Review (via NYTimes): Edith Schloss at Meredith Ward

Edith Schloss "Rignalla," 1967, Oil on canvas, 13 3/4 x 21 1/2 in.

We are very pleased that the exhibition, Edith Schloss, organized by Artist Estate Studio at Meredith Ward Fine Art has been reviewed in The New York Times by Robert Smith.

READ FULL REVIEW HERE >

Exhibition News: Edith Schloss at Meredith Ward Fine Art opens Feb 8

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Meredith Ward Fine Art is pleased to present Edith Schloss: By the Sea, an exhibition of 20 paintings and works on paper painted in Italy during the 1960s and 1970s (February 8 – March 30, 2018). This is the first exhibition of Schloss's work at the gallery and includes several paintings that will be on view for the first time. "Schloss's colorful and whimsical still lifes are a revelation," said Meredith Ward, President of the gallery. "They add an entirely new dimension to our understanding of figurative painting in the 1960s and 1970s." This exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Estate of Edith Schloss and with the support of Artist Estate Studio, LLC.

Intrinsically linked to the milieu of postwar American art, Edith Schloss was an integral member of the Chelsea-New York art world, which flourished around the New York School and include photographer and filmmaker Rudy Burckhardt (whom she married in 1947) and the Jane Street Group around Nell Blaine.

In 1962, having separated from Burckhardt, Schloss with her young son in tow, left New York City for Italy. There, with Rome as her base, she sought out the legendary Giorgio Morandi, befriending him and drawing inspiration from his subtle and calculated still lifes. Among the first paintings Schloss produced in Italy were a series of still lifes that are the focus of this special exhibition. In these paintings, which border on the bittersweet, fragile, and naïve, Schloss lines up vases, teapots, flowers, and other objects and paints them against the Mediterranean Sea.
These whimsical works display vitality, inventiveness, and a distinctive painterly abstraction.

Schloss wrote of her work, "What I really do is what any painter worth his salt has always done, I abstract color and line from life around me, and make another life out of it." Among the highlights of the exhibition are two paintings titled Rignalla, which are being exhibited here for the first time. Over several summers, Schloss accompanied her lover, the composer/musician Alvin Curran, to Florence where he had a gig playing Dixieland Jazz at the Red Garter. From her room along the via di Rignalla, she painted several still lifes, which became mementos of her sojourns there.

About Edith Schloss
Edith Schloss (1919-2011) was born in Offenbach, Germany. As a young woman she traveled extensively in Europe. Working as an au pair in London during the Blitz, she was evacuated to the United States and landed in New York City. There, she met the political refugee Heinz Langerhans, who introduced her to Bertolt Brecht, and other intellectuals at The New School for Social Research.

From 1942 to 1946, she studied at the Art Students League with Will Barnet, Harry Sternberg, and Morris Kantor. In 1945, Schloss met Willem de Kooning through her friend, the painter Fairfield Porter. Around the same time, she became connected with a group of artists, poets and filmmakers in Chelsea, including Ellen and Walter Auerbach, Nell Blaine, Edwin Denby, and Rudy Burchkhardt. She joined the Jane Street Group, New York's first artist cooperative gallery, and in 1947 had her first one-person show at the Ashby Gallery.

Schloss married Rudy Burckhardt in 1947 and the couple spent summers with Fairfield Porter and his family in Maine. In 1962, she and Burkhardt separated, and Schloss moved to Italy. Schloss’s paintings have been shown in exhibitions in Rome and New York and her work is represented in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Keats-Shelley House, Rome; the Hessisches Landsmuseum, Wiesbaden; and the Offenbacher Stadtmuseum, Offenbach, Germany.

In 2015, a landmark retrospective of work by Edith Schloss was curated by Jason Andrew and held at the Sundaram Tagore Gallery in New York. That exhibition marked the first show of the artist’s work in New York in twenty-five years. This exhibition at Meredith Ward, with a focused look on the works from the 1960s, continues the momentum and renewed interest in the artist’s work.

This exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Estate of Edith Schloss and with the support of Artist Estate Studio, LLC. The exhibition will be accompanied by an online catalogue.

About Meredith Ward Fine Art
Meredith Ward Fine Art opened in 2004 specializing in American art from the 19th century to the present. The gallery is the exclusive representative of the estates of John Marin, Larry Day, Steve Wheeler, and Flora Crockett. Meredith Ward Fine Art is located at 44 East 74th Street in New York City and is open to the public Tuesday through Friday, 10am to 5:30pm and Saturday by appointment.

For more information or images, contact Julia Wilcox at 212-744-7306 or
info@meredithwardfineart.com | www.meredithwardfineart.com

Lecture: "Biala: The Woman Painter Among Men" at ASL

Biala: The Woman Painter Among Men

Thurs, Jan 11, 6:30pm

RSVP (seating is limited)

Art Students League
215 West 57th Street
NYC

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Painter Janice Biala (1903-2000), known to history primarily by her surname, was an integral figure in the art scene of mid-twentieth century Manhattan. Sister of painter Jack Tworkov, friend of Willem de Kooning and critic Harold Rosenberg, Biala was in the thick of a milieu that gave rise to the New York School. But before all that, she was the lover of the English novelist Ford Madox Ford.

Curator Jason Andrew will trace the remarkable life and art of Biala from her early days of hitch-hiking to Provincetown in the ‘20s, to jumping on a boat to Paris and later her dramatic escape from Nazi occupied France in the ‘30s, to her early support of Willem de Kooning and participation in the New York School in the ’40s. Above all, she left a history of painting noted for its sublime assimilation of the School of Paris and the New York School of abstract expressionism.

This lecture coincides with the exhibition Biala and the Harvey and Phyllis Lichtenstein Collection, on view through February 10 at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, 15 Rivington Street, New York.

Announcing the formation of Artist Estate Studio, LLC

After many years of working independently as a consultant and estate representative, Jason Andrew has combined forces with his long time artistic collaborator of 25 years, Julia K. Gleich to form a new entity serving artists and estates of artists.

Based in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, this newly formed team will consult and represent artists and estates of artists to further their careers and their legacies.