Jay Milder: Broadway Nonstop, Subway Paintings from the 1950s and 60s

JAY MILDER BROADWAY NONSTOP

Essay by Carlo McCormick

Firestone

Some Trains of Thought: On Jay Milder’s Subway Runners

by Carlo McCormick

Jay Milder’s Subway Runner paintings from the fifties and sixties are in every way imaginable wholly about the energy and experience of New York City. More than half a century later, they remain as fresh and raw as ever—a missing link in the lineage of urban expression that is more relevant than ever today, a compositional maelstrom of chaotic splendor and hive-like synchron icity that speaks to, and for, life in the city.

Milder has had such a full and fascinating life that it’s almost impossible not to get caught up in his biography. Raised in 1930s Omaha, Nebraska, he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, dropping out after a semester. He traveled throughout the mid-fifties, with sojourns in the south of Spain, Tangiers, Paris, and Mexico, and in the late fifties developed lifelong friendships with an artist community in Provincetown that included Bob Thompson, Mimi Gross, and Red Grooms. A “DIY” free spirit, intellectual autodidact, and self-taught artist, his experiences along the way—as wildly circumstantial as they are culturally adventuresome—constitute an arc of learning and understanding that is at once irreproduc ible, profoundly humanistic, and creatively rigorous.

He’s ventured far and wide, both geographically and socially; been a father, husband, and lover more

than once; embraced difference and diversity as few of his generation would; and never stopped working in his studio. These are the terms of his engagement— epic, even mythic, and always authentic. Yet it is through his process, the way he digs deep into quotidian aspects of being and grapples with the language of representation to conjure and capture what is elusive and esoteric, that Milder’s genius comes through. Like his Subway Runner paintings, exhibited at Eric Firestone Gallery for the first time since their showing at the seminal Martha Jackson Gallery in 1964, little makes sense in the crowded melee of incidental encounters unless you can somehow step back to fathom the bigger picture.

What makes Jay Milder different—as an artist as much as an individual—is his abiding appreciation for very different people and perspectives. What is remarkable is that he never seems to be seeking the exotic. Rather, he is embracing and measuring divergences as a means of expressing deeper commonalities. Mining the details of the human condition for all their rich complexities, he never gets hung up on the specifics of what is dissimilar or discordant as he forges a transpersonal or universal spectrum of harmonics. In this, a quest with so many stops and excursions along the way, Milder works in the discrete yet adjacent domains of the aesthetic,

Exhibition Announcement for Drawings at City Gallery, New York, c. 1958–59. Courtesy of the Bob Thompson papers, 1949–2005, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

social, and spiritual. The disparate elements that converge in his art, the various sources that consti tute his worldview, allow him a level of empathy and a way of reading a picture that can make sense of the confluences while reveling in their ecstatic irrational ity. It takes a peculiar sort of compass to keep one’s way in the hullabaloo, no easier to navigate than the rushing crowds of his Subway Runner paintings, and it is some testament to his visual generosity and trust in the viewer that he expects we can follow along and not get too lost.

Faced with Jay Milder’s enigmatic oeuvre today, it might be easier to describe who he is, what he has

Exhibition Poster for the Vitalists at Cafe Figaro, n.d. Courtesy of the Bob Thompson papers, 1949–2005, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution done, and what has made him who he is, than to “explain” his art. When Jay tells us he has no idea what he was thinking when he made his Subway Runner canvases—that he’s not abdicating ideas so much as describing their internalization and synthesis, relocating mind and spirit in the action of painting as a kind of metaphysical muscle memory. To appreciate this, we’re better off considering what he feels, to allow the mystery space beyond ideation. Here, the biographical, too often a crutch in art criticism, is in such rare accordance with his personal philosophy that it is profoundly relevant. It is an inconvenient convenience to start by mentioning that Milder is

Jewish, something that puts him in the margins of mid-century Middle America, yet is also fundamental to understanding his longstanding fascination with the Kabbalah. We can trace this back to his great-great grandfather—a famous Jewish mystic who founded a Kabbalistic sect that continues to thrive today—and follow forward as he merged it with other philosophies, including Eastern mysticism as well as the writings of Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant.

