Perle Fine - Abstract Critical
Perle Fine - Abstract Critical
Perle Fine - Abstract Critical
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<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong><br />
A
<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> in her studio, Springs, New York, 1962.<br />
Front cover: Cool Series, (Blue over Red), p. 22.<br />
Opposite: Cool Series, (Plum over Pink), p. 31.<br />
All photographs of the artist by<br />
Maurice Berezov © A. E. Artworks, unless otherwise noted.<br />
Published in the United States of America in 2011 by<br />
Spanierman Modern, 53 East 58th Street, New York, NY 10022<br />
Copyright © 2011 Spanierman Modern<br />
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,<br />
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by<br />
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or<br />
otherwise, without prior permission of the publishers.<br />
isbn 978-1-935617-13-6<br />
Photography: Roz Akin<br />
Design: Amy Pyle, Light Blue Studio<br />
B
The Cool Series
<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> in her studio, Springs, New York, 1962.
<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> The Cool Series<br />
curated by christine berry<br />
essay by lisa n. peters<br />
november 10 to december 10, 2011<br />
SPANIERMAN MODERN<br />
53 EAST 58TH STREET new york 10022 tel (212) 832-1400<br />
christineberry@spanierman.com<br />
www.spaniermanmodern.com
<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> The Cool Series<br />
Out of revelation, which came<br />
about through endless probing,<br />
came revolution. All irrelevancies<br />
in my painting are eliminated to<br />
exact an explicit image resulting<br />
in a clarity that rings a bell-like<br />
awakening. There is more than<br />
meets the eye here. These<br />
simplified works do not intend<br />
to be hard-edge or soft-edge;<br />
the expression is more than<br />
merely chemical or optical—it is<br />
metaphysical. The economy of<br />
means somehow seemed necessary<br />
to secure the sensation of the<br />
expression of the existentialist<br />
in art.<br />
—<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> 1<br />
<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> in her studio, New York City, 1965.<br />
4
From the time she began to exhibit her paintings<br />
in the 1940s, <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> (1905–1988) was in the<br />
midst of the maelstrom that characterized the<br />
New York art world, as radical aesthetic innovations and<br />
reversals occurred in rapid succession. 2 While joining in<br />
the dynamic spirit of the time, throughout the period that<br />
followed, <strong>Fine</strong> maintained a calm and steady objective: she<br />
was driven simply to keep painting and to meet the high<br />
standards she set for herself. She viewed every shift in her<br />
art as arising from “a deep-rooted need, a pictorial need,”<br />
which led to her diVerent stylistic phases. 3 Among these,<br />
her “Cool” series of 1961–63, featured in this exhibition,<br />
seem to stand apart from her career trajectory, representing<br />
a break from the <strong>Abstract</strong> Expressionist idiom of her earlier<br />
work. Nonetheless, she stated that the paintings were a<br />
“growth” rather than a “departure,” developing from “a<br />
need within the painting to express more.” 4 In this respect,<br />
they reveal an intriguing connection with the zeitgeist.<br />
Although she created them while living in relative isolation<br />
in the Springs, East Hampton, they can be associated with<br />
contemporary Color Field painting, in which artists stepped<br />
back from the soul-baring of action painting to let their<br />
images speak for themselves, representing what the critic<br />
Clement Greenberg described as a “new openness and<br />
clarity.” 5 This approach was well suited to <strong>Fine</strong>, who had<br />
an innate proclivity for reXection and analysis. At the same<br />
time, the name she gave to the series suggests her awareness,<br />
whether it was conscious at the time or not, that the word<br />
“cool” had come to characterize a new type of art, free<br />
from psychological self-examination, that could involve the<br />
viewer in a direct emotional and intellectual experience<br />
of a work of art purely through its color and space, which<br />
were vehicles of visceral, spiritual experience. 6<br />
Born in Boston, <strong>Fine</strong> grew up in nearby Malden,<br />
Massachusetts. Before Wnishing high school, she had<br />
decided on an art career, attending the School of Practical<br />
Art, Boston, where she studied illustration and graphic<br />
design. In about 1927–28, she moved to New York City,<br />
and in 1929, she enrolled at the Grand Central School of<br />
Art, taking classes in illustration and painting with Pruett<br />
Carter. Living in Greenwich Village, she absorbed the new<br />
art of the day, for which there were many opportunities at<br />
the time, including the Gallery of Living Art at Washington<br />
Square, Downtown Gallery, the American Contemporary<br />
Gallery, the Whitney Studio Gallery, the Whitney Studio<br />
Club, and the Museum of Modern Art—<strong>Fine</strong> was among<br />
those in attendance at the museum’s inaugural exhibition in<br />
November 1929. She sojourned in the following summer<br />
in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she would return<br />
annually in the years ahead, joining the town’s lively art<br />
community. It was in Provincetown that her fellow student<br />
at the Grand Central School of Art, Maurice Berezov,<br />
proposed to her. They were married in September, and<br />
both then transferred to the Art Students League, where<br />
<strong>Fine</strong> focused her energies on Wne art. “What I found out<br />
very quickly was you can only be a painter and nothing else<br />
if you’re going to be a painter,” she recalled of this time. 7<br />
Thomas Hart Benton was a leading instructor at the<br />
league when <strong>Fine</strong> entered, but disliking his realist methods,<br />
she chose to work instead with Kimon Nicolaides, adhering<br />
to the approach of the author of the classic, posthumously<br />
