A 24 page catalogue of this exhibition is available through the gallery. Please contact the gallery for details.
Sarasota Syd (Remembering Syd Solomon's first decade in town) - Creative Loafing - by Cooper Levey-Baker - 11/30/06
Solomon's 'Sensibility' in art - Sarasota Herald-Tribune - by Kevin Costello - 12/8/06
See Solomon before he was SOLOMON - Bradenton Herald - by Joan Altabe - 12/21/06
In December 2006, Greene Contemporary will be showing an exhibition of work by
Syd Solomon that focuses on the period after he returned from Paris and his studies at L'École des Beaux Arts in 1946 and settled in Sarasota and 1959 when he established a studio in East Hampton where he would yearly paint in the summer the rest of his life.
A preview on Friday, December 1 will introduce paintings that will be on view from December 2 through Saturday, December 30. A dozen works will highlight this period of his career where he was beginning to move away from painting that had a narrative element to work that was more purely abstract.
During the period 1946-1959 Solomon had a quiet obsession with color. Whenever it might appear that he has confined himself to a monochromatic palette one can see evidence of jewel-like tones of color dabbed by his brush over small surface areas. In this selection of paintings we can see the beginnings of Solomon's interest in high keyed color although color does not dominate his compositions in the manner they will later. Line is an important element to his compositions from this time.
In Untitled #10, an ink and gouache on paper, three black outlined figures are composed of various petal and ovoid shapes. A series of graceful arcs unify the composition. In Marquee, Solomon has created a painting that at first glance appears to be a complete abstraction. On closer inspection figures are visible in the foreground and a plaza with buildings and a sculpture emerges. A patchwork of colored shapes helps define a dramatic angular sculpture in the foreground.
The hooks and girders in Pattern for Power, 1949 resemble huge props hanging from the fly space of a stage set for a play with an industrial theme. The depth of space and perspective is not defined and forms emerge and recede in the picture plane. The structure of early cubist paintings by Cezanne is referenced in areas of the canvas where Solomon has layered and arranged flat planes of color. His use of black to outline forms recalls the stark drama in the compositions of Giorgio de Chirico and Georges Rouault. At the time Solomon painted Pattern for Power two parallel currents occupied artists who were painting. Elements of both surrealism and abstraction are evident in this work by Solomon who never wanted to be considered part of either direction in painting. His brush marks of intensely saturated jewel-like hues of blue, green, orange and red animate the painting's surface.
In Thorn Patterns, 1955, blocks of watercolor of complimentary orange and blue dominate the paper. Areas where colors have bled into one another have created a rich prismatic effect. This composition is organic and looks tribal, totemic and ritualistic. Solomon's forms recall the shapes and patterns Wifredo Lam used repeatedly in his work.
Doctors recommended to Solomon, who had suffered frostbite during WWII, that he find a place to live with a warm climate. In 1946, he settled in Sarasota with his wife Ann. There he enrolled at Ringling School of Art. In 1955, he spent his first summer in East Hampton with a family that now included Michelle and Michael. In New York, he became immersed in a world of abstract expressionist painters that included: Lee Krasner, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Alfonso Ossorio, James and Charlotte Brooks, Conrad and Anita Marca-Relli as well as Balcomb and Gertrude Greene. Solomon became an important painter who created a bridge between the art worlds of Sarasota and New York.
Some of the works in the show evidence how Solomon was richly inspired by the subtlety and power of nature. They demonstrate his fascination with topographical, climatic conditions of the land, sea and sky. Solomon spoke of nature often. And others have remarked on it as well. In a 1974, interview, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. said to Solomon, "I would have to say you were a painter of bright weather."
In all of Solomon's works he presents a surface to pique our perusal. His paintings inspire us to travel, to let the mind wander, to be transported and to be suspended in the locus of his invention. Solomon locates us as an observer to revel in his process. He invites us to project ourselves into the midst of his strokes and gestures.
Solomon (1917-2004) was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1935-1938.) After serving in Europe during World War II he attended L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1945.) In Sarasota, he enrolled in the Ringling School of Art & Design (1946-47.)
Solomon has exhibited his work throughout the world and is included in the permanent collections of numerous museums including The Baltimore Museum of Art, Butler Institute of American Art, The Chrysler Museum, Cincinnati Art Museum, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, High Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, Norton Gallery of Art, Parrish Museum of Art, The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Tampa Museum of Art, Tate Gallery, London, Tel Aviv Museum, Wadsworth Athenaeum and the Whitney Museum of American Art.