Gallery-Going

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.

The New York Sun
NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

By the late 1950s, word was out that the figure was dead, no longer a viable subject for art. Three young painters in the Bay Area ignored the obits: Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff, and Charles Cajori. They met weekly in Bischoff’s studio to draw from live models, defying fashionable dogma by applying painterly intelligence to a form more durable than any ism in the arts.


That initial shared sympathy with the human figure has shaped Mr. Cajori’s painting over the decades. A second-generation Abstract Expressionist and one of the founders of New York’s legendary Tanager Gallery, he has enlivened the conventions of abstraction with steady reference to the figure. He is not interested in personality or individuating features. Rather, it is the interaction of the figure with the space around it that is the lynch pin of his picture-making.


All but one of the 15 paintings on view are untitled, a cue not to seek anecdote or sentiment within the compositions. In each, fractured and faceted female figures jockey for position on the canvas like shifting tectonic plates. The larger paintings in the front room are particularly vivacious examples of what Mr. Cajori calls “the war between space and figure.”


The artist’s pleasure in the act of painting is visible in dynamic surfaces built from successive waves of substantial but still transparent oil washes. Movement is everywhere, inviting the eye to follow color reefs that advance and recede in continuous, contained upheaval. There is a controlled electricity to his color, muted by pentimenti and held in check by fluid scrubbings of warm neutral tints.


I knew Mr. Cajori’s name before I knew his work. Some years ago, wandering the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Conn., I caught sight of an imposing, luminous abstraction across a room. I hurried to read the tag. So this was Cajori! In that moment I understood why his name was a persistent thread in discussions of abstract painting. Be glad that his painting is now readily visible in New York. This show is a satisfying and welcome event.


***


Jane Wilson needs no introduction She is a seductive painter whose pictorial protocol is restrained and unchanging: a low-horizoned, simplified landscape schema that tethers an abstract sensibility to the natural world. It is an evocative formula, evading naturalism while summoning assent to the seeming naturalness of dramatic expanses of sky and conjured weather conditions.


Her approach has remained constant, yet it never appears twice-told or mechanical. Absence of structural variation makes the diversity of these skyscapes all the more remarkable. Lesser painters succumb eventually to their own conventions. Ms. Wilson continues to refresh a single dominating idea, offering it anew with each exhibition.


Anchored to reality, her work is vivified by the natural kaleidoscope of cloud formations and their gestural drift. Paint handling is deft; but it is Ms. Wilson’s gift for color and light that is most alluring. She is an inspired colorist, evoking what Constable termed “the chiaroscuro of nature” with intense, invented color harmonies. The orange-gold cloudbank of “More Clouds Than Sun” (2004) is audacious and fanciful. The cirrocumulus cloudlets of “Red Sky at Night” (2004) blanket a horizon more felt than seen. Here is the pleasure of Color Field painting rescued from its rejection of the world.


“Charles Cajori” at Lohin-Geduld Gallery until December 4 (531 W. 25 Street, 212.675.2656). Prices: $7,000-$40,000.


“Jane Wilson” at DC Moore Gallery until November 27 (724 Fifth Avenue, 212.247.2111). Prices: $9,000 – $40,000.

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

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.


The New York Sun

© 2025 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

or
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use