Jerald Ieans 2021 by BLACK ART AUCTION

jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans jerald ieans

JERALD IEANS

biography

Contemporary artist Jerald Ieans was born in 1971 in Waukegan, Illinois. His artistic ability was evident at an early age. He studied art while attending Parkway Central High School and Florissant Valley Community College in St. Louis, Missouri. After a year and a half of college, Ieans chose to bypass traditional art school in favor of an independent approach; painting daily in his studio, reading about art, and visiting the Saint Louis Art Museum, where he studied their collection of modern and contemporary masters. Ieans participated in his first group exhibition in 1991 at the Utopian Loft Gallery, St. Louis, and by 1992 had his first solo exhibition at Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis. By now, his distinctive style had already coalesced, and at the age of twenty-five, he became the youngest artist ever to be given a solo exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum in their Currents series. In 2001, Ieans’s paintings received national attention in Thelma Golden’s Freestyle exhibition at The Studio Museum in Harlem, and in the January 2002 issue of Artforum, Ieans was introduced by Robert Storr, Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, as a young artist who “shows special promise for the year ahead.” Ieans continues to live and work in St. Louis, Missouri.

a is a

T h o m P eg g

Jerald Ieans was clearly hesitant about cooperating with me on this project. I think he was nervous about labeling. The day we met I was working on a catalog for an auction I direct in Chicago which focuses on historical art by African Americans. Incidentally, there was a work by Ieans included in the auction. Ieans, being a keen student of art history was likely impressed by the company of his painting: the sale featured works by Betye Saar, Romare Bearden, Bob Thompson, Beauford Delaney, John Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, to name a few; nonetheless, he was concerned about being “lumped in”. Perhaps the best way to define Ieans’ work is to be certain what it is not; after all, isn’t that what he was itching to do that day at my gallery? You could read it on his face. I’m not like Romare Bearden. I’m not like Elizabeth Catlett. I’m not even like Rashid Johnson (a work by him was also in the auction, and Ieans and Johnson were once included in Freestyle, an exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem). Art by African Americans was initially defined to a large degree by Alain Locke and Hubert Harrison and the New Negro Renaissance, or the Harlem Renaissance, as it is frequently called. “The Renaissance was many things to many people, but it is best described as a cultural phenomenon in which the high level of black artistic and cultural production demanded and received mainstream recognition, where racial solidarity was equated with social progress, and where the idea of blackness became a commodity in its own right.”¹ Many well known historically significant African American artists were either originally associated with the New Negro Renaissance or came later in years, but held a similar purpose in their art. This does not define the artwork of Jerald Ieans. This is why it was perhaps a misstep for him to participate in the exhibition, Hands Up, Don’t Shoot: Artists Respond (October 1, 2014, St Louis, Missouri). This exhibition, organized by the Alliance of Black Art Galleries, provided this mission statement: “ ‘Protest Art’ has historically been a means of documenting social and political movements, and we are calling upon all artists to bring their voice--visual art--to the movement. We are recording what future generations will view as “Ferguson:” not the St Louis County municipality, but a 21st century movement for law and justice. 6

“Protest Art” does not define the artwork of Jerald Ieans. Jeremy Strick, Curator of Modern Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum, said this regarding Ieans’ exhibition held there as part of the Currents series in 1994: “The effect of Ieans’ recent paintings is sensuous yet precise. Composed of basic geometric forms, they are nevertheless full of contradiction and mystery. Confident and assured in manner, they amply reward continued and repeated viewing. While Ieans has arrived at this point independently, without participating in a specific school or movement, his work nonetheless betrays a sophisticated understanding of many of the crucial issues in contemporary art, and the artist is indebted to the legacies of minimal and post-minimal art.”2 This description is not entirely true—and dangerous if you cannot refrain from going one small step further— defining him as a minimalist or post-minimalist. Strick says specifically Ieans is indebted to the legacies of these movements. It was stated in an article which appeared in the St Louis Post-Dispatch in 1994 that Ieans claims his influences were Barnet Newman, Mark Rothko, Robert Ryman and Brice Marden.3 In the catalog for his 1994 exhibit at the Saint Louis Art Museum, Ieans confirms his admiration for the work of Marden and Newman, and remarks that (at least some of) his work is influenced by Donald Judd.4 The same year, an article printed in the Riverfront Times, states “He has continued to lean toward the abstract, and calls himself a minimalist”, and presents a quote from the artist: “My work is abstract, but not cold—there’s a lot of emotion in it.”5 In another article which appeared in the St Louis Post-Dispatch it says, “Ieans says that minimalism inspired him, it was a jumping off place for him.”6 In yet another article, Ieans says his work was influenced by Cy Twombly, and a few paragraphs later, “I began reading about abstract expressionism and looking at Barnett Newman and Rothko and de Kooning.”7 Agnes Martin was named as yet another influence when Ieans was asked before his Contradiction and Harmony exhibition at the Tubman African American Museum in 2006.8 Thelma Golden defines Post Black art in the catalog of Freestyle , an exhibition held in 2001 at the Studio Museum of Harlem (Ieans was one of 28 artists to participate in the exhibit): (post-black art) “includes

