Artist Angle Gallery, Frederick, MD 1

The Myron Barnstone Legacy

For 50 years, the paintings and drawings of the late Myron Barnstone stayed hidden from the world.

A native of Portland, Maine, Barnstone’s own artistic vision evolved from his first painting as a student at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, England, in 1958. Through years of disciplined practice, Barnstone became proficient at creating work in the tradition of the classical masters. He utilized both critical thinking and the exacting science of geometric design, dubbed the Golden Section, to bring movement, drama and life to his pieces.

When he lived in Europe in the 1960’s, Barnstone sold many pieces and staged several highly acclaimed exhibits. Despite his early success, he stopped creating and showing his works – and even burned hundreds of them – when he made the life-changing decision to concentrate on teaching. He never wanted his own creations to unduly influence his students’ artistic vision.

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During the 35 years he taught at Barnstone Studios in Coplay, PA, Barnstone stressed to his thousands of students that being “creative” was not enough. Instead, he warned they would not be successful artists until they learned critical thinking and how to employ The Golden Section in their work.

In elaborate dissections overlaying masterpieces by greats like Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Picasso, Barnstone illustrated how the precise application of geometric principles brought movement, depth and feeling to design, sculpture, photography, and any other artistic medium.

A good measure of Barnstone’s effectiveness is how hundreds of his alumni have become art instructors, authors, professional artists, and leaders in industrial design, pastels, photography and even animation.

They hold key positions in global corporations, and their work is held in private and public collections around the world.

After Barnstone’s death October 29, 2016, his daughter, Catherine “Cat” Barnstone Szafran, took on the responsibility of becoming the new director of Barnstone Studios. She continued to make his recorded classes available through BarnstoneStudios.com, and also started revealing some of Barnstone’s work to the world.

ArtistAngle in Frederick, MD, became the first gallery in 50 years to host a Barnstone exhibit. Many of the original pieces displayed in ArtistAngle’s revolving 5-month Barnstone show have never been seen by the public.

Barnstone has been described as a modern abstract figurative painter who is related to the ‘School of London’ artists that include Ron Kitaj (who was a friend of Barnstone), Francis Bacon, and Lucien Freud. Barnstone was a virtuoso draftsman and master anatomist, and applied his traditional fine art training to create a powerful framework for his forceful and vibrant expressionist style.

Barnstone’s legacy continues as the public finally gets to see his work for the first time. His alumni are also part of his legacy, teaching Barnstone Method art classes and serving as Barnstone Master Guides to critique and encourage the next generation of artists.

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Cubed (17 5/8 x 21.75) oil on board, London, 1971

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Evolution: Growing into Mastery ArtistAngle Gallery, March 11th–April 6th, 2018 Frederick, Maryland stepped into the art history books March 11, 2018 with ArtistAngle Gallery’s formal opening of the Myron Barnstone exhibit, Evolution: Growing into Mastery.

It marked the first public U.S. showing of the late Barnstone’s work, and his first exhibit since his widely acclaimed “The Survivors” show at the Catacombs, American Church in Paris in 1967.

The show was designed to show Barnstone’s own evolution as a master artist, starting with a painting he did as a student studying at Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, England, in 1958.

Several pieces show the preliminary work Barnstone did before creating a finished piece. For instance, Blue Figure 1 and Blue Figure 2 helped Barnstone evolve his vision for Red Figure. He created design variations and a separate sketch before painting the piece, Balance. Both the test pieces, and the final iconic works, were displayed in the Evolution exhibit.

Thirteen of Myron’s original paintings, drawings, and sketches debuted, along with 21 works by exceptional Barnstone Studios alumni.