Noteworthy, too, in Milder’s narrative is just how often and fluidly he crossed the color lines of a nation broken by racism. So many of his fondest early memories are not about encounters with art but

adventures in music, a lifelong passion and inspiration for his painting; his discovery of jazz while still a kid back in Nebraska; seeing artists like Ella Fitzgerald, most often as the only white person in the concert venue and part of town where white people didn’t go; working as a DJ on the radio station at the University of Nebraska, where he went to school; being exposed to the work of the composer Harry Partch; then at the University of Wisconsin, booking Sarah Vaughan to play his school; spending every weekend at the Five Spot Café in New York’s East Village spellbound by the hard bop of Thelonious Monk and the radical experimenta tion of John Coltrane and Sun Ra. By the time he

The Vitalists, c. 1962 (including Jay Milder, Mimi Gross, Red Grooms, Sheila Schwid, and Peter Passuntino).

Courtesy Sheila Schwid

reached New York City, much of this can be seen as generational affinities, for certainly the same artists that he hung out with at the Cedar Tavern were also regulars at the Five Spot. But in the scope of his life, from his Midwestern adolescence through the career-spanning friendships he forged with African American artists like Bob Thompson and Ed Clark, there is a politics to experience here. What that exactly means is debatable, but when you consider what it meant for Milder to be a socialist during McCarthyism, it is also an inescapable fact.

“To be liberal and progressive,” Milder once told me, “is to have love for every man and to be open to a kind of anarchic energy.” This echoes through his life

Bob Thompson and Jay Milder performing in Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts at Reuben Gallery, New York, 1959. Fred W. McDarrah/Premium Archives via Getty Images

opposite : Exhibition Poster for the Jay Milder and Bob Thompson exhibition at Zabriskie Gallery, New York, 1960. Courtesy of the Bob Thompson papers, 1949–2005, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

and art, like a sustained note structuring a free jazz improvisation. Steeped in Judaism and operating from a crucially different set of values than those of mainstream America, Jay Milder speaks of culture as a mode of resistance, of how his innate skepticism compelled him to question authority and, ultimately, as he puts it, to say “fuck authority.” It’s not about defining any single act of defiance but recognizing the defiant nature of his chosen path, be it curating early shows of African American artists; performing in an early sixties folk group with Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul, and Mary) and countercultural activist Wavy Gravy; befriending the anarcho-pacifist poet Tuli Kupferberg well enough that Milder’s kids could sing along to

his band, The Fugs; quitting the Phoenix Gallery along with his friend Red Grooms when it denied membership to Claes Oldenburg; then co-founding galleries with Grooms (initially City Gallery, where Oldenburg and Jim Dine first exhibited their work, and then the Delancey Street Museum, along with Bob Thompson and Mimi Gross, where Alan Kaprow and Red Grooms produced the first happenings); or finding affinities with the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements based not simply on a shared sense of justice, but rather on an unremitting sensitivity to the plight of others. This is not the topicality that is rewarded in art today; it is the fundamental truth that guides art with a higher purpose.

Surely this is but a small fraction of Jay Milder’s journey, just some of the memories that came to him as he graciously talked with me over an afternoon of tea and conversation, but it’s the turnstile he jumped on the way to his Subway Runner paintings. His perpetual questioning of consensus reality, like his confrontation with its most uncomfortable truths, is part and parcel of his broader evolution as a human being and artist—perpetually seeking a more holistic notion of society, exploring the Kabbalah and I Ching, investigating the synesthetic properties of sound and color, and immersing himself in conversations around painting, whereby we may find in his art the stylistic panache of mid-century modernism, in particular

: Portrait of Jay Milder in front of painting, n.d. Courtesy Sheila Schwid

: Exhibition Poster for group exhibition at 148 ½ Delancey Street, New York, n.d. Courtesy of the Bob Thompson papers, 1949–2005, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

School of Paris painters and the CoBrA group, with casual affinities to artists like Georges Rouault, Chaim Soutine, Asger Jorn, and Karel Appel. Assimilating all he could while forging his own path as an artist who remained largely unschooled and outside the academy, Milder joined his friends and fellow artists Thompson, Gross, and Grooms in developing a new mode of expressionist figuration that would at once eschew the abstraction that the New York School had by then made dominant in favor of social content and heralding a way forward that would soon be realized in the emergence of Pop art.

All of this is apparent in Jay Milder’s Subway Runners, but we can sense much more than what

Exhibition Poster for 7 Younger Painters at Yale School of Art and Architecture, New Haven, CT, 1964. Courtesy of the Bob Thompson papers, 1949–2005, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

we see. Here is animated the visual physics that are constant in all of Milder’s emphatic forms of figuration. Piled together en masse, an impossible conglomera tion of disembodied, leering, and frantic faces closer to the effects of collage than the laws of anatomy, Milder’s racing Subway Runner figures are like a visceral rupture in Einstein’s fabric of infinite space and time, a high voltage jolt of urban energy with the same throbbing intensity we might find in Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie, the collaborative choreogra phy of citizens in the city that Jane Jacobs imagines, albeit in politer ways, and the tangible manifestation of Hans Hofmann’s “push and pull” aesthetics ripped from the social disengagement of abstraction and thrust into the body politic.