artists who are “adamant about not being labeled ‘black’ artists, though their work was steeped, in fact deeply interested, in redefining complex notions of blackness.” She continued, “They are both post-Basquiat and post-Biggie. They embrace the dichotomies of high and low, inside and outside, tradition and innovation, with a great ease and facility.” It burns at art critics and the public in general to get behind the art—I can see it clearly…but what’s behind it? When Hans Hoffmann asked Jackson Pollock if he worked from nature, Pollock famously replied, “I am nature.” and when Hoffmann continued to point out that if he worked by heart he would inevitably repeat himself, Pollock didn’t reply at all. When I was a student studying literature at Washington University in St Louis, I was told T.S. Eliot visited the school (Eliot had grown up in St Louis) to read his poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock . After reading it aloud to a group of students, one asked him the meaning of it, to which Eliot replied by reading the poem again in its entirety. Eliot was an advocate of New Criticism, a formalist movement in literary theory, and believed that a piece of literature was a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. New Critics argued that literary texts were autonomous and divorced from historical context, and all meaning is and must be explicit, not implied. An object of nature, for example, has a purely explicit meaning or identity. A nut is a nut. It would be inaccurate to view it as a potential tree or ingredient in a pie or a squirrel’s dinner. This also relates to Aristotle’s axiom of identity: everything that exists has a specific nature with particular characteristics, and cannot be two different things at once. The concept of identity is crucial because it makes explicit that reality has a definite nature, and since reality has an identity, it is knowable and has no contradictions.

tinue to see the pool and not their own face—a face prepared for other faces. Of course, the poem, the pool and the painting all continue to exist in a perfect state, each with a singular identity, completely oblivious to the cacophony of human interpretation and the anxiety (and ultimate failure) to grasp self-knowledge by habitually labeling and appropriating meaning—that to which it has no right. ¹ Africana Age (African and African Diasporan Transformations in the 20th Century); Shomberg Center for Research in Black Culture. Maryemma Graham, University of Kansas. ² Jerald Ieans, Currents 60, November 15, 1994-January 15, 1995, The Saint Louis Art Museum. “Original Defines Jerald Ieans”, by Robert Duffy, Cultural News Editor , St Louis Post-Dispatch, January 13, 1994. 3

Jerald Ieans, Currents 60, November 15, 1994-January 15, 1995, The Saint Louis Art Museum. 4

The Riverfront Times, August 17-23, 1994, p. 24

“A Glowing First Show for Jerald Ieans”, Robert Duffy, St Louis Post-Dispatch, November 12, 1992. 6

“Blue, Glue and Lofty Beginning”, St Louis Post-Dispatch , November 17, 1994 7

Contradiction and Harmony: Works by Jerald Ieans, May 2006, catalog to the exhibit, D.A. Wolf 8

I do not believe Ieans’ paintings are “contradictory and full of mystery”. I also do not believe they are minimalist or post-minimalist. That type of historical context implies reactionary content and Ieans’ works are not reactionary. Ieans’ paintings are very much like The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Not the character—the poem. The poem exists perfectly until someone reads it—then all hell breaks loose. Ieans’ paintings exist perfectly until someone sees them. The pool is not Narcissus, it is a pool, and it exists naturally, innocently, and purely until Narcissus stares into it. Only the most clever and courageous can look into the pool and con-

s o l o e xh ib it io n s

2009

Hoffman LaChance Contemporary, St. Louis, MO; Waves and Rococo

2008

Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, MO; New Paintings

2007 Saint Louis Art Museum, Jerald Ieans: On Being Blue, Works in the Collection 2006 Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; New Paintings Tubman African American Museum, Macon, GA; Contradiction and Harmony: Works by Jerald Ieans 2005 Solomon Projects, Atlanta, GA; White Paintings

2004

Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; Paintings and Watercolors

2003

Lucas Schoormans Gallery, NY; Jerald Ieans: New Monoprints

2002

Solomon Projects, Atlanta Georgia; Six Monchromatic Paintings Lucas Schoormans Gallery, NY

2000

Schmidt Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Made in L.A.