published, The Natural Way to Draw (1941), who encouraged<br />
spontaneity and an academic approach to modeling the<br />
Wgure. Fellow Nicolaides student, James Brooks, developed<br />
a friendship with <strong>Fine</strong> that lasted in the years ahead. At<br />
the time, the art of Cézanne was compelling to <strong>Fine</strong>, and<br />
through studying his canvases, she gained an appreciation<br />
for the way he created a kind of order from nature and<br />
took control of the canvas, forming images which were at<br />
one with their space. 8<br />
As the Depression descended, <strong>Fine</strong>, like so many of<br />
her artist-cohort, found it diYcult to aVord art school<br />
tuition, but she was less impacted than most because she<br />
was able to work independently in her studio on the<br />
aesthetic challenges she set for herself. In 1933, when<br />
Hans Hofmann moved his hugely popular Munich art<br />
school to New York, <strong>Fine</strong> and Berezov became part of<br />
it. Operating his classes like those of a Parisian atelier,<br />
Hofmann taught by example, and <strong>Fine</strong> and her fellow<br />
students were enthralled by his teachings and personality.<br />
“No teacher I have ever known engendered as much love<br />
and loyalty from his students,” <strong>Fine</strong> recalled, noting how<br />
her classmates hung on his every word, even when his<br />
thick accent made it diYcult to understand him. 9 Among<br />
those at the school when <strong>Fine</strong> attended were Larry<br />
Rivers, Robert De Niro, and Lee Krasner, who became a<br />
5
<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> (center) and Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts, 1940s.<br />
lifelong friend. <strong>Fine</strong> and Berezov also attended Hofmann’s<br />
summer school in Provincetown.<br />
Because Hofmann’s school in New York was across<br />
the street from <strong>Fine</strong>’s studio, she was able to drop in at will<br />
when she needed direction. What she valued in Hofmann’s<br />
instruction was that “he combined the Xat two-dimensional<br />
with a strong feeling for the three-dimensional in volume,<br />
with movement, and a great deal of expression.” 10 However,<br />
for <strong>Fine</strong>, Hofmann’s role was primarily that of an “opening<br />
wedge,” providing a means by which she was able to form<br />
her own artistic identity. She later stated that Hofmann<br />
might have enjoyed her nonobjective work, but she could<br />
not have done it in his class. 11<br />
<strong>Fine</strong> applied to the Works Progress Administration<br />
for a job, but was turned down, according to her, because<br />
she “had a telephone.” Quietly creating abstract works on<br />
her own while Regionalism and Social Realism prevailed,<br />
she seems to have only participated in one exhibition<br />
during the 1930s, a show held in August 1938 at the<br />
Municipal Art Galleries, where her “prismatic still-life”<br />
was given recognition by the New York Times. 12<br />
After the war, the climate of the art world changed<br />
direction, as abstract art gained prominence once again,<br />
inXuenced by the arrival in New York of many European<br />
artist-émigrés escaping the horrors abroad. In 1943, <strong>Fine</strong><br />
began to earn recognition when she received a grant<br />
from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and<br />
participated in exhibitions at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of<br />
this Century Gallery and the Museum of Nonobjective<br />
Painting (now, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New<br />
York), which was under the directorship of Hilla Rebay.<br />
<strong>Fine</strong>’s contributions to the museum show were singled out<br />
by the press. Related in their movement to the mobiles<br />
of Alexander Calder, they were described as “precise and<br />
delicate” by a reviewer for Artnews, while Edward Alden<br />
Jewell commented in the New York Times that they were<br />
“much more original” than those of other artists who were<br />
under the spell of Kandinsky and “quite charming, too.” 13<br />
In 1945, <strong>Fine</strong> joined American <strong>Abstract</strong> Artists, a<br />
context in which she came to know many leading abstract<br />
artists of the day including Josef Albers, Fannie Hillsmith,<br />
Ibram Lassaw, I. Rice Pereira, and Ad Reinhardt—she<br />
had a particular admiration for Reinhardt, whose bravery<br />
she found inspiring. 14 In the same year, <strong>Fine</strong>’s Wrst solo<br />
exhibition took place; it was held at the Willard Gallery<br />
on East 57th Street in February–March and was widely<br />
reviewed in the press. Many saw a connection between<br />
her work and that of Joan Miró, due to her depiction<br />
of organic forms in motion that expressed a variety of<br />
moods. 15 Within the year, <strong>Fine</strong> moved her aYliation<br />
across the street to the gallery of Karl Nierendorf, who<br />
had specialized in the Blaue Reiter group in Germany. 16<br />
Nierendorf provided <strong>Fine</strong> with a stipend and held shows<br />
of her art in 1946 and 1947. The New York Times called<br />
<strong>Fine</strong>’s work, on view in 1946, “inventive and eclectic,”<br />
noting that it demonstrated inXuences as disparate as<br />
Léger, Mondrian, Duchamp, Klee, and Miró while<br />
revealing a personal style that “promises less divisible<br />
triumphs to come.” 17 In an article in Arts & Architecture<br />
in 1947, Benjamin Baldwin stated:<br />
6
To <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong>, modern art is a conscious art and a very complicated<br />
phenomenon. It demands that the artist have erudition and at the<br />
same time ease of execution. This can come about only with a<br />
thorough knowledge and constant practice of the laws of painting,<br />
enriched by experiencing the beauty and drama in nature, the<br />
poetry and magic of color. . . . The canvas dictates what is wanted<br />
here, needed there. From then on the artist explores, builds, destroys,<br />
builds anew. Finally the image—strange, mysterious—emerges,<br />
oVering us new and delightful passage into another world. 18<br />