And beyond all this, we may glean a humanist heart still beating with the promise of socialist idealism shorn of its political rhetoric, transplanted into a drama of compassion and empathy, and staged as a hilarious comedy of errors in a theater of joyful absurdity. To truly love New York is somehow also to love its dysfunctional and deranged mass transit, even on a hot day in rush hour when it stinks of sweaty butt crack—because even if you don’t like your neighbors, you still have to get along with them. There is irony, the grotesque, and even slapstick in these paintings, but they are love letters of foolhardy kindness. “When you are opposed to structures of class in society,” Milder mused, “then the subway becomes a rare site of democracy and equality.” Growing more recumbent with age and weary of trying to express the inexpress ible, Jay Milder adds with a laugh, “I’m running, I’m still running.” All these decades later, we’re still just trying to catch up with him.

TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT

SUBWAY RUNNERS 1964

GOUACHE ON PAPER

31½ X 35 INCHES

SUBWAY PEOPLE IV 1964

GOUACHE ON PAPER

29 ¾ X 35 INCHES

SUBWAY RUNNER 1964

GOUACHE ON PAPER

30 X 35 INCHES

CENTER, LEFT TO RIGHT

SUBWAY RUNNER 1964

GOUACHE ON PAPER

33 X 35 INCHES

SUBWAY RUNNER (PINK) 1964

GOUACHE ON PAPER

36 X 35 INCHES

SUBWAY RUNNER 1963

GOUACHE ON PAPER

33 X 35 INCHES

BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT

SUBWAY RUNNER 1964

GOUACHE ON PAPER

32 ¼ X 35¼ INCHES

SUBWAY RUNNER 1964

GOUACHE ON PAPER

29½ X 35 INCHES

SUBWAY RUNNER 1964

GOUACHE ON PAPER

32 ¼ X 35 INCHES

Jay

EDUCATION

b. 1934 Omaha, NE

1953–54 University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE

1954–56 Académie de la Grande Chaumière and Sorbonne, Paris, France

Study with Ossip Zadkine and André Lhote, Paris, France

Atelier 17, Stanley William Hayter, Paris, France

1956–57 Study with Isobel Steele MacKinnon, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2019 Jay Milder: Unblotting the Rainbow, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA

2016–17 Jay Milder: Noah’s Ark—Many Views , Quogue Gallery, Hamptons, NY

2009 MUSEU Nacional da República, Brasília, Brazil

Lohin Geduld Gallery, New York

2006 Expressionismo , Retrospective Show, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil

Lohin Geduld Gallery, New York

2004 Lohin Geduld Gallery, New York

2003 Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil

Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2001 Andre Zarre Gallery, New York

Hugo Pagano Gallery, New York

1999 Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

1998 Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York

1997 Retrospective show, Hugo Pagano Gallery, New York

1996 Horace Richter Gallery, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel Artopia, New York

1995 Kathleen Ross Gallery Soho, New York

1994 Alitash Kebede Fine Arts, Los Angeles, CA Shoe-String Gallery, Jersey City, NJ Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York

1993 Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York

1992 Jay Milder, Urban Visionary: Retrospective 1958–1991 , Virginia Beach Center for the Arts, Virginia Beach, VA

1991 Private Stories , Alitash Kebede Fine Arts, Los Angeles, CA

Jay Milder, Urban Visionary: Retrospective 1958–1991 , Schick Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY

Jay Milder, Urban Visionary: Retrospective 1958–1991 , New England Center for Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, CT

1988 Girgis & Klym Gallery, Fitzroy, Australia Eleonore Austerer Fine Art, San Mateo, CA

1987–89 Jay Milder–Messiah on the IND, organized by Richard Green Gallery, New York; Gallery Jupiter, Little Silver, NJ; Anton Gallery, Washington DC; Yares Art, Scottsdale, AZ

