Arts+ Selects
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
HARRY CALLAHAN: NATURE
Pace/MacGill Gallery
One of the biggest photographic shows in New York City is “Harry Callahan: Nature” at the Pace/MacGill Gallery. It isn’t big because of the number of prints in the exhibition — there are only 12 black and white pictures — and it certainly isn’t big because of their size — the largest are only 8-inches-by-5-inches, and many are considerably smaller. It is big because the talent is big, the ambition is enormous, and the results fill our imaginations with wonder. There are no pictures in “Nature” that don’t have something interesting to say about their subject and about the possibilities of photography.
William Meyers (December 7)
Until January 6 (32 E. 57th St., between Madison and Park avenues, 212-759-7999).
THE EARLY WORK OF WILLIAM KING
Alexandre Gallery
William King is best known for huge, coolly humorous, figurative constructions in steel. Feats of engineering as much as sculptural wit, they are usually placed outdoors in sculpture parks and city plazas. Thirty sculptures from 1949–62 are the subject of a focused, exquisitely installed loan exhibition from museum and private collections organized by Sanford Schwartz at Alexandre Gallery.
This is a show that will force a rethinking of an artist who, at 81, is still more a maverick than the institution he deserves to be. Worked mostly in wood or terracotta, they bubble with warmth and whimsy. It is difficult to exaggerate the utter delight of this exhibition, its formal variety, and Mr. King’s unfailing combination of generalized form and particularized individuality.
David Cohen (December 21)
Until January 20 (41 E. 57th St. at Madison Avenue, 212-755-2828).