In 1947, <strong>Fine</strong> was given an unusual assignment. She<br />
was asked by the collector Emily Hall Tremaine, who<br />
had acquired works by <strong>Fine</strong>, to make an exact copy of<br />
Piet Mondrian’s diamond-shaped Victory Boogie-Woogie,<br />
then in Tremaine’s collection (now in the collection of<br />
the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague) as well as to prepare<br />
a complete analysis of the painting, on which the artist<br />
had been working when he died three years earlier. <strong>Fine</strong>,<br />
who had come to know Mondrian after he emigrated<br />
to America in 1940, found him personally sweet and felt<br />
a deep reverence for his achievement. She later stated:<br />
“I don’t think we’ll ever realize how important was<br />
Mondrian’s inXuence and what he had to say in the<br />
history of art.” 19 <strong>Fine</strong> executed her copy under the same<br />
conditions in which Mondrian had painted his original,<br />
working in a pure white room and using brushes and<br />
paints identical to his. Although in most of <strong>Fine</strong>’s work,<br />
Mondrian’s inXuence is not obviously apparent, due to<br />
him, she felt enduringly conscious of the vertical and<br />
horizontal and their universal implications; in her oeuvre,<br />
this awareness emerged most fully in her Cool series.<br />
After Nierendorf’s sudden death due to a heart attack<br />
in 1947, <strong>Fine</strong> began to be represented by Betty Parsons,<br />
whose gallery (opened in September of the year), had<br />
become the leading showplace in New York for the newest<br />
art of the day. 20 As such, the gallery played a critical role<br />
in the rise of the New York School and the <strong>Abstract</strong><br />
Expressionist movement. From 1947 through 1953, when<br />
<strong>Fine</strong> was represented by Parsons, the gallery exhibited<br />
the work of Hofmann, Barnett Newman, Pollock,<br />
Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, ClyVord Still, and many other<br />
prominent artists. <strong>Fine</strong> befriended Rothko and Newman<br />
in the context of Parsons’s gallery. She recalled having a<br />
drink with Rothko on the occasion of his Wrst show in<br />
Willem de Kooning and <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> at Wilfrid Zogbaum’s studio,<br />
Springs, New York, 1950s.<br />
1948, at which she helped to calm his “nervousness and<br />
excitement.” 21 Parsons, who was more willing than many<br />
other mid-century dealers to give shows to women artists,<br />
exhibited <strong>Fine</strong>’s work three times: in 1949, 1951, and<br />
1952–53. In his article in the New York Times reviewing<br />
<strong>Fine</strong>’s Wrst Parsons show in 1949, Howard Devree chose to<br />
illustrate her painting Summer Studio and stated that <strong>Fine</strong><br />
organized “her canvases well, using color and form in a<br />
nice blend and achieving a spatial sense that is distinctive<br />
and convincing.” 22 Of <strong>Fine</strong>’s last show at the gallery,<br />
Devree waxed:<br />
In her recent paintings at the Betty Parsons Gallery, <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong><br />
carries further her “pure” painting. An exact and sensitive colorist,<br />
she employs color shapes rather than forms in engaging and<br />
persuasive tonal eVects which sometimes seem to employ almost<br />
impalpable planes of color and hinted at rather than realized spatial<br />
arrangements. An English critic once said that prose was heard<br />
and poetry overheard; and Miss <strong>Fine</strong>’s “Prescience” and “Tyranny<br />
of Space” leaves this reporter feeling as if he had dropped in on a<br />
pensive soliloquy translated in terms of color. In that experimental<br />
world of the non-Wgurative, her statements are all sensitive, sure,<br />
and highly personal. 23<br />
7
<strong>Fine</strong> was aYliated with Parsons when the artists’<br />
organization, known simply as The Club, came into being.<br />
It was formed in the fall of 1949 in the studio of Ibram<br />
Lassaw, and <strong>Fine</strong> was among few women to become part<br />
of it, joining it at its inception. <strong>Fine</strong> was invited to be a<br />
member by Willem de Kooning. She recalled: “I met Bill<br />
on the street. He started to talk about the beginning of<br />
The Club, and would I join I said I’d be delighted to. You<br />
know, we all wanted a place to go to. It wasn’t always the<br />
best thing to go to someone’s studio for one reason<br />
or another. So they started The Club.” 24 <strong>Fine</strong> solidiWed<br />
<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> and Ad Reinhardt during a photo shoot for an exhibition, 1951.<br />
her friendships with Reinhardt, Franz Kline, and Elaine<br />
and Willem de Kooning through her participation in<br />
The Club.<br />
In 1954, <strong>Fine</strong> and Berezov built a one-room studio<br />
house in the woods in Springs, East Hampton, an area<br />
where they had often spent time previously while visiting<br />
with Krasner and Pollock. Due to his advertising job in<br />
the city on Madison Avenue, Berezov could only visit on<br />
weekends, but <strong>Fine</strong> remained in Springs throughout the<br />
year, although she traveled into the city on occasion to<br />
see art and to hang her works in exhibitions. In Springs,<br />
<strong>Fine</strong> enjoyed her solitude and being able to work steadily<br />
on her own. Nonetheless, she also associated with artists<br />
who were part of the growing artists’ community, such<br />
as the de Koonings, Ernestine and Ibram Lassaw, Ad and<br />
Rita Reinhardt, Rae and John Ferren, and Krasner and<br />
Pollock (until his death in 1956). One visit from Willem de<br />
Kooning stood out for <strong>Fine</strong>. She remembered a day when<br />
he came into her studio: “He made some nice remarks<br />
about the paintings and said: ‘But this is all out of doors.<br />
It’s what you see out here, isn’t it You know, through a<br />
big studio window.’ And I said, ‘Well, yes, I guess so if you<br />
say so.’ Of course it wasn’t . . . . But to what extent that<br />
had impressed itself upon me I don’t know. You know,<br />