1987 Harcourts Contemporary, San Francisco, CA

Jay Milder–Messiah on the IND, Richard Green Gallery, New York

1986 Sid Deutsch Gallery, New York Gallery Four, Charlotte, VA

Richard Green Gallery, New York

1984 Shahin Requicha Gallery, Rochester, NY

1981 Ronald Hunnings Gallery, New York

Oscarsson Hood Gallery, New York

1980 Ad Summun Arts Gallery, New York

1979 Ingber Gallery, New York

1978 Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC

Art Latitude, New York

Aaron Berman Gallery, New York

1977 Bienville Gallery, New Orleans, LA

1976 Gallery One Fine Arts, Rochester, NY

Aaron Berman Gallery, New York

1975 Lerner-Heller Gallery, New York

1972 Recent Works by Jay Milder, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA

1969–72 Bienville Gallery, New Orleans, LA

1969 Temple Israel, Long Beach, CA

Bienville Gallery, New Orleans, LA

1965 Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH

Gallery Fore, Los Angeles, CA

1964 Martha Jackson Gallery, New York

Joslyn Museum, Omaha, NE

Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH

1963 Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, HO

1962 Allan Stone Gallery, New York

1961 Museo de Bellas Artes Ateneo Puertorriqueño, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Allan Stone Gallery, New York

1960 Zabriskie Gallery (with Bob Thompson), New York

Martha Jackson Gallery, New York

Delancey Street Museum, New York

Allan Stone Gallery, New York

Museo de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Ateneo Puertorriqueño, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Fulton Gallery, New York

1959 The Black City, the Red People: Red Grooms and Jay Milder, City Gallery, New York 1958 City Gallery (with Red Grooms), New York

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023 Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Postwar France, 1946–1962 , Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York 2021 13 American Artists: A Celebration of Historic Work , Eric Firestone Gallery, New York

2017 Inventing Downtown: Artist Run Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965 , Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York; The Art Gallery at NYU Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

2013 Pioneers from Provincetown: The Roots of Figurative Expressionism , Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA 2005 Celebration , Lohin Geduld Gallery, New York 2004 Celebration, Lohin Geduld Gallery, New York 2003 Celebration , Lohin Geduld Gallery, New York

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid, Spain 1999 Hugo Pagano Gallery, New York 1995 Kathleen Ross Gallery, New York

Recent Acquisitions in Contemporary Art , Rhode Island

School of Design, Providence, RI 1993 Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, SC

The Source , Lorillard Building, Jersey City, NJ 1991 Alitash Kebede Fine Arts, Los Angeles, CA

Private Stories , Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 1990 Horace Richter Gallery, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel

The Expanding Figurative Imagination , Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York 1989 Art for Art’s Sake , Ingber Gallery, New York 1988 The Figure , Galerie Helene Grubair, Miami, FL

1900 to Now, Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI; Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI Controversy Club, Limelight, New York RFM Studio, New York

Spiritual Union , Unipas Gallery, New York

Meeting of Differences , Manhattan Borough President’s Gallery, New York

Figurative Expressionists , Arthur Robbins Studio, New York

1987 Variations in Matter Paintings , Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York

Color Now, 55 Mercer Street Gallery, New York

1986 Fetishes, Figures & Fantasies , Kenkeleba Gallery, New York

Art from the City University of New York: Approaches to Abstraction , Shanghai Exhibition Hall, China, and City University of New York, New York

Five Expressionist Painters from New York , Newton Art Center, Newtonville, MA

Survival of the Fittest , Ingber Gallery, New York

1985 Expressionism: An American Beginning , Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA

Exuberant Abstraction , Equitable Life Assurance Society and Mendik Company, New York Gruenebaum Gallery, New York

1984 New York vs Orlando , Warehouse Gallery, Orlando, FL

1980 American Figure Painting 1950–1980 , Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA

1979–80 Tenth Street Days Exhibition , St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD; Buscaglia-Castellani Gallery, Niagara Falls, NY; Dowd Gallery, SUNY, Cortland, NY; Root Art Center, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY; Brainerd Art Gallery, SUNY, Potsdam, NY; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE; Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT; Tyler Art Gallery, SUNY, Oswego, NY; Firehouse Plaza Art Gallery, Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY Art Latitude Gallery, New York

1979 The Icarus Odyssey, Rainbow Art Foundation, Orozco Chapel, Guadalajara, Mexico Yugoslav Press and Cultural Center, New York

1978 Mexican Museum, Guadalajara, Mexico Bienville Gallery, New Orleans, LA Landmark Gallery, New York Myers Art Gallery, SUNY, Plattsburgh, NY University Art Gallery, SUNY, Albany, NY Rhino Horn Exhibition , Union County College, Cranford, NJ

1977 Celestial Phenomena , Noyes, Van Cline, & Davenport Gallery, New York

Oakleigh Collection , Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY Eleven Pros , Aaron Berman Gallery, New York Tenth Street in 1977, Landmark Gallery, New York Tenth Street Days , Phoenix Gallery, New York

1976 Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum , Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA

1975 Louisiana State University Gallery, Baton Rouge, LA Lerner-Heller Gallery, New York

Rhino Horn Exhibition , Open Mind, New York

1974 Sculptures by Painters , The Center for Humanist Art at the Aida Hernandez Gallery, New York Rhino Horn Exhibition , Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA Rhino Horn Exhibition , Ankrum Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Rhino Horn Exhibition (Counter Currents: The New Humanism), Aida Hernandez Gallery, New York Rhino Horn Exhibition (Personal Interiors), The Center for Humanist Art at the Aida Hernandez Gallery, New York Rhino Horn Exhibition , Pace College, New York Rhino Horn Exhibition , Massachusetts University, MA Rhino Horn Exhibition , Santa Barbara Museum, Santa Barbara, CA

Rhino Horn Exhibition , Bienville Gallery, New Orleans, LA

Rhino Horn Exhibition , San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA

1973 Faculty Exhibition, City College, New York

Rhino Horn Exhibition , Rabinowitz & Guerra Gallery, New York

1972 Rhino Horn Exhibition , Odyssey House, New York

1971 Maniaclaughter, Westbeth Artists Gallery, New York

Rhino Horn Exhibition , East Central State College, Ada, OK

Rhino Horn Exhibition , Contemporary Arts Foundation, Oklahoma City, OK

Rhino Horn Exhibition , Living Art Center, Dayton, OH

Rhino Horn Exhibition, Joseloff Gallery, University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT

Rhino Horn Exhibition, Bienville Gallery, New Orleans, LA

1970–1 Rhino Horn Exhibition , Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH

Rhino Horn Exhibittion , Gardiner Art Gallery, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK

Rhino Horn Exhibition , Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA

1970 Rhino Horn Exhibition , New School for Social Research, New York

Rhino Horn Exhibition, North Shore Community Art Center, Great Neck, NY

Rhino Horn Exhibition , Sonraed Gallery, New York

1969 Art Show & Sale Benefit , Karen Horney Clinic, New York

1968 Sculpture Exhibition , Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

1967 International Sculpture Exhibition , Museum of Modern Art, New York

Figurative Painting of the ‘50s , Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, New York

Four Man Exhibition , 12 St. Mark’s Place, New York

1966 Contemporary Urban Visions , The New School Art Center, New York

1965 Fifty Young Painters from Fifty States , Burpee Museum, Rockford, IL

One Hundred Contemporary Drawings Show, American Federation of Art, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI; City College, New York

Figuration , Martha Jackson Gallery, New York

All Ohio Painting and Sculpture , Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH

1964 Seven Younger Painters , Yale School of Art and Architecture, New Haven, CT

All Ohio Graphics and Ceramics , Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH

1963 National Graphics Show

1962 Watercolor Show, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Four Young Painters , Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY

Barnard College, New York

1961 International Selection, Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH

1960 Zabriskie Gallery, New York

Spanish Refugee Benefit, Stuttman Gallery, New York

1959 Delancey Street Museum, New York

Jay Milder, Lester Johnson, Bob Thompson , Ellison Gallery, Fort Worth, TX

1958–59 Drawings , City Gallery, New York

1958 Five Painters , City Gallery, New York

Phoenix Gallery, New York

10th Street Gallery, New York

Sun Gallery (with Bob Thompson and Red Grooms), Provincetown, MA

SELECTED BIOBLIOGRAPHY

Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965 . Exh. Cat., Grey Art Gallery, New York, NY, 2017.

Morosan, Ron, “Interviews: Edelheit & Milder,” ARTEIDOLIA , March 2017

Stein, Judith E., Eye of the Sixties: Richard Bellamy and the Transformation of Modern Art, 2016, 103, 145.

Kingsley, April, Figurative Expressionists , 2015, 4, 28, 37, 39, 40.

Zucker, Adam, Rhino Horn , Exh. Cat., Provincetown Art Association and Museum, 2014.

Glimcher, Mildred L., Happenings: New York, 1958–1963 , 2012, 24, 37, 38, 41, 54, 62, 70.

Panero, James, “Gallery Chronicle,” The New Criterion , November 2009.

Morgan, Robert C., “Jay Milder,” The Brooklyn Rail , June 2006.

Expressionism , Exh. Cat., Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, 2006.

Carvalho, Denise, “Jay Milder: A Retrospective,” Cover Magazine , 1996.

Raynor, Vivien, “Similarities Despite Radically Different Styles,” The New York Times , March 14, 1994.

Pardee, Hearne, “Jay Milder: Elizabeth Harris,” ARTnews , September 1993.

