Philip Pearlstein
Treasures from the Studio
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Philip Pearlstein Treasures from the Studio June 24 - July 23, 2022
Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com
cover: Antiquities by the Studio Window, 2021, watercolor on paper, 29.75" x 22.5" (framed: 33.5" x 26.25")
Philip Pearlstein: Treasures from the Studio Over his nearly seventy-year career, Philip Pearlstein reimagined realist art, making an indelible mark on art history in a manner that has continued to evolve. This began in the 1960s, when Pearlstein challenged the art world by reintroducing realism as a mode of modernist art, choosing to paint only his direct optical experience of the human body within the studio environment. Rather than emphasizing certain overt or coded allusions to idealized religious, art historical, or mythological subjects, Pearlstein instead chose to paint the figure as a pictorial element within his overall compositions. In search of new and dynamic imagery to paint, Pearlstein increasingly incorporated objects from his collection of artifacts, toys, textiles and antiques in his paintings, staging them around his models to animate his compositions even further. But due to the pandemic lockdown in 2020 and 2021, Pearlstein turned for the first time exclusively to his collection to form the basis of a fascinating new series of still-life watercolor paintings, this time without the inclusion of the model. The result is a suite of twenty modestly sized watercolor paintings that display both Pearlstein’s unusual collection as well as his extraordinary eye for unexpected and imaginative approaches to structure and composition. Here, arrangements of Greek and Etruscan vases, antique textiles, duck decoys, Godzilla toys, and other collectibles and antiquities are presented as dynamic, interlocking marvels of shapes, diagonals, and volumes, forming intricate worlds of color. Of Pearlstein’s new watercolors, Patterson Sims writes, “These objects and the art he has made from them testify to the immemorial human drive to create, collect, and preserve…. During these years of global pandemic, Pearlstein’s energetic exploration and technical command of his new subject has kept expanding. Undaunted neither by his necessitated change of subject and medium nor his advanced age and physical challenges, Pearlstein is adding a new chapter to the long story of his art and making some of the most technically ambitious and emotionally poignant artworks of his nearly seventy-year professional career.”
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Philip Pearlstein studied art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology alongside Andy Warhol and his future wife, Dorothy Cantor. The three struck up a close friendship, and in 1949, moved together to New York City to work as artists and designers. Pearlstein’s breakthrough occurred in 1961 while teaching figure drawing at Pratt Institute, where he decided to pursue a new approach in his painting. Actively working from the 1950s through the present day, Pearlstein’s work has now been collected by more than seventy museums in the United States, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
View from West 36th Street, Out My Window, 2021, watercolor on paper, 29.5" x 41.5" framed: 33" x 45.25" 3
Antique Toys with Godzilla, 2021 watercolor on paper, 30" x 22.5" framed: 33.63" x 26.25"
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Antiquities by the Studio Window, 2021 watercolor on paper, 29.75" x 22.5" framed: 33.5" x 26.25"
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Han Dynasty Camel and Donkey Piggybank with Wings, 2020 watercolor on paper, 24" x 18" framed: 27.25" x 21.25"
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Skull and Tree Mushrooms, 2020 watercolor on paper, 24" x 18" unframed
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Hygieia, Athena, and Others, 2021 watercolor on paper, 29.25" x 22.25" framed: 33.13" x 25.63"
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Antiquities on My Shelf III, 2021 watercolor on paper, 29.75" x 22.25" framed: 34" x 26.5"
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Greek Ceramics in My Studio, 2020 watercolor on paper, 18" x 24" unframed
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Salt & Pepper Shakers and Some Toys on BBQ Toolbox, 2021 watercolor on paper, 22.5" x 29.75" framed: 26.5" x 33.88"
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Stuffed Owl on Tree Mushrooms, 2020 watercolor on paper, 24" x 18" unframed
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Antiquities on My Shelf I, 2021 watercolor on paper, 29.5" x 22.25" framed: 34" x 26.5"
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Old Toys, Round Table, 2021 watercolor on paper, 30" x 22.5" framed: 33.75" x 26.13"
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Horse Weathervane from Maine, 2021 watercolor on paper, 18" x 23.75" framed: 21.25" x 27.25"
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Toys, 2021 watercolor on paper, 30.25" x 22.5" unframed
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Amasis Fragment and Other Antiquities, 2021 watercolor on paper, 24" x 18" framed: 27.25" x 21.25"
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Coney Island Lions in My Studio, 2022 watercolor on paper, 41.5" x 29.5" unframed
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Cape Cod Hillside Forest, 2020 watercolor on paper, 24" x 18" framed: 27.25" x 21.25"
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Mickey Mouse Candy Dispenser and Godzilla, 2021 watercolor on paper, 22.25" x 29.5" framed: 25.75" x 33.25"
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Pile of African Masks on Tiffany Ox Horned Chair, 2021 watercolor on paper, 41.75" x 29.5" unframed
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Baby Atlas Birdbath, 2020 watercolor on paper, 24" x 18" framed: 27.25" x 21.25"
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Born in Pittsburgh in 1924, Philip Pearlstein attended the Carnegie Institute through the GI Bill after serving in World War II. In 1949, Pearlstein and his future wife, painter Dorothy Cantor, moved to New York City with their good friend, Andy Warhol. In 1958, while working as a designer for Life magazine, Pearlstein received a Fulbright Grant to paint in Italy. Upon his return, Pearlstein began teaching painting at Pratt Institute. It was during this time— while simultaneously attending a figure-drawing group led by modernist artist Mercedes Matter—that Pearlstein developed the mature style for which he would become famous. Pearlstein summed up this radical new direction in a 1962 article that he wrote for ARTnews magazine, stating, “The naked human body is one of our most familiar mental images, but we only think we know it….” Defying his viewers’ expectations of both traditional realism and contemporary art, Pearlstein’s work was at the vanguard of a new movement that began in the early 1960s called “New Realism,” which altered the trajectory of contemporary art. Actively working from the 1950s through the present day, Pearlstein’s work has now been collected by more than seventy museums in the United States, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
LewAllen Galleries gratefully acknowledgest the generous assistance of Betty Cuningham Gallery in making this exhibition possible. Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com © 2022 LewAllen Contemporary, LLC 44 Artwork © Philip Pearlstein