1999

Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; Hibiscus

1998

Solomon Projects, Atlanta, GA; New Paintings and Works on Paper

1996

Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; New Paintings

1994 Saint Louis Art Museum, Currents Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; Romeo’s Blues 1993

Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; New Paintings

1992

Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO

gro u p e xh ib it i on s

2014 2012

Alliance of Black Art Galleries, Hands Up, Don’t Shoot: Artists Respond Saint Louis University Museum of Art, Mark Making: Prints from Wildwood Press

2008 Grinnell College, Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell, IA; Works in Progress: Prints from Wildwood Press Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, MO; Summer Eyes/Summarize Edwardsville Art Center, IL; New Paintings: IL + MO 2007 Saint Louis Art Museum, Discovering African American Art Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO; St. Louis Painters Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; Jerald Ieans & Erik Spehn: Early Works, Abstract Painting for the United States and Europe 2006 White Flag Projects, St. Louis, MO; Personal Logics/Approaches to the Abstract Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; Recent Works by Gallery Artists 2005 Saint Louis Art Museum, African American Art: Masterworks of Contemporary Art Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, NY; Těte á Těte Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; About Painting; About Sculpture Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; Works on Paper Philip Slein Gallery, St. Louis, MO; 8 the Hard Way 2003 Philip Slein Gallery, St. Louis, MO; Schmidt’s Picks: A Look at New Art in Saint Louis Since 1990 Sheldon Art Galleries, St. Louis, MO; im+provisos: Compostions in Jazz 2002 Jack Tilton/Anna Kustera Gallery, NY; No Greater Love: Abstraction Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; Jerald Ieans, John Millei, and Tom Nozkowski

2001

The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Freestyle

2000 White Columns, NY; Wine, Women, and Wheels City Gallery East, Atlanta, GA; African American Abstraction 1997

Nations Bank, Atlanta, GA; Aspects of Abstraction

1996 Nancy Solomon Gallery, Atlanta, GA; Paper Works Nancy Solomon Gallery, Atlanta, GA; The Craft of Art: Jerald Ieans and Jody Lomberg Doug Lawing Gallery, Houston, TX; Summer Group Exhibition The Reading Room, Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; Works on Paper 1994 Paul Morris Gallery, NY; Small Paintings: Small Works by 25 Modern Artists Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; Works on Paper 1993

Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; Lawrence Carroll and Jerald Ieans Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; Black & White Paintings by Jerald Ieans, Julian Lethbridge, Glenn Ligon, David Ortins, Harvey Tulcensky, and Christopher Wool