sometimes the very black trunks of trees against the white<br />
snow and horizon lines. Certainly there is something very<br />
exciting about the country.” 25 This encounter was the<br />
point at which, unknowingly, <strong>Fine</strong> had begun what would<br />
be her Cool series.<br />
It had no doubt been just a short time before this that<br />
<strong>Fine</strong>, in preparation for her second exhibition at Graham<br />
Gallery (scheduled for April of 1963), took the radical<br />
step of destroying a show’s worth of her work. Yet, <strong>Fine</strong><br />
retained the purely black and white painting observed<br />
by de Kooning, deciding to forgo the color and diagonal<br />
lines she had been planning to add to it. She recalled:<br />
“what remained was the rectangle that I used immediately<br />
in the next several paintings that I made and one that<br />
I made in black and white which is sort of an inverted<br />
rectangle like that I call the Big U.” 26 <strong>Fine</strong> was not in full<br />
agreement with de Kooning’s suggestion that the painting<br />
he observed reXected the landscape around her in Springs,<br />
but she felt that the Cool series that emerged did relate<br />
8
to her new life in the country. “The things in the city<br />
tend to be more cerebral,” she noted, “and in the country<br />
freer in color somehow and in form as well.” She found<br />
the country “more open and more relaxed,” by contrast<br />
with the city where “you become more introverted.” She<br />
explained that she called her new paintings, the Cool series<br />
because they did not impose feeling on the viewer, but<br />
were instead a pure expression of color and space. 27<br />
From 1961, until the opening of her show at Graham,<br />
<strong>Fine</strong> devoted her attention exclusively to the Cool series,<br />
in which she limited her imagery to rectangles and squares<br />
placed oV center on mostly monochromatic grounds.<br />
Of the change in her art, she declared: “Out of revelation,<br />
which came about through endless probing, came<br />
revolution.” She stated: “The economy of means somehow<br />
seemed necessary to secure the sensation of the expression<br />
of the existentialist in art.” 28<br />
While her paintings were on view at Graham, <strong>Fine</strong><br />
was interviewed on the radio by Irving Sandler, the<br />
noted art historian, art reviewer then for the New York<br />
Post, and chronicler of the <strong>Abstract</strong> Expressionist era. 29<br />
<strong>Fine</strong> stated to Sandler that the compositions of her new<br />
work had been “many years in the making,” as there had<br />
always been a strong horizontal-vertical basis in her art,<br />
despite her earlier stylistic adherence to action painting.<br />
She went on to note that her Cool series could be seen<br />
as an extension of the Neoplastic approach of Mondrian<br />
that she had long revered; in her use of straight lines, she<br />
observed that she sought to express constants in nature<br />
and a dynamic equilibrium that was universal. By avoiding<br />
the forty-Wve degree angle, she aYrmed her concurrence<br />
with Mondrian as to its instability and lack of repose and<br />
conveyed her view that the diagonal was unnecessary<br />
because the square and rectangle already implied its<br />
movement. <strong>Fine</strong> acknowledged that she was opposed to<br />
“simply painting air,” and further observed: “I don’t think<br />
that’s enough. I think the form that you limit yourself with<br />
finally oVers such an inWnite variety of expressions.” 30<br />
However, <strong>Fine</strong> moved away from Mondrian in the<br />
emotional range in her work, achieved through color and<br />
the variation in the edges of her lines. Sandler observed<br />
that she had departed from Mondrian’s unwavering<br />
primaries, using a palette that was “mixed, highly unstable,<br />
Above: Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> at Tanager Gallery, New York,<br />
for <strong>Fine</strong> show opening, 1958. Below: Mark Rothko and <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> at Tanager Gallery,<br />
New York, for <strong>Fine</strong> show opening, 1958.<br />
9
East Hampton artists at a beach picnic, 1962. Standing, left to right: Buffie Johnson, Lester Johnson, Howard Kanovitz, Fairfield Porter, Syd Solomon, Frederick Kiesler,<br />
Norman Bluhm, Emanuel Navaretta, and <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> (with hand on hip). Seated, left to right: unidentified, Lee Krasner (back to camera), Al Held, Mary Kanovitz, Balcomb<br />
Greene; middle row: John Little, Elaine de Kooning, James Brooks, Rae Ferren, Charlotte Park, Louis Schanker, Sylvia Stone, Ibram Lassaw, Theodoros Stamos, Jane Wilson,<br />
Jane Freilicher, Robert Dash; left from front center: David Porter, Adolph Gottlieb, John Ferren, Lucia Wilcox. Photograph by Hans Namuth. Courtesy Center for Creative<br />
Photography, University of Arizona © Hans Namuth Estate.<br />
volatile, and at times atmospheric.” 31 <strong>Fine</strong> concurred,<br />
stating her opinion that Americans had contributed to<br />
art in the previous Wfteen years “through this churning<br />
and this violent kind of thing.” To <strong>Fine</strong>, color was<br />
necessary to the expression of emotion and pointed out<br />
that her paintings at Graham included some that that were<br />
muted and introverted and others that were the opposite.<br />
Indeed, despite the structural similarities, each painting,<br />
through both color and form, reveals diVerent spatial and<br />
emotional qualities. In one, a yellow rectangle pushes<br />
forward from a rich russet ground, while in another, the<br />
deep brown rectangle sits back and the dusky orangered<br />
ground pulsates toward us. <strong>Fine</strong> also aVected mood<br />
through the subtleties in her brushwork. At times, the<br />
edges are crisp, creating a clear diVerentiation between<br />
shape and background, and bringing one or the other<br />
forward. At other times, the edge is softened, allowing a<br />
square to Xoat in the space. In some of the images, the<br />
ground tone varies, seeming to bleed out from the edges.<br />
Lawrence Campbell observed this aspect of the works in<br />
