Large-scale, Abstract Paintings by One of America's Preeminent Artists

The Esther Massry Gallery at The College of Saint Rose presents “Recent Paintings” by the renowned New York artist Larry Poons. The artist personally chose the selection of large-scale, acrylic paintings on canvas and newly completed works for the exhibition, on loan courtesy of Larry Poons and Danese New York.

GALLERY RECEPTION: Friday, February 5 from 5:00-7:00 p.m.
ARTIST'S LECTURE: Friday, February 5 at 7:00 p.m., Saint Joseph Auditorium, 985 Madison Avenue, Albany

LARRY POONS RECENT PAINTINGS

January 31-March 21, 2010

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In this recent body of work, Larry Poons embraces the chromatic worlds of music and color, creating along the way a visual and emotional environment ripe with gesture, raw energy and improvisation. One of America’s preeminent artists, Poons remains at the top of his game; his broadly horizontal paintings, averaging 6 by 9 feet, consist of skeins of color that bump, loop and slide into one another, inviting the viewer on a circuitous journey of abstract narration.

New York art critic and writer, Phyllis Tuchman observes in her essay, "His latest paintings are bursting with energy. As one color interacts with another–and then another and another–Poons’s abstract canvases come alive. Purples, crimsons, ochres, and teals jostle, scurry, glide. …his art stops you in his tracks. Wherever you stand, something else grabs your attention: the color couplings, the energetic rhythms, the resolute cadences, even pregnant pauses. Whether you are in front of Salley Gardens, Married Girl or 20–20 And Blue you’re going to get hooked an scan the entire surface of the painting from one corner to another. There’s just so much to relish.

Intensely individual and intimate, each definitive brushstroke becomes a part of the whole.....the short and frenetic, the calm and the considered, the bold edge of confidence.....an arena of action tamed by the sublime. Poons’s colors engage and enrapture.

Larry Poons was born in 1937 in Tokyo and was raised in New York. In 1955, he attended the New England Conservatory of Music, and two years later transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. During the last thirty years his work has been included in hundreds of solo and group exhibitions including many contemporary exhibitions at major museums and galleries around the world.

Poons was given his first one-man exhibition in 1963 at Richard Bellamy’s famed Green Gallery, and in 1965 his work was included in MoMA’s celebrated exhibition The Responsive Eye. In 1969, he was the youngest artist featured in curator Henry Geldzahler’s landmark exhibition, New York Painting and Sculpture, 1940-1970, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. That same year, he was also featured in the Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the 31st Biennial Exhibition, held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. In 1981, the MFA Boston organized an exhibition of his paintings from the 1970s.