1992

Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO; Works on Paper

1991

Utopian Loft Gallery, St. Louis, MO; New Works

b i bl io gr a p h y

Strick, Jeremy, Currents 60: Jerald Ieans,1994; The Saint Louis Art Museum (exhibition catalogue) Golden, Thelma, Freestyle, 2001;The Studio Museum in Harlem (exhibition catalogue) Simmons, Maryanne Ellison, Works in Progress: Prints from Wildwood Press, 2008; Faulconer Gallery (exhibition catalogue) Wolf, D. A., Contradiction and Harmony: Works by Jerald Ieans, 2006, Tubman African American Museum (exhibition catalogue) Duffy, Robert W. “A Glowing First Show for Jerald Ieans.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 12 Nov. 1992, 5th ed.: 3E. Print. Duffy, Robert W. “Original Defines Jerald Ieans.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch,13 Jan. 1994, 5th ed., Everyday Magazine sec.: 4G. Print. Castro, Jan Garden. “Elliptical Statements.” Rev. of Romeo’s Blues: Paintings by Jerald Ieans. Riverfront Times, 7 Dec. 1994: 38. Print. Bellos, Alexandra. “Currents Event.” Rev. of Currents 60:Paintings by Jerald Ieans. Riverfront Times 7 Dec. 1994: 38. Print. Bonetti, David. “Exhibition of “Schmidt’s Picks” Zeros in on New Tendencies in St. Louis Artists, Young and Old.” Rev. of Schmidt’s Picks: A Look at New Art in St. Louis. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 7 Dec. 2003: n. pag. Print. Bonetti, David. “Two New Galleries Offer Polish, Promise.” Rev. of Jerald Ieans: New Paintings. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 15 Oct. 2006: n. pag. Print. Duffy, Robert W. “Big, Glue, and Lofty Beginning.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 17 Nov. 1994, 5th ed., Everyday Magazine sec.: 1G. Print. Daniel, Jeff. “Changing Landscapes.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 28 Apr. 2002: n. pag. Print. DiMartino, Tony. “State of the Art: Portraits of Five St. Louis Artists Whose Work Draws Admiring Attention.” Riverfront Times [St. Louis] 17 Aug. 1994: 24. Print. “Waves and Rococo.” Riverfront Times [St. Louis] 18 June 2009: n. pag. Print. Storr, Robert. “First Take: Robert Storr on Jerald Ieans.” ArtForum Jan. 2002: n. pag. Web. Schjeldahl, Peter. “Breaking Away: A Flowering of Young African-American Artists.” New Yorker 11 June 2001: 90. Web. Plagens, Peter. “Harlem Goes Freestyle.” Newsweek 13 May 2001: 60. Web. Cotter, Holland. “Art in Review: No Greater Love: Abstraction.” New York Times 11 Oct. 2002: n. pag. Print. Hise, Elizabeth. “Meet Jerald Ieans: An Interview.” Taste [St. Louis] June 2008, 2nd ed.: 3. Print. Feaster, Felicia. “Baby Fresh: Ieans Minimalist Paintings Are Here and Now.” Creative Loafing Atlanta. N.p., 13 Apr. 2005. Web. 15 Sept. 2015. Naves, Mario. “Prints Point the Way Forward for an Artist Who Has Stalled.” Rev. of Jerald Ieans: Monoprints. The New York Observer 4 Aug. 2003: n. pag. Print. Schmidt, Jason. “The New Masters.” Vibe May 2001: 138-43. Print. Cochran, Rebecca Dimling. “Jerald Ieans at Solomon Projects.” Rev. of Jerald Ieans. Art in America Mar. 2003: n. pag. Solomon Projects. Mar. 2003. Web. 6 Oct. 2015. Arango, Jorge. “Pomp and Pop.” House and Garden June 2006: 138. Print.

s e l e c t e d p u b l ic collection s

Saint Louis Art Museum Studio Museum in Harlem Barney’s New York, NY Donald L. Bryant Jr. Family Art Trust, St. Louis, MO Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO Nerman Museum, Johnson County Community College, Kansas City, KS Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY UBS Collection, Los Angeles

Wildwood Press

Schmidt Contemporary

UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 90” x 49” signed UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 91-1/2” x 48” signed

UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 90” x 48” signed UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 90” x 48” signed

UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 91-1/2” x 48” signed

UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 48” x 90” signed

UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 80” x 48” signed

UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 70” x 48” signed

UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 60” x 48” signed

UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 48” x 60” signed

UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 60” x 66” signed

COBALT ARCADE 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 50” x 48” signed

RED ARCADE 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 48” x 46” signed

LAVENDER ARCADE 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 50” x 48” signed

UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 16” x 12” signed

UNTITLED 2020 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 34” x 24” signed

UNTITLED 2018 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 24” x 21” signed UNTITLED 2018 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 24” x 21” signed

UNTITLED 2018 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 24” x 22-1/2” signed UNTITLED 2018 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 24” x 22-1/2” signed

UNTITLED 2018 acrylic on canvas wrapped board 18” x 18” signed

In 2008, Ieans produced a series of 83 extra large unique collagraph and relief prints from steel plates for Wildwood Press in St Louis. The corresponding exhibition was titled, Works in Progress . Jerald Ieans, a painter originally from St Louis. composes overlapping biomorphic forms that almost seem to dress each other in seductive, jazz club shades. They curve in sync and their contours shimmy with barely-there restraint, injecting a frisson of eroticism into the abstract serenity of the color field. (Wildwood Press, Works in Progress). Catalog note: Photographic reproductions of these prints do not accurately reveal the subtle overlapping forms and the textured surfaces, which are integral to the work.