a review of the Graham exhibition in Artnews, writing:<br />
“Since each painting developed as it went along, [<strong>Fine</strong>] has<br />
loosely Xaked oV certain edges, allowing other planes to<br />
collide at Wrmly deWned limits, and allowed other colors to<br />
lap as though they were at sea at some eternal doorway.” 32<br />
In the Cool series, the position of the rectangles and<br />
squares in the compositions impact the way we read the<br />
space. Placed toward the lower edge of the canvas, the<br />
angular shape can seem to cut the picture plane, as in one<br />
of Barnett Newman’s zips, while the movement is at once<br />
centripetal, into the open window, and decentered,<br />
extend ing into the world beyond. As a result, the images<br />
10
create a sense of the meditative and peripheral at once.<br />
They are thus emotionally and spiritually absorbing, in<br />
the manner of a work by Rothko, yet analytical in their<br />
spatial ambiguity.<br />
Although <strong>Fine</strong> linked her viewpoint to that of<br />
Mondrian, the Cool series parallels the era’s gestalt, as the<br />
pendulum swung from the intense exposés of the artists’<br />
psyche that constituted <strong>Abstract</strong> Expressionist art to a<br />
type of painting in which the artist stepped back, letting<br />
the painting engage the viewer directly. Championing<br />
the new approach, Clement Greenberg named it “Post-<br />
Painterly <strong>Abstract</strong>ion,” so as to align it with the classical<br />
tradition; he was alluding to the recurring alternating<br />
pattern throughout art history of the classical (nonpainterly)<br />
and the baroque-romantic (painterly). The<br />
name Color Field is the one, however, that has come<br />
most commonly to describe this stylistic mode, present in<br />
works created from the 1950s until about 1970. 33 Cool, a<br />
word whose usage has shifted throughout the ages, was a<br />
concept Wtting to the new era and the new painting. In<br />
Color as Field: American Painting, 1950–1975 (2007), Karen<br />
Wilkin described this phenomena. She observed that<br />
although there are commonalities in Color Field works<br />
by artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis,<br />
Kenneth Noland, and Jules Olitski (such as a “primacy<br />
of color, frontality, spatial and emotional ambiguity, and a<br />
paradoxical ‘signature’ anonymity, with the deployment of<br />
surprising hues made to assume the burden of associative<br />
meaning”), they<br />
In his review of <strong>Fine</strong>’s Graham show in the New<br />
York Post, Sandler gave credence to the way <strong>Fine</strong> had<br />
gone forward from the art of the previous era to the new<br />
paradigm, stating:<br />
<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong>, showing at the Graham Gallery, has gathered up<br />
the “action” in her painting and concretized it into large and<br />
peaceful rectangles that Xoat upon evocative backgrounds of<br />
blue-violet, brown, green, and rose. It would seem that she has<br />
absorbed the ambiance of Kline and Rothko without assuming<br />
the former’s violent thrusts or the latter’s glowing suspensions.<br />
What emerges, instead, is an altogether surprising delicacy, a kind<br />
of poetic equilibrium—and this, despite the inherent energy<br />
characteristic of boldly painted squares or rectangles, or the stark<br />
economy of color. 35<br />
When <strong>Fine</strong> showed additional Cool series paintings at<br />
Graham in March of 1964, John Gruen wrote in the New<br />
York Herald Tribune:<br />
Miss <strong>Fine</strong> continues to explore the geometric shape as it occurs<br />
on a Xatly painted background—the colors creating tensions—the<br />
shapes assuming the function of expressive dividing lines that give<br />
way to other shapes, forming other sequences of expression. There<br />
is a vibrant light that emanates from these works, not blinding or<br />
jarring or dizzying. It is an arresting light that remains constant,<br />
lending purity—even dignity, to essentially emotional statements. 36<br />
are more distinguished by their “cool”—in Marshall McLuhan’s<br />
sense of the word—than by any obvious relation to <strong>Abstract</strong><br />
Expressionism. Louis’s, Noland’s, Olitski’s, and, to a degree,<br />
Frankenthaler’s otherwise diverse paintings, with their insubstantial<br />
surfaces and deliberately suppressed “handwriting,” all appear<br />
strikingly reticent, not only physically but also psychologically. . . .<br />
While scrupulously avoiding anything resembling psychological<br />
symbolism, the “post-painterly” conception of “cool” included<br />
the belief that a painting, no matter how apparently restrained,<br />
could address the viewer’s whole being—emotions, intellect, and<br />
all—through the eye, just as music did through the ear. . . What sets<br />
Color Field paintings apart is the extraordinary economy of means<br />
with which they manage not only to engage our feelings but also<br />
to ravish the eye. 34<br />
Lee Krasner and <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> at Ashawagh Hall Fair, Springs, New York, mid-1960s.<br />
11
Despite such perceptive commentaries and obvious<br />
respect from the critics, Graham was able to sell few of<br />
<strong>Fine</strong>’s Cool series paintings. Looking back, <strong>Fine</strong> was aware<br />
that this might have been because the paintings were<br />
ahead of their time. She stated in 1968 that they “preceded<br />
the things that are done today in this limited motif, so<br />
that some people were rather shocked that I should have<br />
arrived.” 36 Indeed, they predated Robert Motherwell’s<br />
“Open” series, begun in the late 1960s, and other<br />
similar subtly toned Color Field works by artists such as<br />
Larry Poons and Olitski of mid-decade. In their poetic<br />
equilibrium, their combination of restraint and emotional<br />
expressiveness, and their uniting of the classical and the<br />
romantic, <strong>Fine</strong>’s Cool series paintings are timeless and<br />
yet also seemingly relevant to today’s desire for a broader,<br />
calmer vision of the world.<br />
Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D.<br />
