DAVID LIGARE
PRESENCE OF THE PAST
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LewAllenGalleries
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David Ligare Presence of the Past
November 19, 2021 - January 8, 2022
Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com Cover: Legend, Woman with Deer (detail), 2021, Oil on canvas, 48" x 72"
David Ligare: Presence of the Past Great art can, of course, be great in itself. Great paintings might contain beautiful figures, objects, landscapes, fields of colors, light, or non-representational forms, lines, marks, and gestures. But when there is added to greatness of technique and composition a captivating story, a painting can attain further eminence, timelessness, and perhaps even the ability to distill and convey cultural memory. Such is the case with the works of acclaimed representational painter, David Ligare, which are included in the LewAllen exhibition entitled Presence of the Past. Ligare paints with exquisite attention to the structure of his work and to what he refers by its Greek name, symmetria: the balance and integration of the unequal parts of his imagery. His use of color and light results in an illumination as vibrant as the emotional response his paintings illicit. Ligare’s images usually reach back in time to the myths and stories of ancient Greece and Rome. The paintings jostle memory and evoke reference, more oblique than obvious, to beliefs and ideas that have endured over millennia to form values relevant to contemporary time. His works remind us of the ideals of Western culture and the concepts we hold true or even sacred. These paintings approach the ultimate meaning of truly great art, which is to reach for something bigger and more enduring than ourselves. Ligare blends his masterful artistic imagination and technical ability with a mathematician’s compositional skill and a classical scholar’s deep knowledge of myth and history. Indeed, much of Ligare’s more than fifty years of making first-rate paintings might be described as being, on one level, a kind of historical preservation, works that remind us of ancient ideas that remain important today and are worth exploring. Often the paintings reference archetypal stories that connect with the nature of the world, life, death, origins, balance, good and bad, reverence for beauty, or the divine: subjects of universal concern among people of all cultures. They are the stories and parables from which have emerged the values by which people live or should live. The enduring nature of these stories and the wisdom of their lessons is testament to their power to address what Nietzsche called “the great historical hunger…our consuming desire for…a mythic home, the mythic womb.” The myths with which Ligare engages in his work provide connections between people, between times, and between the entropic forces of life that challenge the human need for equilibrium. Though this latest body of work includes figural, still-life and landscape imagery that possesses aesthetic integrity beyond its possible Greco-Roman associations, many of the works in this show are more 2
specifically evocative of important stories that are vital to Western culture and the values by which we aspire to live. In this current body of work, examples of ancient themes find innovative expression. In Legend, Woman with Deer, Ligare demonstrates the enduring emotional and spiritual longing for connection with nature that can be found in the legends and myths of ancient Greece and Rome. During the Golden Age of Greece, the goddess of wild animals, Artemis, was thought to be the beloved protector of the rugged woodland wilderness and the rustic countryside – the idealization of which was frequent in Greek thought and poetry, much as it is today in the environmental protection and climate change movements. Ligare’s imagery of the classically attired goddess greeting the inquisitive deer captures a sense of unconditional love and serenity and harmony with the world. He achieves this through the anchoring placement of the greenery in the foreground, the pictorial emphasis on both the deer and the goddess figure, the sentry-like placement of the sacred terebinth tree, the soothing blues, greens, and pinks of the water, the craggy sun-dappled cliffs, and the seemingly endless horizon in nuanced pinks, roses, and blues. All of these aspects converge to call attention to the beauty and peacefulness of the natural world, and perhaps to our responsibility to live in harmony with it. In his radiant painting entitled Ariadne on Naxos, Ligare references the classic Greek story of the Minotaur, a myth of operatic magnitude. According to this story, the son of the King of Crete was treacherously killed while in Athens. In retribution, the King demanded that every nine years