Franz Kline
dal 8/3/2002 al 20/4/2002
Segnalato da
8/3/2002
Franz Kline
McKee Gallery, New York
many celebrated works of the Fifties
An exhibition of ink drawings by Franz KLINE will open at the McKee Gallery,
745 Fifth Avenue, New York, 10151 (between 57th and 58th Streets) on
Saturday, March 9, 2002.
Kline's facility for drawing in ink is well-known, exemplified by his
precocious skill as the school cartoonist at Lehighton High School in
Pennsylvania. Later, while studying in London at Heatherly¹s School of Fine
Art, prior to World War II, Kline was definitively inspired by the drawing
techniques of Rembrandt and of Charles Keene, an English caricaturist of the
19th Century. Both artists used pen and ink with great rapidity and an
economy of line easily recognized in Kline's mature drawing.
He also acknowledged a youthful admiration for Hokusai which led to a lifelong
interest in the concept of oriental space.
In 1943, Kline met the painter Conrad Marca-Relli, his next door neighbor on
West 4th Street, who introduced him to Willem de Kooning. Thus began a
sequence of influential friendships cemented by studio visits and lively
companionship in the Cedar Bar. Feverish discussions on art at the 8th
Street Club were strongly influenced by a growing curiosity in Zen
philosophy, which affected many of the New York artists.
Kline's profound
interest in music and ballet supported his intuitive understanding of
abstract form, and by 1949 the realistic subject matter of his formative
years had been transformed into abstraction. Pen and pencil were replaced
by the brush which emphasized the rich expressive potential of his line,
while the increasingly calligraphic minimalism of his compositions created a
sense of scale which begged to be enlarged.
In this way many celebrated works of the Fifties were painted from drawings, done in brush and ink on paper or telephone book paper.
Franz Kline was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1910 and died in New
York City in 1962.
The exhibition closes on Saturday, April 20.
McKee Gallery 745 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10151
Tuesday - Saturday 10:00-6:00