Raynor, Vivien, “Some of the Best Works Turn Out to Be Three Dimensional,” New York Times , April 18, 1993.

Tully, Judd, “Image Menagerie, Jay Milder: Elizabeth Haris Gallery,” Cover Magazine , March 1993.

Kuspit, Donald, lecture on Milder’s work during the exhibition Jay Milder: Urban Visionary—Retrospective Show 1958–1991 , Virginia Beach, VA, 1991.

Brothers, Leslie, Private Stories: Michael Goldberg, Rainer Gross, Jay Milder, Jeff Way. Exh. Cat., Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1991.

Selz, Peter and Judith Stein, Jay Milder: Urban Visionary, Retrospective 1958–1991. Exh. Cat., New England Center for Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, CT, 1991.

Kramer, Hilton, “Art for Art’s Sake Show an Apt Finale for Ingber Gallery,” New York Observer, July 17–24, 1989, 17.

Ruhe, Barnaby, “Ruhe Views,” Art/World , Summer 1989

Thorson, Alice, The Washington Times , April 27, 1989.

Ahlander, Leslie Judd, “Miami Art Scene,” The Miami News , November 18, 1988, 6c.

LeSueur, Charles, “An Antidote to Today’s Thematic Malaise,” Art Speak , October 16, 1988.

Rosenthal, Donna, “Par Excellence,” US Magazine , August 8, 1988, pp. 42–43, ill.

Raynor, Vivien, “Expressiveness and Expressionism,” The New York Times , March 13, 1988, ill.

Watkins, Eileen, “Art,” Star Ledger, March 11, 1988, 45, ill.

Kuspit, Donald, “Jay Milder at Richard Green Gallery,” Artforum , December 1987, p. 111, ill.

Sturman, John, “Jay Milder,” ARTnews , November 1987, ill.

Ruhe, Barnaby, “Milder, Garet, Bosman, Grooms,” Art World , October/November 1987, 1.

Nonn, Thomas, Variations in Matter Painting. Exh. Cat., Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, 1987.

Henry, Martha, J. Milder: Messiah on the IND and Other Biblical Tales. Exh. Cat., Richard Green Gallery, New York, 1987.

Art from The City University of New York: Approaches Abstraction. Exh. Cat., Shanghai, China, November, 1986.

Fetishes, Figures, and Fantasies . Exh. Cat., Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, 1986.

Ratcliff, Carter, “Jay Milder at Sid Deutsch,” Art in America , July 1986, ill.

Larson, Kay, “Art,” New York Magazine , April 21, 1986.

Otis, Lauren, “Deeper Than the Objects on the Canvas,” Art Speak , April 1, 1986, 1.

Harding, Robert, “Jay Milder Retrospective,” Art/World , April 1986.

Ruhe, Barnaby, “Jay Milder,” Art World , January/February 1981, 7.

Pellicone, William, “All the Way to Here!” Art Speak , January 29, 1981, 4.

O’Donnell, Ellen M., Expressionism: An American Beginning Exh. Cat., Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA, 1985.

Giuliano, Charles, “Provincetown: It Figures,” Art New England , July/August 1985, 10, 28.

Forman, Debbie, “Figuratively Speaking,” Cape Cod Times , July 4, 1985, 13.

“Textural Paintings Heighten Visual Sense,” Democrat & Chronicle , April 15, 1984.

Harding, Robert, “Jay Milder,” Arts Magazine , 1982, 11.

“Review of Jay Milder: Oscarsson Hood Exhibition,” New York Arts Journal , 1982.

McCormack, Edward, “Paint for Its Own Sake and Other Matter,” Art Speak , November 12, 1981, 1, 8.

B. R., “Review of Jay Milder: Ronald Hunnings Exhibition,” Art/World , January 16/February 18, 1981.

17th Weatherspoon Annual Exhibition Art on Paper. Exh. Cat., Dillard Paper Company and the Weatherspoon Guild, Greensboro, NC, 1981.

An Exhibition at Provincetown , Exh. Cat., Sun Gallery, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA, 1981.

Styron, Thomas W., American Figurative Painting. Exh. Cat., Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, 1980.

Preston, George, “Jay Milder—Painter of Discovery, Resolution and Rediscovery,” Arts Magazine , November 1979, 88–90.

Raynor, Vivien, “’Tenth Street’ Lives,” The New York Times , August 12, 1979.

Thompson, Howard, “Show at Cultural Center,” The New York Times , June 5, 1979, C10.

Gees Seckler, Dorothy, Provincetown Painters 1890’s to 1970’s , Exh. Cat., Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, 1977.