1. <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong>, artist’s statement in Klaus Jurgen-Fischer, “Neue<br />
Abstraktion,” Das Kunstwerk 18 (April–June 1965). I would like to<br />
express gratitude to Maddy and David Berezov for providing materials<br />
from the Berezov Archives cited in this essay.<br />
2. For an extensive treatment of <strong>Fine</strong>’s career and context, see<br />
Kathleen L. Housley, Tranquil Power: The Art and Life of <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> (New<br />
York: Midmarch Arts Press, 2005).<br />
3. Transcript of Tape-Recording of an Interview with <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> by Irving<br />
Sandler, Casper Citron Program, Station wrfm, New York, April 8,<br />
1963, Berezov Archives.<br />
4. Sandler interview.<br />
5. Clement Greenberg, Post Painterly <strong>Abstract</strong>ion, exh. cat. (Los Angeles<br />
County Museum of Art, 1964), cited in Karen Wilkin, Color as Field:<br />
American Painting, 1950–1975 (New Haven and London: American<br />
Federation of Arts in association with Yale University Press, 2007), 11.<br />
6. See Wilkin, 17.<br />
7. Oral History Interview with <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong>, Conducted by Dorothy Seckler<br />
at the Artist’s Studio in New York, NY, January 19, 1968, Archives of<br />
American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.<br />
8. Seckler interview.<br />
9. Seckler interview.<br />
10. <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> and Maurice Berezov, The Teaching of Hans Hofmann,<br />
unpublished manuscript, Berezov Archives. Cited in Housley, 33.<br />
11. Seckler interview.<br />
12. Howard Devree, “Along Outward Trails,” New York Times,<br />
August 7, 1938.<br />
13. “The Passing Shows,” Artnews (August–September 1943);<br />
Edward Alden Jewell, “Melange of New Shows,” New York Times,<br />
October 24, 1943.<br />
14. Seckler interview.<br />
15. Maude Riley, “<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong>,” Art Digest (March 1, 1945); Edward<br />
Alden Jewell, “<strong>Abstract</strong> Artists Open Display Here,” New York Times,<br />
March 14, 1945.<br />
16. The Guggenheim Foundation purchased Nierendorf’s estate in<br />
1948. Housed at the Guggenheim Museum, it includes works by Max<br />
Ernst, Adolph Gottlieb, Juan Gris, Paul Klee, Oscar Kokoschka, and<br />
Joan Miró. See: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/<br />
about-the-collection/new-york/karl-nierendorf-estate/1650, retrieved<br />
September 2011. Information on Nierendorf may be found in Housley,<br />
88–93.<br />
17. Edward Alden Jewell, “Glances Backward and About,” New York<br />
Times, April 7, 1946.<br />
18. Benjamin Baldwin, “<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong>,” Arts & Architecture (May 1947).<br />
19. Seckler interview.<br />
20. For Parsons, see Lee Hall, Betty Parsons: Artist, Dealer, Collector<br />
(New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991).<br />
21. Seckler interview.<br />
22. Howard Devree, “Vital and Diverse: New Current Group<br />
Exhibitions Stress Work by Contemporary Americans,” New York Times,<br />
June 5, 1949.<br />
23. Howard Devree, “In Various Veins,” New York Times, December 21,<br />
1952.<br />
24. Seckler interview.<br />
25. Seckler interview.<br />
26. Seckler interview.<br />
27. Seckler interview.<br />
28. <strong>Fine</strong>, artist’s statement, 1965.<br />
29. Sandler interview. Sandler went to write The Triumph of American<br />
Painting: A History of <strong>Abstract</strong> Expressionism (New York: Praeger, 1970)<br />
and The New York School: The Painters and Sculptors of the Fifties (New<br />
York: Harper & Row, 1978).<br />
30. Sandler interview.<br />
31. Sandler interview.<br />
32. L[awrence] C[ampbell], “Reviews and Previews: <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong><br />
[Graham; April 2–20],” Artnews (April 1963).<br />
33. See Wilkin, Color as Field.<br />
34. Wilkin, 17.<br />
35. Irving Sandler, “<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong>,” New York Post, April 7, 1963.<br />
36. John Gruen, “In the Galleries: <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong>,” New York Herald Tribune,<br />
March 7, 1964.<br />
37. Seckler interview.<br />
12
<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> (1905–1988)<br />
museum collections<br />
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts<br />
Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock<br />
Ball State Museum of Art, Muncie, Indiana<br />
Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts<br />
Brooklyn Museum, New York<br />
Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art,<br />
Nashville, Tennessee<br />
Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.<br />
Guild Hall, East Hampton, New York<br />
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University,<br />
Ithaca, New York<br />
Hofstra University Museum, Hempstead, New York<br />
Indianapolis Museum of Art<br />
Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington<br />
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York<br />
Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York<br />
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.<br />
New York University Art Collection<br />
Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York<br />
Principia College, Saint Louis, Missouri<br />
Provincetown Art Association Museum, Massachusetts<br />
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey<br />
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton,<br />
Massachusetts<br />
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.<br />
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York<br />
University of California, Berkeley<br />
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill<br />
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York<br />
Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina,<br />
Greensboro<br />
Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts<br />
selected solo exhibitions<br />
Marian Willard Gallery, New York, 1945<br />
Nierendorf Gallery, New York, 1946, 1947<br />
M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, 1947<br />
Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, 1949, 1951, 1952-3<br />
Tanager Gallery, New York, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1960<br />
Franklin Gallery, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1961<br />
Robert Keene Gallery, Southampton, New York, 1961<br />
Graham Gallery, New York, 1961, 1963, 1964, 1967<br />
Joan Washburn Gallery, New York, 1972<br />
Andre Zarre Gallery, New York, 1973, 1976, 1977<br />
Hofstra University Museum, Hempstead, New York, 1974<br />
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, New York, Major<br />
Works, 1954–1978: A Selection of Drawings, Paintings, and<br />
Collages, 1978.<br />
Ingber Gallery, New York, 1982, 1984<br />
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong>: Works on<br />
Paper, 1997<br />
Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, East Hampton,<br />
New York, <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> Collages, 1957–1966, 2005<br />
McCormick Gallery, Chicago, <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong>: The Storm<br />
Departs, 2007<br />
Hofstra University Museum, Hempstead, New York,<br />
Tranquil Power: The Art of <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong>, 2009 (traveling<br />
exhibition)<br />
selected group exhibitions<br />
Municipal Art Galleries, New York, 1938<br />
Art of this Century, New York, Spring Salon, 1943, 1944<br />
The Museum of Non-Objective Painting (now, Solomon<br />
R. Guggenheim Museum), 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947<br />
Puma Gallery, New York, 1944<br />
Wittenborn Gallery, New York, 1944<br />
American <strong>Abstract</strong> Artists (AAA), 1945–1970s<br />
Art of this Century Gallery, New York, The Women, 1945<br />
Alumnae Hall Gallery, Western College, Oxford, Ohio,<br />
The Women: An Exhibition of Paintings by Contemporary<br />
Women, 1945<br />
Provincetown Art Association, Massachusetts, 1945–51<br />
Society of American Etchers, Thirty-First Annual<br />
Exhibition, 1946<br />
13
Whitney Museum of American Art, Annuals and Biennials,<br />
1946, 1947, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1958, 1961, 1972<br />
Musee d’Art Moderne, Paris, Salon des Réalités Nouvelles,<br />
1947, 1950<br />
Stanhope Gallery, Boston, Works on Paper, 1947<br />
Watkins Gallery, American University, Washington, D.C.,<br />
Spring Annual, 1947<br />
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, Painting<br />
Toward Architecture, 1947<br />
Salon des Réalitiés Nouvelles, Paris, 1947, 1950<br />
Art Institute of Chicago, <strong>Abstract</strong> and Surrealist American<br />
Art, 1948<br />
Virginia Museum of <strong>Fine</strong> Arts, Richmond, Biennial, 1948<br />
(purchase prize)<br />
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, New England<br />
Painting and Sculpture, 1949<br />
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (traveling<br />
exhibition to European museums), 1949<br />
Gallery 200, Provincetown, Massachusetts, Group<br />
Exhibition, 1949<br />
Tryon Gallery, Smith College, Northampton,<br />
Massachusetts, Ten Women Who Paint, 1949<br />
Hawthorn Memorial Gallery and the Provincetown Art<br />
Association, Massachusetts, Post-<strong>Abstract</strong> Painting 1950:<br />
France, America, 1950<br />
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, American Painting<br />
Today—1950, 1950<br />
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California,<br />
Contemporary Painting in the U.S., 1951<br />
Stable Gallery, 9th Street Show, 1951<br />
Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors, 1954, 1955,<br />
1957, 1958, 1962, 1964<br />
Stable Gallery, New York Annuals, 1953, 1954, 1955,<br />
1956, 1957<br />
Wittenborn, One-Wall Gallery, New York, Lithographs,<br />
1952<br />
Bennington College Gallery, Vermont, Nine Women Artists,<br />
1953<br />
New School for Social Research, New York, Painting and<br />
Sculpture, 1953<br />
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Selections of<br />
Painting and Sculpture, 1953<br />
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, New York, Eleven<br />
New Artists of the Region, 1955<br />
Brooklyn Museum, New York, Ninth Annual Print<br />
Exhibition, 1955 (purchase award)<br />
American Federation of Arts, Contemporary Trends, 1955<br />
(traveling exhibition)<br />
Tanager Gallery, New York, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959,<br />
1960, 1961, 1962<br />
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, Annuals, beginning<br />
1955<br />
Center Gallery, New York, 1956<br />
Kraushaar Galleries and the Brooklyn Museum, New York,<br />
14 Painter-Printmakers, 1957<br />
Signa Gallery, East Hampton, New York, A Review of the<br />
Season, 1957<br />
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Nature in<br />
<strong>Abstract</strong>ion: The Relation of <strong>Abstract</strong> Painting and Sculpture to<br />
Nature in Twentieth-Century American Art, 1958 (traveling<br />
exhibition)<br />
Zabriskie Gallery, New York, Collage in America, 1958<br />
(in cooperation with the American Federation of Arts)<br />
Center Gallery, New York, 1958<br />
Carnegie Institute, Museum of Art, Pittsburgh<br />
International Exhibitions of Contemporary Painting and<br />
Sculpture, 1958, 1961<br />
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, New York, Painters,<br />
Sculptors, Architects of the Region, 1959<br />
The Contemporary Arts Association of Houston, Texas,<br />
10th Street, 1959<br />
Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York, Modern Drawing:<br />
European and American, 1959<br />
Signa Gallery, East Hampton, New York, A Review of the<br />
Season, 1959<br />
McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, Texas, 1960<br />
Brookhaven National Laboratory, Second Annual Art<br />
Exhibit, 1960<br />
Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexican<br />
Biennial, 1960<br />
Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee, Art<br />
Today, 1960<br />
Silvermine Annual Exhibitions, New Canaan, Connecticut,<br />
1960s<br />
14
Brooklyn Museum, New York, International Watercolor<br />
Biennial, 1961<br />
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Geometric<br />
