Regarded to be amongst the pre-imminent contemporary figurative artists today, Jerome Witkin will be the subject of a major exhibition at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, in Los Angeles. “Jerome Witkin: Revelations in Drawing” opens with the artist in attendance, Saturday, May 17, 2008, from 6 to 9 PM. at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, located at 357 N. La Brea Avenue. The exhibition extends through July 31.
Known for his large scale paintings, which critics have described as being among the great narrative paintings of our time, “Jerome Witkin: Revelations in Drawing,” will be dedicated to Witkin’s equally remarkable drawings, offering an expansive view of the artist’s work. Included will be large scale drawings with remarkable power and poignancy, such as “Vincent and Death,” a dramatic six-foot work where Witkin masterfully envisions Van Gogh - simultaneously defiant and resigned - in encountering death as it peers through a confessional-like window.
Witkin’s full range of subjects can be seen in this exhibition which includes revealing, intimate figure studies and portraits, and the palpable atmosphere in his urban landscapes; be they of gritty New York scenes or his recent drawings of Jerusalem. Witkin’s psychologically charged portraits, are exampled by Witkin’s prophetically empathetic 2004 portrait of the artist R.B. Kitaj, whose recent death shocked the art world. Kitaj cited Witkin as “the greatest figurative painter in America.”
Hailed by artists, critics and art historians alike, Jerome Witkin has been likened to Lucien Freud, Manet, Ingres, and Goya for both his technical mastery and psychological insight.
Witkin’s previous exhibitions have drawn rave reviews. The Los Angeles Times hailed Witkin’s “indelible, pungent force,” and cited his work as “. . . a breakthrough in post-Cold-War art.” Art in America declared: “Jerome Witkin charges the realism of his paintings with Action-Painting technique, tour-de-force draftsmanship and emotionally loaded narration.” Art historian Donald Kuspit, called Witkin’s works “dreams in the grand visionary manner of the Old Masters” . . . painted with the rhapsodic abandon of pure sensation . . . unequivocal masterpieces.” Indeed, art critic Kenneth Baker has declared that “Witkin’s only peer is Lucien Freud.”
Jerome Witkin’s works are included in many major museum collections internationally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and many more.
“Jerome Witkin: Revelations in Drawing” opens May 17, with a reception honoring the artist from 6 till 9 PM. The exhibition extends through July 31. Jack Rutberg Fine Arts is located at 357 North La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California. For more information, please call 323-938-5222 or email the gallery at [email protected]
