A L   H E L D  and  G E O R G E    S U G A R M A N

The Early Sixties

November 26 – January 25

An exhibition of paintings by Al Held and sculptures by George Sugarman, all from the early 1960’s, closes the 2002 season, and opens 2003 at the Washburn Gallery. Included will be three brilliantly painted wood sculptures by Sugarman and four equally intense paintings by Held in this, the first joint exhibition of their work.

For the introduction to the exhibition catalogue, Carolyn Lanchner describes the work of Held and Sugarman as follows:

“Bold, brash, vernacular, vigorous, vulgar – these adjectives of contemporary criticism often appeared in descriptions of the volumetric painting of Al Held and the painted sculpture of George Sugarman in the early sixties. Not entirely laudatory, these assessments nonetheless came close to the aims of the two artists.”

Lanchner continues to write of the two artists and their relationship:

“Close friends in the early sixties, Sugarman and Held had a number of parallel ambitions for their art. Held, the painter, wanted to take the gesture of action painting and give it structure, and Sugarman, the sculptor wanted to take physical mass and give it gesture; both wanted the results to pack a kinesthetic charge that would register as bodily experience… More than four decades after their making, the works of Al Held and George Sugarman in the early sixties not only remain fresh, they are newly arresting. Confrontational, they are ready to shake up the sensibilities of the early 21st century viewer, to insist on communication. Other terms they provoked on their first appearance - exhilarating, exuberant, muscular, path-breaking - retain force.”

The exhibition will include works on loan from collections and galleries in this country and Europe.

For further information and photographs, contact Joan Washburn at the address below.