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Blue Figure 1 (27 x 40) oil on paper, London, 1971

Blue Figure 2 (27 x 40) oil on paper, London, 1971

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Red Figure (38 x 58) oil on canvas, London, 1971

Drawing After Rubens (10 x 16) oil on canvas, Oxford, 1958

Figure Walking (11 x 21.5) acrylic, oil on board, London, 1971 7

Preliminary Study for Balance (17 5/8 x 21.75) pen, ink on paper, London, 1971

Preliminary Study for Balance (11 x 21.5) pen, ink on paper, London, 1971

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Balance (20.5 x 29) acrylic, oil on cardstock, London, 1971

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Moving Figure (20 x 18) pen, ink on paper, London, 1972

Gallery Lahumiere (15.25 x 22) pen, ink on paper, Paris, 1966 10

Impaled (20.5 x 28.5) acrylic, oil on watercolor paper, Devon, 1974

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Kaleidoscope Dance (29 x 21) acrylic on paper, London, 1972

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Environment: Listening to the Land ArtistAngle Gallery, April 15th–June 2nd, 2018 In this second show from ArtistAngle Gallery’s 5-month revolving Barnstone exhibit, the images were selected to depict how Barnstone drew inspiration from his surroundings. During his years living and painting in Spain, Paris, and southern England, his work reflected the energy and beauty of each different location.

The hours he spent walking along the coasts of Devon are captured in colorful and flowing works like Deep Currents, Flight, and Seabird.

Spain’s vibrant and passionate people virtually dance off the canvas in Two Figures in a Strange Garden and Watching.

Throughout each of Barnstone’s pieces in the Environment exhibit is the precise geometric design of The Golden Section, the Fibonacci ratio reflected in nature at the core of every leaf, flower and tree.

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Flight (14.25 x 21.25) acrylic on paper, London, 1971

Deep Currents (21 x 28.5) acrylic on paper, Devon, 1973 14

Awakening (30 x 42.75) oil on linen, London, 1972

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Victorious (17.5 x 22.25) acrylic on paper, Devon, 1971

View (30 x 42.5) oil on canvas, Devon, 1973 16

Self Portrait (20 x 26) oil on canvas, London, 1971

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Equinox (21 x 28.75) acrylic on paper, London, 1972

Seabird (15.25 x 21.25) acrylic on paper, Devon, 1971

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Projection (28.75 x 21) acrylic on paper, London, 1971

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Two Figures in a Strange Garden (19.5 x 25.75) paint on paper, Spain, 1963

Two Strangers in a Garden (19.5 x 25.75) paint on paper, Spain, 1963 20

Charting a Course (10.5 x 17.5) pen, ink on paper, Paris, 1967

Watching (19.75 x 16.25) paint on paper, Spain, 1964 21

Anticipation (14 x 19) acrylic, oil on paper, Devon, 1973

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Emotions: How Art Awakens the Soul ArtistAngle Gallery, June 10th–July 31st, 2018

It was during his years in Spain that Barnstone began feeling the full weight of the horrors of nuclear war and the Holocaust. He himself lost several family members during the atrocities, and was haunted by the suffering they, and millions of others, endured.

With a ferocious intensity, Barnstone painted canvas after canvas depicting twisted, tortured faces and bodies. His brushes captured people trapped in boxes, suspended on poles, writhing in agony or laying in silent death in heart-rending detail. But the world would never see those images. Instead, Barnstone torched hundreds of the paintings right before he moved to Paris.

There, resituated in his new home studio, Barnstone once again tackled the overwhelming emotions of war. In a dizzying six-week period, he recreated many of the Holocaust images he’d destroyed. Those pieces were unveiled during Barnstone’s widely acclaimed 1967 “The Survivors” show at The American Church in Paris. Barnstone tacked strings of lights in tin cans on the ceiling of The Catacombs of the church to recreate the emotions people felt as they crouched in dimly lit shelters, hoping to survive.

Widely acclaimed by critics and the European media, “The Survivors” show was extended to nine weeks. After the huge success of that exhibit, the paintings were immediately locked away, not to be seen again until ArtistAngle Gallery displayed them half a century later.

