Peter Blum is pleased to announce the exhibition Robert Moskowitz: Paintings and Works on Paper 1995 – 2004 in the gallery at 99 Wooster Street.
Robert Moskowitz’s attention to surface and his abstract treatment of recognizable New York skyscrapers continues in this show of large scale paintings. Included is The Empire State Building (2004) filling the picture plane. There is also a luminous white diptych of The World Trade Center, executed in 1995, depicted against a gray carefully worked surface.
Moskowitz’s first painting of the World Trade Center, painted in 1978, was an important point of departure both in terms of the size and dimensions of his work, this being the first large vertical work, and also in terms of the clearly legible subject matter of buildings. From there he turned to the often repeated “familiar” themes of The Empire State Building, The Flatiron Building and “smoke stacks.”
In a distinct group of recent paintings (2002-2004) figures fall through space. Robert Moskowitz focuses on a theme and calls them Divers but their arrested motion and the monochrome backgrounds in strong yellow and red simultaneously suggest emotional intent. In some pieces the body is cut lengthwise by the edge of the painting in others a tiny figure looms large in a
corner of the vertical field. Moskowitz’s inspiration for these figures came from a fresco seen in the Archeological Museum in Paestum, Italy.
There is also a selection of the most recent “Untitled” works on paper from 2004 executed in black oil paint. They depict the forms of “birds” in space, but clearly leave room for other interpretations.
Robert Moskowitz was born in 1935 in Brooklyn. There he studied at the Pratt Institute of Art in the mid 1950’s under Adolph Gottlieb. Exhibitions of his work among other institutions, include, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1981), Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (1981, with Susan Rothenberg and Julian Schnabel), Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany (1982) and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark (1982). His solo show ‘Robert Moskowitz’ traveled in 1989-1990 from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC to the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
This is the second exhibition of Robert Moskowitz at the Peter Blum Gallery. The first was in 2001.
For additional information and photographic material please contact Peter Blum or Diana Erdos. The gallery is located at 99 Wooster Street, New York, NY 10012. T. (212) 343 0441 – F. (212) 343 0523 – email: pblum@nyct.net www.peterblumgallery.com. Hours: Tuesday-Friday 10-6, Saturday 11-6, and Monday by appointment.