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Lot Essay
"Art is not a mirror reflecting nature, but is the very essence of man's aesthetic, imaginative, experience. Art transcends, transforms nature, creates a nature beyond nature, a supra nature, a thing in itself-its own nature, answering the deep need of man's imaginative and aesthetic being."
(R. Pousette-Dart quoted in R. Hobbs and J. Kuebler, Richard Pousette-Dart, exh. cat., Indianapolis, 1990, p. 74).
It is in the 1940s that Pousette-Dart's role as a leading New York School artist began to take shape. Finding inspiration in Oceanic, Northwest Indian and African Art, the artist took refuge in the archetypal and elaborated in his many notebooks on the universal signifiers in his own work, "circle of spirit, square of matter, circle of G-d, square of man" (K. Hubner, "Richard Pousette-Dart's Early Work and its Origins" in Richard Pousette-Dart, exh. cat., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 2007, p. 19). Pousette-Dart incorporated this preordained symbolism into his work while concurrently applying his paints to the canvas in an urgent manner that paid respect to the composition in its entirety. It is with a keen interest in Eastern philosophy, the teachings of Taoism and Buddhism that Pousette-Dart approached his most critical works. The philosopher Henri Bergson, an early influence on Pousette-Dart, provided a literary model for the artist in his promotion of '" the creative role of intuition and it's primacy over analytical thinking."'(Ibid., p. 18). This sentiment resonates in Fantasie of 1944-1945.
The youngest of the founding members of the New York School it is generally granted that Pousette-Dart "holds title as the first to 'Paint Heroically' on a monumental scale." (L. Stokes Sims, "Richard Pousette-Dart and Abstract Expressionism: Critical Perspectives" in Ibid., p. 29). This distinction elevates the artist's works of the 1940's to a status of respectability that defies conventional criticism.
"I strive to express the spiritual nature of the universe. Painting is for me a dynamic balance and wholeness of life; it is mysterious and transcendent, yet solid and real."
(K. Hubner, "Richard Pousette-Dart's Early Work and its Origins" in Richard Pousette-Dart, exh. cat., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 2007, p. 21)
Fantasie, 1944-1945 is a powerful painting closely related aesthetically and structurally to another of the artist's masterpieces Spirit, of 1946 in the collection of The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, gift of Peggy Guggenheim in 1954. Both works share an opaque surface of broken forms punctuated by bright colored passages. Alluding to the bejeweled face of gothic stained glass and the machinations of a new atomic reality; these two works are more than a synthesis of modern ideas, they are spiritual conquests for a new age-they are modern talismans of an aggressive spiritual pursuit.
Pousette-Dart's prime legacy rests with his paintings and drawings that he began exhibiting in New York in the 1940s. A first generation member of the New York School, he was included in many seminal exhibitions, including solo and group exhibitions at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery, the Venice Biennale in 1948, MoMA's Contemporary American Painters in 1949 and regularly in the Whitney annual surveys of American art. He also attended the informal Subjects of the Artists 'school' in 1948 that later became the influential meeting place, "The Club." In this same year, Pousette-Dart joined Betty Parsons Gallery, Fantasie was included in his first one man exhibition with Parsons that March-April 1948. In 1951, he was included in the infamous Life magazine "Irascibles" group photograph of the New York School, an image that would forever link him with that group of mid-century painters in New York that changed the course of the artworld.
Pousette-Dart's work is included in many important museum collections and has been the subject of numerous retrospectives, most prominently, the Whitney Museum of American Art (1963), Museum of Modern Art circulating exhibition (1969-1970), Indianapolis Museum of Art (1990-1991), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1997-1998) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2007).
(R. Pousette-Dart quoted in R. Hobbs and J. Kuebler, Richard Pousette-Dart, exh. cat., Indianapolis, 1990, p. 74).
It is in the 1940s that Pousette-Dart's role as a leading New York School artist began to take shape. Finding inspiration in Oceanic, Northwest Indian and African Art, the artist took refuge in the archetypal and elaborated in his many notebooks on the universal signifiers in his own work, "circle of spirit, square of matter, circle of G-d, square of man" (K. Hubner, "Richard Pousette-Dart's Early Work and its Origins" in Richard Pousette-Dart, exh. cat., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 2007, p. 19). Pousette-Dart incorporated this preordained symbolism into his work while concurrently applying his paints to the canvas in an urgent manner that paid respect to the composition in its entirety. It is with a keen interest in Eastern philosophy, the teachings of Taoism and Buddhism that Pousette-Dart approached his most critical works. The philosopher Henri Bergson, an early influence on Pousette-Dart, provided a literary model for the artist in his promotion of '" the creative role of intuition and it's primacy over analytical thinking."'(Ibid., p. 18). This sentiment resonates in Fantasie of 1944-1945.
The youngest of the founding members of the New York School it is generally granted that Pousette-Dart "holds title as the first to 'Paint Heroically' on a monumental scale." (L. Stokes Sims, "Richard Pousette-Dart and Abstract Expressionism: Critical Perspectives" in Ibid., p. 29). This distinction elevates the artist's works of the 1940's to a status of respectability that defies conventional criticism.
"I strive to express the spiritual nature of the universe. Painting is for me a dynamic balance and wholeness of life; it is mysterious and transcendent, yet solid and real."
(K. Hubner, "Richard Pousette-Dart's Early Work and its Origins" in Richard Pousette-Dart, exh. cat., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 2007, p. 21)
Fantasie, 1944-1945 is a powerful painting closely related aesthetically and structurally to another of the artist's masterpieces Spirit, of 1946 in the collection of The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, gift of Peggy Guggenheim in 1954. Both works share an opaque surface of broken forms punctuated by bright colored passages. Alluding to the bejeweled face of gothic stained glass and the machinations of a new atomic reality; these two works are more than a synthesis of modern ideas, they are spiritual conquests for a new age-they are modern talismans of an aggressive spiritual pursuit.
Pousette-Dart's prime legacy rests with his paintings and drawings that he began exhibiting in New York in the 1940s. A first generation member of the New York School, he was included in many seminal exhibitions, including solo and group exhibitions at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery, the Venice Biennale in 1948, MoMA's Contemporary American Painters in 1949 and regularly in the Whitney annual surveys of American art. He also attended the informal Subjects of the Artists 'school' in 1948 that later became the influential meeting place, "The Club." In this same year, Pousette-Dart joined Betty Parsons Gallery, Fantasie was included in his first one man exhibition with Parsons that March-April 1948. In 1951, he was included in the infamous Life magazine "Irascibles" group photograph of the New York School, an image that would forever link him with that group of mid-century painters in New York that changed the course of the artworld.
Pousette-Dart's work is included in many important museum collections and has been the subject of numerous retrospectives, most prominently, the Whitney Museum of American Art (1963), Museum of Modern Art circulating exhibition (1969-1970), Indianapolis Museum of Art (1990-1991), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1997-1998) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2007).