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Disintigration (29.5 x 41.125) oil on board, Paris, 1966

The Grave (19.5 x 27.5) pen, ink on paper, Paris, 1967 24

Les Survivants (14 x 19) pen, ink on paper, Paris, 1967

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Self Portrait (28 x 44) mixed media on board, Paris, 1966 26

Friday (15.25 x 23.25) pen, ink on paper, Spain, 1965

Feast (20 x 26.75) pen, ink on paper, Spain, 1965

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Metamorphosis (19.5 x 15.5) pen, ink on paper, Paris, 1967

A (15 x 24) pen, ink, guache on paper, Spain, 1966 28

Rising (21 x 14.5) acrylic on paper, London, 1972

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Conversation (15.5 x 19.5) pen, ink, guache on paper, Spain, 1964

Drum Dream (19.5 x 27.5) pen, ink on paper, Spain, 1965

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Mother & Child (32 x 48) oil on board, Paris, 1966

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Self Portrait (21 x 28.75) acrylic, oil on paper, Devon, 1973

Ostriches (19.5 x 25.5) pen, ink on paper, Paris, 1967 32

Propeller 1 (19.75 x 25.5) pen, ink on paper, Paris, 1967

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Trust (29.5 x 41.125) acrylic on board, London, 1971 Barnstone painted Eros (top of next page) on the back of Trust. This was an unusual practice for him, and wasn’t discovered until the board with both images was revealed in 2017, when the long-sealed archives were opened.

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Eros (29.5 x 41.125) acrylic on board, London, 1971

The Bed (19.75 x 26.75) pen, ink on paper, Paris, 1967 35

Carousel (13 x 18.25) pen, ink on paper, Paris, 1967

Ashes to Ashes (19.75 x 15.5) pen, ink on paper, Paris, 1972

Surging (21 x 29) acrylic on paper, London, 1971 36

Transition (21 x 29) acrylic on paper, London, 1971 37

In the Studio

Macastre, Spain, 1965 For Myron Barnstone, a key requirement in scouting for a house during the years he lived and painted in Europe was finding one with sufficient wall space to serve as a private gallery, and a room that could be converted in to a proper studio.

Myron’s home in Macastre in the Valencia community of Spain was an old 4-bedroom farmhouse with a look-out tower offering a view of the nearby ocean. The rambling structure was situated in the middle of fields that spread out to the sea, and terraced fruit trees the local farmers still irrigated with a system that had been in place for centuries.

He converted one of the bedrooms into his studio, where he captured the vibrant energy and rhythms of the land in such paintings as Two Strangers in a Garden and Two Figures in a Strange Garden.

While he created many hundreds of works in the studio, he also spent hours painting in the Macastre home’s garden, inspired by the sights and sounds of the Spanish people and countryside.

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London, England, 1971 Barnstone studied at England’s Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, immediately after his service in the U.S. Air Force. He felt pulled back to that country to continue his painting from 1969 through 1972.

His family settled into a huge flat in Hampstead, the most fashionable part of London, where natural light streamed in through huge windows, and the bustle of the city fueled his passion to create. It was the ideal location for Barnstone to continue to refine his artistic vision.

The building was full of television personalities, theater people and film stars. An outing to the movies or a tea room inevitably meant rubbing elbows with actors like Dame Judy Dench, or people from various consulates. At a party Stanley Kubrick hosted, Barnstone met both the director and Keir Dullea, the star of Kubrick’s 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Some of the iconic works Barnstone created in London include Cubed, Red Figure, Kaleidoscope Dance, and Awakening.

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Devon, England,1974 After several years in London, Barnstone sought a more rural environment.

He was thrilled to locate a majestic home by the coast in Liesse in the county of Devon, southern England. It was built in the early 1900’s for the Abby down the street, and even included a small chapel. The chapel soon became his photography studio, and he converted a south-facing room with high ceilings and huge windows into his studio.

Soon the ample wall space was covered with such powerful paintings as Victorious, Deep Currents, and View.

When he made the decision to stop painting and devote his full attention to teaching, the works were rolled up and packed away. They were to remain hidden until after his death in 2016.

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Gallery ad from The New York Times, January 3, 1967

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© 2018