Pomfret, Margaret, “Jay Milder at Aaron Berman,” Arts Magazine , February 1977, 50.

Gaugh, Harry F., “Oakleigh Collection,” Arts Magazine , January 1977, 17.

Bard, Joellen, Tenth Street Days-The Co-op of the 50’s , The Gallery Association of New York, 1977.

Preston, George N., “Jay Milder: Painter of Discovery, Resolution, and Rediscovery,” Arts Magazine , Vol. 51, Issue 3, November 1976.

“Hathorn Displays American Art,” Saratogian , October 10, 1976.

L. A., “Reviews and Previews Westbeth Group,” Arts Magazine , November 1975.

Blake, Jessica, “Rhino Horn at Open Mind,” Arts Magazine , February 1975.

Pomfret, Margaret, “Jay Milder,” Arts Magazine , January 1975. “Mystery, Society, and Rhino Horn,” Chrysler Museum Bulletin , May 1974.

Cossitt, Dick, “Rhino Horn Exhibit Aggressive and Exciting,” Virginian-Pilot , April 28, 1974.

Bell, Jane, “California Report: Art on the Horns of a Dilemma,” Arts Magazine , January 1974, 58–59, ill.

Schwartz, Barry, The New Humanism, Praeger, 1974, 431.

Counter Currents: The New Humanism , Exh. Cat., Aida Hernandez Gallery, New York, 1974.

Rhino Horn: Personal Interiors , 1974.

Cossitt, Dick, “Jay Milder: A Tonic for Tidewater,” Virginian-Pilot , September 3, 1972, C7, ill.

Justice, Cornelia, “Milder’s Style His Personal Statement,” Ledger Star, September 2, 1972, A7, ill.

Cossitt, Dick, “Resident Artist,” Virginian-Pilot , August, 28, 1972.

Schwartz, Barry, Jay Milder’s Developing Vision of Absurdity. Exh. Cat., Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, 1972.

McCormack, Edward, “Arts: Galleries: Funky Funky Rhino Horn,” Changes , February 15, 1972, 17–20.

“An Unstylish, Uncool Show,” West Hartford News , September 30, 1971, 5b.

Schjeldahl, Peter, “A New Gallery, a Beautiful Show,” The New York Times , September 19, 1971.

Schjeldahl, Peter, “My Children Don’t Want a New Father, They Want Pizza,” The New York Times , September 19, 1971, 23.

Collier, Alberta, “Works of New York Artists Will Go On View Here,” Times-Picayune , October 31, 1971, 18.

McCaslin, Walt, “No Op, Pop, Color Field for Rebel New York Artist,” Journal Herald , April 3, 1971, 27.

Pepper, Stephen, Rhino Horn., Exh. Cat., New School for Social Research, New York, 1970.

Schwid, Sheila, “Rhino Horn Show,” Arts Magazine , Summer 1970.

Ruhe, Barnaby, “Rhino Horn,” ARTnews , April 1970.

Schjeldahl, Peter, “A World of Raucous, Challenging Images,” The New York Times , March 22, 1970.

Glueck, Grace, “Art: Drawings By All Star Cast,” The New York Times , March 21, 1970.

Mocsanyi, Paul, Contemporary Urban Visions. Exh. Cat., New School Art Center, New York, 1966

Meeker, Hubert, “Diverse Art ‘Captures’ Critic,” Journal Herald , February 18, 1965, ill.

E. S., “Figuration,” ARTnews , February 1969, 19.

Caldwell, Susan, “Exhibits of Area Art Teaches Vary,” Journal Herald , October 3, 1964, 21.

Campbell, Lawrence, “Jay Milder,” ARTnews , 1964.

“J. Milder’s One-Man Show Exhibits a Vigorous Talent,” Journal Herald , September 14, 1963.

E. C. B., “Durker, Milder, Wofford and Colby,” ARTnews , September 1963

McCaslin, Walt, “New York Artist Joins Institute’s Staff,” Journal Herald , June 8, 1963

Raynor, Vivien, “Jay Milder,” Arts Magazine , January 1962, 41.

A. V., “Jay Milder-Delancey Street Museum,” Arts Magazine , January 1960.

Schloss Burckhardt, Edith, “Jay Milder and Bob Thompson,” ARTnews , 1960.

Glade, Luba, “Rhino Horn’s Humanity,” Arts Magazine , 11, ill.