the Athenians would send seven young boys and seven young girls to Crete to be thrown into a vast, dark labyrinth. There, they would wander aimlessly, to be found and devoured by the Minotaur, a terrifying, half-man and half-bull monster. Theseus, the son of the King of Athens, demanded to be sent to the labyrinth to attempt to defeat the Minotaur. Upon arriving in Crete, Theseus met the King of Crete’s daughter, Ariadne, and the two were immediately love-struck. Ariadne gave Theseus a sword along with a spindle of red thread, advising him to tie one end of the thread to the entrance of the labyrinth to enable him to escape after slaying the terrifying beast. Ariadne’s plan was successful, and the two lovers fled Crete by boat, stopping en route on the island of Naxos, where the two celebrated their love. That evening, Theseus abandoned her on the island, and the 3
David Ligare: Presence of the Past (continued) young lovers would never meet again. According to one version of the story, Ariadne’s journey to Naxos led to a life-changing meeting despite her heartbreak. She awoke to find a young man gazing at her: the god Dionysus, who had spotted her on the beach and became enchanted by her beauty. The two were married, and Ariadne was eventually made into a goddess herself alongside him. Ligare captures the strength and the longing of Ariadne, the resolute heroine of this classic tale. Her figure is elegantly and stoically poised on the rocky seashore, her classically garbed figure underscoring a sense of tragedy and yet also courage and the will to endure. Ligare employs a rich range of intense and emotional blues to convey the immense vastness of the sea that surrounds the figure of Ariadne. The painting is the culmination of a complex tale of heartbreak, heroism, and guile. In Arcadian Shepherd (Et in Arcadia ego), Ligare delves into the symbolic traditions of Arcadia, an ancient and largely isolated district of Greece made almost inaccessible by mountains and populated sparsely with shepherds. In its secluded world, Arcadia has traditionally symbolized an idealized place of rustic pastoral innocence, harmony with nature, and contentment. Sheep, symbols of simple goodness, soundlessly graze in this pastoral world, conveying a gentle, seemingly eternal sense of quietude and peace. The solitary shepherd bespeaks both youth and innocence. Looking directly at the viewer, he stands in voluptuous grassy fields that are framed by sinuous trees, their foliage anchoring the image and posed to embrace the sensuous pinks and blues of the skies. Yet the shepherd stands by a classically carved Greek tombstone depicting the figure of a young man, not unlike the shepherd himself—as a reminder of one’s mortality, or perhaps of his own connection with the past. Still Life with Oranges and a Rose is a celebration of the joys of the possibilities of paint, light, and lush surfaces. Seductively, this work draws the viewer into a dreamlike world of sensuous forms, colors, and shapes. The depictions are unassuming: a simple rectilinear table on a boardwalk overlooking the sea and sky, a basket of oranges with a cluster of leaves and orange blossoms, a solitary rose. Initially, the simple planks of the boardwalk help to anchor the viewer and define the square, boxy table. The light shimmering off the table’s surfaces and legs provides the table with a mystical, glowing, almost spiritual aspect, which could be an altar. In ancient Greece, the first products of the harvest were called aparchai (meaning first fruit) and set aside as a sacred offering. In this painting, a rustic straw basket 4
sits prominently on a table, bounteously overflowing with exquisitely detailed oranges. Each orange is individual and contains a sensuous presence--one wants to reach out to grasp and prize each of them. These are the best fruits of the harvest. The rose could be interpreted in many ways. For the ancient Greeks, the rose was associated with the goddess Aphrodite, and with love, beauty, pleasure, passion, and procreation. Beyond the aparchai is the work’s powerful and emotive backdrop, portrayed with a gently rippling ocean. Hovering above the soothing waters is the enticing warm glow of a pink horizon that gently lifts the blues of the sky. All these painterly forces join to energize the majesty and splendor of the humble, yet spiritually ennobled basket of oranges. These are illustrations of Ligare’s fascinating tableaus inspired by his deep knowledge of Classical myths, conveying universal ideals that seem timelessly relevant. Ligare does not endeavor to provide literal renditions of myths so much as to imbue his imagery with echoes of the stories of the past. The extravagant mastery of these works suggests – without being exact -- the importance of the ideas that may be deduced from these ancient stories. Ligare’s work is truly distinguished by the fact that, in addition to being beautiful to look at, it is masterful in its ability to inspire wonder and the desire to learn more. His is truly great art. Kenneth R. Marvel Justin Ferate