UNTITLED GREY #81 2003 collagraph and relief from steel plates 35-3/4” x 47-1/2” (image) 54-1/2” x 58-1/2” (sheet) signed and dated verso from a series of 83 unique images

To make these paintings, Ieans begins with a carefully designed plywood panel or a stretched canvas. Ieans’ plywood panels possess in themselves an elegant, sculptural quality that adds significantly to the effect of the paintings. He covers the support with a layer of oil paint , and then covers that paint with multiple layers of glue. The glue dries clear to a smooth, somewhat dull finish. When the last layer of glue has dried, Ieans takes an oval stencil (either commercially produced or made by the artist) and brushes within the oval the same oil paint used initially to color the support.

GODDESS II 1995-1996 Elmer’s glue and oil on stretched canvas 60” x 60-1/4” signed, titled, and dated verso

UNTITLED YELLOW #50 2003 collagraph and relief from steel plates 47-1/2” x 47-1/2” (image) 71-1/2” x 58-1/2” (sheet) signed and dated verso from a series of 83 unique images

UNTITLED BROWN #42 2003 collagraph and relief from steel plates 47-1/2” x 47-1/2” signed and dated verso from a series of 83 unique images

WAVES AND ROCOCO 2008 oil on canvas wrapped board 82” x 37” signed, titled, and dated verso

UNTITLED 1994 etching on chine-collé mounted on BKF Rives paper 9.5” x 5-1/2” (image) 22” x 14-3/4” (sheet) initialed and dated 1994 numbered 6/15 portfolio of 3

PURPLE BULL 2007 oil on canvas wrapped board 88” x 108” signed, dated, titled verso

UNTITLED YELLOW #49 2003 collagraph and relief from steel plates 35-1/2” x 47-1/2” (image) 53-1/2” x 58-1/2” (sheet) signed and dated verso from a series of 83 unique images

CURLY CANYON 2004 oil on canvas wrapped board 39” x 32” signed, titled, and dated verso

UNTITLED 2003 collagraph and relief from steel plates 36” x 47-1/2” (image) 53-3/4” x 58-3/4” (sheet) signed and dated verso artist proof from an ed. of 12

UNTITLED 1996 etching 4-1/2” x 6- 3/8” (image) 12-3/4” x 9-1/2” (sheet) initialed and dated 1996

UNDERLAY 2013 oil on canvas wrapped board 15” x 20-3/4” signed, titled, and dated verso

UNTITLED YELLOW 2003 collagraph and relief from steel plates 35-1/2” x 47-1/2” (image) 53-3/4” x 58” (sheet) signed and dated verso numbered 4/6

UNTITLED GREY #36 2003 collagraph and relief from steel plates 47-1/2” x 47-1/2” (image) 58-1/2” x 71-1/4” (sheet) signed and dated verso from a series of 83 unique images

RED PAINTING #3 1995 Elmer’s glue and oil on plywood 20” x 15” x 2-1/2” signed, titled, and dated verso

UNTITLED GREY #35 2003 collagraph and relief from steel plates 35-3/4” x 47-1/2” (image) 54” x 58-1/2” (sheet) signed and dated verso from a series of 83 unique images

UNTITLED YELLOW #28 2003 collagraph and relief from steel plates 35-3/4” x 47-1/4” (image) 54-1/4” x 58-1/4” (sheet) signed and dated verso from a series of 83 unique images

UNTITLED 2005 oil on canvas wrapped board 54-1/4” x 48” signed and dated verso

GODDESS III 1995-1996 Elmer’s glue and oil on stretched canvas 60” x 60” signed, titled, and dated verso

MANGO MANGO 2012 oil on canvas wrapped board 11” x 14” signed, titled, and dated verso

PIGTAILED 2012 oil on canvas wrapped board 20” x 16” signed, titled, and dated verso

DOWN TO BLUE 2002-2003 oil on paper 22” x 29-1/2” signed, titled, dated verso

UNTITLED #17 2003 collagraph and relief from steel plates 52” x 47-1/4” (image) 58-1/4” x 71-1/2” (sheet) signed and dated verso from a series of 83 unique images

JULIETTE

2001 oil on canvas wrapped board 84” x 96” signed, titled, and dated verso

UNTITLED

oil on canvas wrapped board 14-7/8” x 20-5/8”

RED VELVET

2011-2012 oil on canvas wrapped board 23-3/4” x 21” signed, titled, and dated verso

MIDGET DANCE

2013 oil on canvas wrapped board 32” x 38” signed and dated verso

BLACK SERIES

2016 oil on canvas wrapped board 16-1/8” x 17-1/2”

UNTITLED

c. 2008 oil on canvas wrapped board 36” x 36”