AWARDS

1999 Cultural Exchange Representative between America and Brazil at Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

1998 National Endowment for the Arts

Participation in Arts Conference, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia

1966 National Graphics Award

1965 Rainbow Arts Foundation Award, Exhibition Museum, Guadalajara, Mexico

1964 Ohio State Painter’s Award

1959 Purchase Prize, Artists in Puerto Rico Exhibition

1956 Mexican Artists Award, Puebla, Mexico

1955 Mexican Artists Award, Puebla, Mexico

RESIDENCIES

1971 City College, City University of New York

1970 Chrysler Museum School, Norfolk, VA

1969 Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore, MD

1965–9 Yale University, Honorary Visiting Artist

1965 Brandeis-Bardin Institute, Santa Susana, CA

1962–64 Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH

COLLECTIONS

Bayonne Jewish Community Center, Bayonne, NJ

Beth El Synagogue, Los Angeles, CA

Beth Israel Synagogue, Long Beach, CA

Brandeis-Bardin Institute, Santa Susana, CA

Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY

Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA

City College of New York, New York, NY

Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH

Ein Hod Museum, Jerusalem, Israel

The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

Flossie Martin Gallery, Radford University, Radford, VA

Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC

Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Lakeland Cultural Arts Center, Littleton, NC

Maier Museum of Art, Randolph-Macon Women’s College, Lynchburg, VA

Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC

Muscarelle Museum of Art, Williamsburg, VA

Museo de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid, Spain

Museu de Arte e Origens/Museum of Art and Origins, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Museum of Art, San Juan, Puerto Rico Museum of Solidarity, Titograd, Yugoslavia

Neuberger Museum, SUNY Purchase, NY Newark Museum, Newark, NJ New Museum, New York, NY Oakleigh Collection, Boston, MA

Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA

Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA

Simon & Schuster Co., New York Sinai Temple, Los Angeles, CA

Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY

Skirball Museum, Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles, CA State University of New York, Binghamton, NY

Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel

Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Greensboro, NC

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Jay Milder for entrusting us to put together this significant exhibition of his early work. Without him, this exhibition would not have been possible. Thank you to the Milder family: his partner Liza Papi; his daughters Rachael Milder Kosch and Rifka Milder; and Sheila Schwid, who all assisted by organizing and providing photographs as well as archival materials.

Thank you to Carlo McCormick for his brilliant and personal exploration of Jay Milder’s work, its place in the canon, and its basis in humanist values.

The exhibition was accompanied by a panel discus sion on art and the subway at the gallery, called “Trainspotters & Turnstile Prophets.” We are grateful to the panelists Carlo McCormick, Chris “Daze” Ellis, Henry Chalfant, and Mimi Gross for their participation.

Additionally, we would like to extend our gratitude to those individuals and scholars who shared important information such as historic exhibition checklists, images, and materials related to Jay Milder and essential to the production of this catalogue: Robert Scalise, Director, University of Buffalo Art Galleries, which houses the Martha Jackson papers; Sally Kurtz, Registrar, Dayton Art Institute; Sarah Haines, Associate Registrar, Joslyn Art Museum; Jenny Swadosh, Associate Archivist, The New School; and Mica Nava, who was, along with Jay Milder, a founding member of the City Gallery.

I would like to thank my tireless staff for all their work putting together this exhibition, and with scholarship and conservation. The gallery remains committed to the reevaluation of historically important American artists.

Eric Firestone

Published on the occasion of the exhibition

JAY MILDER: BROADWAY NONSTOP SUBWAY PAINTINGS FROM THE 1950 s AND 60 s

April 1–May 14, 2022 on view at Eric Firestone Gallery 40 Great Jones Street, New York, NY

ISBN: 979-8-218-04755-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022914146

Cover: Subway Runner BMT, detail, 1963

Frontispiece: Jay Milder looking out the window of his loft on Spring Street, 1962. Courtesy Sheila Schwid

Inside back cover: Jay Milder smoking a cigarillo, n.d. Courtesy Sheila Schwid

Publication copyright © 2022 Eric Firestone Press

Essay copyright © 2022 Carlos McCormick

All artwork © Jay Milder Reproduction of contents prohibited

All rights reserved

Published by Eric Firestone Press

4 Newtown Lane East Hampton, NY 11937

Eric Firestone Gallery

40 Great Jones Street, 4th floor New York, NY 10012 646-998-3727

4 Newtown Lane East Hampton, NY 11937 631-604-2386

ericfirestonegallery.com

Principal: Eric Firestone

Director of Research: Jennifer Samet Project Management: Kara Winters

Principal Photography: Jenny Gorman Copyeditor: Natalie Haddad Design: Russell Hassell, New York Printing: Puritan Capital, New Hampshire