Exhibition by 98-year-old Abraham Yurberg marks first exhibition in forty years
Recluse artist to exhibit work spanning seventy year career
January 15 – February 19, 2011
1043 Madison Ave
New York, NY 10075
www.ten43gallery.com
Ten43 Gallery is pleased to present a retrospective of work by 98-year-old Abstract Expressionist Abraham Yurberg from January 15th through February 19th 2011. A reception for the artist will be held on January 14th from 6 to 8pm. The exhibition will include twenty five paintings and twelve works on paper spanning Yurberg’s seventy-year career and marks the first time that he has allowed his work to be shown since retreating from the public eye in 1967.
Painting in solitude for over forty years Yurberg created a beautifully expressive body of work marked by a bold and colorful palette intersected by dynamic use of thick black lines and heavy impasto applied liberally with a palette knife. The abstract paintings are conveyors of intense emotion and rumination—whether the artist was reflecting on the ecstasy of youth or the pain of staggering loss and self-doubt.
Born in Poland in 1912, Yurberg immigrated to the United States with his family as a child and was raised on New York’s Lower East Side where his young life was defined by the harsh struggles of the Depression. During these tumultuous years Yurberg sought solace in museums and galleries, educating himself in the history of art as much as was possible before picking up a paintbrush himself. Almost immediately his style was defined by an emotional intensity and disregard for the adulation of earlier artistic movements that consumed the cultural community at the time. To that end, he became part of artist collectives like The Vectors and The Bombshell Group (also known as the League of Present Day Artists). The latter, feeling alienated by the staid art scene of the 1930s sought to “further contemporary art and living artists.” Together with the group Yurberg was featured in a 1942 exhibition by New York Times critic Edward Alden Jewel, which exposed the public to more contemporary work. The exhibition was a critical and commercial success.
Shortly after the 1942 exhibition Yurberg was drafted into the United States Army, serving in Italy and North Africa and stealing quiet moments to draw wherever possible but upon returning to New York Yurberg found himself haunted by the horrors of warfare that he had experienced. Devastation and loss became key themes in the artist’s work and the deepening intensity of his paintings led New York Times critic Sam Hunter to describe Yurberg as an “artist with great promise.” He continued to show his work sporadically in exhibitions at Harry Salpeter Gallery, the British American Museum, The Riverside Museum and The Hanover Trust. In 1967 he retreated from the public eye completely though he continued to paint almost daily for the next forty-four years.
For further information please contact Prentice Art Communications, Inc.
(212) 228-4048 or Bettina [at] Prenticeart.com
