Avigdor Arikha

Composition in orange and black

1968

oil on canvas

oil on canvas

oil on canvas

oil on canvas

Ben Wilson Rock Candy Mountain, ca. 1970 Oil on masonite board (Hand Signed, titled and dated) Hand signed, titled and dated by Ben Wilson on the back Frame Included: held in artist's original vintage 1970 wood frame This stunning painting with candy colors is done by the second generation Abstract Expressionist artist Ben Wilson - one of the youngest artists to be given a show at prestigious ACA Gallery in 1940. In 2017, he was the subject of a career retrospective at the George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University from September 6 to November 4 and it was accompanied by a catalogue. Measurements: Frame: 23.5 x 47.5 x 1 inch Artwork: 25 x 49 inches About Ben Wilson: Ben Wilson was born in Philadelphia in 1913 to Jewish parents who had emigrated from Kiev and settled in New York City. He was educated in Manhattan public schools and graduated from City College in 1935. To gain exposure to a wider range of styles, he also studied at the National Academy of Design and at the Educational Alliance. Admired by critics throughout his long career, Wilson was singled out as a “discovery” by the New York Times art critic Edward Alden Jewel even before his first one-man show at the Galerie Neuf in 1946. His paintings of the ’30s and ’40s were expressionistically rendered, often Biblical parables, filled with what he called “the grief of the intolerable” and reflecting an acute awareness of the agony of the time, from the Holocaust to the Spanish Civil War. A WPA artist who identified strongly with the plight of the Jews in Europe, he relentlessly explored themes of war, torment, and futility in his early decades of painting. When times changed and social pressures subsided, Wilson’s mood lifted. He spent 1952-54 in Paris working at the Academie Julien. During the ’50s his involvement with specific imagery persisted but became more psychological and mythic in orientation. Influenced by Cubism, he created a vocabulary of interlocking shapes and bold, sweeping gestures that served as a transition between his early figurative expressionism and his later abstract constructivist concerns. Towards the end of the decade Wilson reached a crossroads, moving towards abstraction and searching for what he called “a scaffolding under the externals.” By 1960, influenced by the Russian Constructivists, Mondrian, and Abstract Expressionism, Wilson turned to abstraction. Reexamining the basic elements of painting, he evolved his own personal vocabulary and structure, fusing the cerebral and the emotive. He became increasingly experimental, using house paint, sand, and other unorthodox materials in paintings that he worked from all directions, dripping, spraying, stenciling, and collaging. He employed elements of disjunction, repetitions of geometric motifs, linear networks, and complex overlays to create the transparent, multi-layer development of space that characterizes his later paintings. A consummate draftsman, Wilson filled notebook after notebook with drawings that he amplified in his paintings. Eschewing popular movements, Wilson was always one to pursue a personal aesthetic. Despite more than 30 one-man shows and 50 years of teaching, he increasingly withdrew from the gallery scene but continued to paint daily until his death at age 88 in 2001 in Blairstown, New Jersey, where he and his sculptor wife Evelyn Wilson...

Ben Wilson Concert, ca. 1989 Oil on masonite board (Hand Signed by the artist; also bears the Estate Stamp) Boldly signed front and back, titled and dated on the back by Ben Wilson and also stamped on the back by the estate of Ben Wilson 42 × 48 inches Unframed This stunning painting is done by the second generation Abstract Expressionist artist Ben Wilson - one of the youngest artists to be given a show at prestigious ACA Gallery in 1940. This work "Concert" - depicting instruments, in a light, lyrically abstract painting. Exquisite colors and subtle imagery. In 2017, he was the subject of a retrospective at the George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University from September 6 to November 4 and it was accompanied by a catalogue. About Ben Wilson: Ben Wilson was born in Philadelphia in 1913 to Jewish parents who had emigrated from Kiev and settled in New York City. He was educated in Manhattan public schools and graduated from City College in 1935. To gain exposure to a wider range of styles, he also studied at the National Academy of Design and at the Educational Alliance. Admired by critics throughout his long career, Wilson was singled out as a “discovery” by the New York Times art critic Edward Alden Jewel even before his first one-man show at the Galerie Neuf in 1946. His paintings of the ’30s and ’40s were expressionistically rendered, often Biblical parables, filled with what he called “the grief of the intolerable” and reflecting an acute awareness of the agony of the time, from the Holocaust to the Spanish Civil War. A WPA artist who identified strongly with the plight of the Jews in Europe, he relentlessly explored themes of war, torment, and futility in his early decades of painting. When times changed and social pressures subsided, Wilson’s mood lifted. He spent 1952-54 in Paris working at the Academie Julien. During the ’50s his involvement with specific imagery persisted but became more psychological and mythic in orientation. Influenced by Cubism, he created a vocabulary of interlocking shapes and bold, sweeping gestures that served as a transition between his early figurative expressionism and his later abstract constructivist concerns. Towards the end of the decade Wilson reached a crossroads, moving towards abstraction and searching for what he called “a scaffolding under the externals.” By 1960, influenced by the Russian Constructivists, Mondrian, and Abstract Expressionism, Wilson turned to abstraction. Reexamining the basic elements of painting, he evolved his own personal vocabulary and structure, fusing the cerebral and the emotive. He became increasingly experimental, using house paint, sand, and other unorthodox materials in paintings that he worked from all directions, dripping, spraying, stenciling, and collaging. He employed elements of disjunction, repetitions of geometric motifs, linear networks, and complex overlays to create the transparent, multi-layer development of space that characterizes his later paintings. A consummate draftsman, Wilson filled notebook after notebook with drawings that he amplified in his paintings. Eschewing popular movements, Wilson was always one to pursue a personal aesthetic. Despite more than 30 one-man shows and 50 years of teaching, he increasingly withdrew from the gallery scene but continued to paint daily until his death at age 88 in 2001 in Blairstown, New Jersey, where he and his sculptor wife Evelyn Wilson...

Ben Wilson Ozymandias, 1989 Oil on masonite board Boldly signed by Ben Wilson on the back 36 × 48 inches Unframed Provenance: acquired from the Estate of Ben Wilson This work is titled "Ozymandias" after the famous sonnet written by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). Shelley's poem is one of the most poignant meditations on the fleeting nature of human power and the inevitability of decline. The poem serves as a reminder that time erodes even the most imposing empires and leaders and that the pursuit of lasting fame and control is ultimately futile. Depending on how one views Ben Wilson's Abstract Expressionist painting of "Ozymandias" -- some of the imagery might reveal the head of an angry king and a sickle. Shelley's poem Ozymandias reads: I met a traveler from an antique land...

The Mid-Century mindset As expected, 65 years ago.. people looked at art/painting a little differently. Back then, many artists were concerned with depicting simple and beautiful t...