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Arete, 2021 Oil on canvas, 72" x 94" 7
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Ariaadne on Naxos, 2021 Oil on canvas, 48" x 72" 9
Ball of String, 2021 Oil on canvas, 8" x 10" 10
Still Life with Pomegranate and Lemons, 2021 Oil on canvas, 20" x 24" 11
Cassandra, 2021 Oil on canvas, 72" x 48" 12
Boy with Goat, 2021 Oil on canvas, 72" x 48" 13
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Runner, 2021 Oil on canvas, 48" x 60" 15
Still Life with Oranges and Rose, 2021 Oil on canvas, 20" x 24" 16
Still Life with Bread and Wine, 2021 Oil on canvas, 20" x 24" 17
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Legend, Woman with Deer, 2021 Oil on canvas, 48" x 72" 19
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Landscape with Arcadian Shepherd (Et in Arcadia ego) , 2021 Oil on canvas, 50" x 72" 21
Landscape with Iris, 2021 Oil on canvas, 18" x 24" 22
Landscape with Arrow, 2021 Oil on canvas, 20" x 32" 23
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Landscape with a Horse, 2019 Oil on canvas, 60" x 80" 25
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Night Diver, 2019 Oil on canvas, 60" x 90" 27
Study for Young Man with a Crow, (The Conversation), 2014 Oil on canvas, 20" x 24" 28
Falling Man (Icarus), 2016 Oil on canvas, 60" x 80" 29
The Achaean, 2020 Oil on canvas, 16" x 12" 30
Sheep, 2021 Oil on canvas, 10" x 14" 31
David Ligare
(b. 1945: Oak Park, IL)
EDUCATION
2007
Hackett Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA
2006
Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (also '03,
'98, '94, '92, '88, '86, '85, '83)
2005
Plus One Gallery, London, UK
2002
Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA
(also '99, '97)
Viewpoint: The Pastures of Heaven, The National
Steinbeck Center, Salinas, CA
2000
Koplin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1998
The Classical Impulse, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
L'eta dell'Oro, Il Polittico, Rome, Italy
1997
Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1996
Ponte Vecchio/Torre Nova, A Project by David Ligare,
The Prince of Wales' Institute of Architecture,
London, UK
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Landscape and Language, Monterey Museum of
2021
Presence of the Past, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
Art, Monterey, CA
2019
Elements, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
1995
Stiebel Modern, New York, NY (also '93)
2017
Winfield Gallery, Carmel, CA
Stages for Contemplation, Fresno Museum,
Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
Fresno, CA
Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Sonoma, CA
1994
Koplin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (also '92, '88, '85, '83)
2015
David Ligare: California Classicist, Crocker Art
1993
Stiebel Modern, New York
Museum, Sacramento, CA
1990
Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, New York, NY
Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
1985
Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, New York, NY
Chris Windfield Gallery, Carmel, CA
1984
University Art Museum, University of California,
2013
River/Mountain/Sea, Fresno Art Museum, Frenso
Santa Barbara, CA
CA & Monterey Museum of Art
1983
Hall Galleries, Dallas, Texas
2012
Chris Windfield Gallery, Carmel, CA
1978
Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, NY
Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
1977
The Act of Drawing, Phoenix Art Museum, AZ
2010
Plus One Gallery, London, UK
1973
Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, NY
2009
Hartnell College Gallery, Salinas, CA
1970
D H LIGARE, Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA
2008
Winfield Gallery, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY The Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, CN Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi (The Department of
Drawings and Prints of the Uffizi), Florence, Italy
M.H. De young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA The Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA The Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA The San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA The Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas The Museum of Art & Archeology, University of Missouri
321969
Wickersham Gallery, New York, NY
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Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com © 2021 LewAllen Contemporary, LLC 34 Artwork © David Ligare