AlanShields
Text excerpts: Alan Shields interviewed by Kathy Halbreich in New York City, June 1977. Quoted as published in exhibition catalogue for Alan Shields: Protracted Simplicity (1966-1985), Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO (2016)
Alan Shields
May 12 – June 30, 2023
Untitled, c. 1984, acrylic, thread and string on HMP paper 13 x 12 1/2 in (33 x 31.8 cm)
ALS 375
Kathy Halbreich: I wanted to ask you about the two-sidedness of some of your work. When we were sitting in the gallery, you suddenly decided that one of the pieces was two sided, not one-sided.
Alan Shields: They are all two-sided. Sometimes you have to sacrifice one thing for something else.
Untitled, c. 1984, thread and wire dipped in paper pulp with acrylic 7 1/2 x 24 in (19.1 x 61 cm)
ALS 374
Untitled, c. 1987, acrylic on HMP paper 11 x 23 1/2 in (27.9 x 59.7 cm)
ALS 374 (Verso)
Untitled, c. 1987, acrylic, thread on HMP paper 18 1/2 x 18 1/2 in (47 x 47 cm)
ALS 363
Verso
Kathy Halbreich: Was handmade paper as startling a notion as acrylic paint?
Alan Shields: In a way. It certainly has become as much of a fascination for me. By controlling the making of paper–what it’s made of–you get to control what you do on it or with it later. I haven’t even fully realized the possibilities of paper, and that is one of the things that intrigues me about continuing it. So far paper has treated me real welI, and I’ve gotten some good things out of it. But I’m still searching.
Kathy Halbreich: One of the things that interests me about handmade paper is the flexibility of the surface. Paper became some thing that was moldable.
Alan Shields: This isn’t sudden. Probably some of the first paper ever made, in China or Japan, looked very much like this paper we are using right now. The various refinements that it’s gone through divorced those things from it. So we’re looking back through history at the same time we’re illustrating something that works now.
Kathy Halbreich: Why did handmade paper become so important?
Alan Shields: I don’t know what else to say except Hoola-Hoop, here we come! I am involved with it, and I know I am going to be involved with it for quite a while. Historically many water color artists have worked with handmade paper. The primary element of the romantics’ watercolors was the difused Iight; that was partially due to the colors but a lot of it had to do with the paper’s absorbency. They knew tricks about paper, too.
ALS 373
Untitled, c. 1987, acrylic on HMP paper 24 1/2 x 24 in (62.2 x 60.9 cm)
Untitled, c. 1987, acrylic and thread on HMP paper 24 1/2 x 24 1/2 in (62.2 x 62.2 cm)
ALS 377
Kathy Halbreich: Any ideas about what the future holds?
Alan Shields: Projecting into the future is the surest way not to do it.
Untitled, c. 2001, acrylic, thread, HMP paper & manufactured paper 17 1/4 x 17 1/4 in (43.8 x 43.8 cm)
ALS 361
Untitled, c. 2001, acrylic and thread on HMP paper
17 3/4 x 17 3/4 in (45.1 x 45.1 cm)
ALS 367
Born in Herington, Kansas (1944). Attended Kansas State University (1963-66). In college studied civil engineering and studio art. Studied the work of Buckminster Fuller. Participated in Summer Theater Workshops at the University of Maine (1966-67). Moved to New York City (1968). Showed with Paula Cooper Gallery (1968- 1991). Begins three-dimensional, two-sided paintings (1970). Purchased a house on Shelter Island, but kept studio in New York City (1971). Took up permanent residence on Shelter Island (1972). Focused on print and papermaking and made over thirty editions between 1971 – 1974. Received Guggenheim Fellowship and traveled in South America for three months (1973). Went to the Ahmadabad retreat in India (1980). Died in Shelter Island, NY (2005). Museum exhibitions include: Alan Shields: Common Threads, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY (2018); Alan Shields: A Different Kind of Painting, Beeler Gallery at Columbus College of Art & Design, Columbus, OH (2017); Alan Shields: Protracted Simplicity (1966-1985), Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO (2016), Alan Shields: In Motion, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY (2015), Into the Maze, SITE Santa Fe, NM (2014), Stirring Up the Waters, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY (2007); Alan Shields: A Survey, The Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS (1999); 1968 – 1983: The Work of Alan Shields, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN (1983), traveled to Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, FL and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Alan Shields: Paintings and Prints, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA (1981). Included in museum collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, Tate Collection, London, UK, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.
Alan ShieldsPublished
Alan Shields
May 12 – June 30, 2023
Design by Peter Kelly
Edited by Dorsey Waxter, Nick Naber, and Peter Kelly
Artwork photography by Charles Benton
© 2023 The Estate of Alan Shields
Front and back cover – page 4
Title page – page 30
Quotes from interview originally printed in: Kathy Halbreich, Paper Forms: Handmade Paper Projects (Cambridge, MA: Hayden Gallery, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1977), np.
Portrait of Alan Shields courtesy of the Estate of Alan Shields
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