Cluster

A Brooklyn native, Ruth Abrams (1912-1986) did not need to travel far to attend classes at the Art Students League throughout the 1930s and '40s, where she pursued both painting and sculpture with Alexander Archipenko and others. Her presence at the school recommended her to the wider circle of Abstract Expressionists, including Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Charlotte Park and Milton Resnick, as well as the American Contemporary Art Gallery program, where she showed in both solo and group exhibitions early in her career. In between nurturing her own practice and preparing for exhibitions, Abrams took refuge in her husband and two children, as well as her role as art director at the Research Association of The New School. Intensely interested in the problem of space and scale, Abrams's work pits the tiny motions of the artist against the backdrop of the cosmos, wisely calling into question the immortal attitude of the reigning Abstract Expressionists and offering a perspective largely absent from the unceasing, self-involved gestures of the New York School.