<strong>Abstract</strong>ion in America, 1961<br />
Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Art of Assemblage,<br />
1961 (traveling exhibition)<br />
American Federation of Arts, Provincetown: A Painter’s Place,<br />
1962<br />
American Federation of Arts, Lyricism in <strong>Abstract</strong> Art, 1962<br />
Mt. Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, Women<br />
Artists in America Today, 1962<br />
Museum of Modern Art, New York, Hans Hofmann and his<br />
Students, 1963 (traveling exhibition)<br />
Newark Museum, New Jersey, Women Artists in America,<br />
1707–1964, 1965<br />
Long Island University, Southampton, New York, 1965<br />
University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley,<br />
Selection 1967: Recent Acquisitions in Modern Art, 1967<br />
Washburn Gallery, New York, Museum of Non-Objective<br />
Painting, 1972<br />
State University of New York at Binghamton,<br />
8 Contemporary American Artists, 1973<br />
American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York,<br />
Recipients of Honors Exhibition, 1974<br />
Pratt Institute, New York, Recent <strong>Abstract</strong> Paintings, 1974<br />
Freedman Art Gallery, Albright College, Reading,<br />
Pennsylvania, Perspective, 1977<br />
Heckscher Museum, Huntington, New York, Artists of<br />
SuVolk County, 1978<br />
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, New York, Women<br />
Artists of Eastern Long Island, 1979<br />
Ashawagh Hall, East Hampton, New York, The Springs<br />
Artists Exhibition, 1979<br />
Cultural Center, Paris, 15 <strong>Abstract</strong> Expressionists, 1979<br />
Phoenix Gallery, Gallery I, Maryland, Artists of East<br />
Hampton, 1979<br />
Marilyn Pearl Gallery, New York, Geometric Tradition in<br />
American Painting: 1920–1980, 1980<br />
Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York, 17 <strong>Abstract</strong><br />
Artists of East Hampton: The Pollock Years 1946–56, 1980<br />
Summit Art Center, New Jersey, American Artists: The Early<br />
Years, 1981<br />
Phoenix Gallery, Gallery II, Washington, D.C., Drawings,<br />
1981<br />
Mabel Smith Douglas Library, Rutgers University, New<br />
Brunswick, New Jersey, Modern Masters: Woman of the<br />
First Generation, 1982<br />
Ingber Gallery, New York, The Return of <strong>Abstract</strong>ion, 1984<br />
Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, New York,<br />
Some Major Artists of the Hamptons, Then and Now:<br />
1960s–1980s, 1984<br />
Ingber Gallery, New York, A Colorful Retrospective: Works<br />
on Paper, 1986<br />
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, New York, East<br />
Hampton Avant-Garde: A Salute to the Signa Gallery, 1990<br />
Baruch College Gallery, City University of New York,<br />
Reclaiming Artists of the New York School: Toward a More<br />
Inclusive View of the 1950s, 1994<br />
Baruch College Gallery, City University of New York,<br />
Women and <strong>Abstract</strong> Expressionism: Painting and Sculpture,<br />
1945–1959, 1994<br />
Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Massachusetts,<br />
New York—Provincetown: A 50’s Connection, 1994<br />
Thomas McCormick Gallery, Chicago, <strong>Abstract</strong><br />
Expressionism: Second to None, 2001<br />
Thomas McCormick Gallery, Chicago, <strong>Abstract</strong><br />
Expressionism: Second to None, Revised and Expanded, 2004<br />
Rockford Art Museum, Illinois, Reuniting an Era—<strong>Abstract</strong><br />
Expressionists of the 1950s, 2005<br />
Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New York, Paper Works by <strong>Abstract</strong><br />
Masters, 2006<br />
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Suitcase Paintings: Small<br />
Scale <strong>Abstract</strong> Expressionism, 2007 (traveling exhibition)<br />
Museo d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and<br />
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina SoWa, Spain,<br />
Be-Bomb: The Transatlantic War of Images and all that<br />
Jazz, 1946–1956, 2007<br />
15
16<br />
Cool Series, No. 35, Shape-Up ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 70 x 80 in.
Cool Series, No. 29, Cool Blue Cold Green ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 60 x 70 in.<br />
17
18<br />
Cool Series, No. 2, (Yellow over Tan) ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 60 x 50 in.
Cool Series, No. 1, (Red over White) ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 60 x 50 in.<br />
19
20<br />
Cool Series, No. 26, FirST Love ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 47 x 59 in.
Cool Series, No. 36, Rough-Hewn ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 68 x 84 in.<br />
21
Cool Series, (Blue over Red) ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 40 x 36 in.<br />
(COver illustration)<br />
22
Cool Series, No. 15, The Very End ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 84 x 68 in.<br />
23
24<br />
Cool Series, (red over Yellow) ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 22 x 24 in.
Cool Series, No. 44, Double-Square ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 50 x 60 in.<br />
25
26<br />
Cool Series, No. 34, Ensign ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 68 x 84 in.
Cool Series, No. 7, Square Shooter ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 39 1 ⁄2 x 39 1 ⁄2 in.<br />
27
28<br />
Cool Series, No. 80, Impatient Spring ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 84 x 68 in.
Cool Series, No. 22, Wide U ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 50 x 60 in.<br />
29
30<br />
Cool Series, No. 9, Gibraltar ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 68 x 84 in.
Cool Series, (Orange over Yellow)<br />
ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 14 x 16 in.<br />
Cool Series, (Plum over pink)<br />
ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 12 x 12 in.<br />
31
32<br />
Cool Series, No. 46, Spanking Fresh ca. 1961–1963 Oil on canvas 50 x 60 in.
<strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> in her studio, New York City, 1962.<br />
Back cover: <strong>Perle</strong> <strong>Fine</strong> in her studio, Springs, New York, 1962.
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