Jane Wilson: Horizons is the first comprehensive monograph on the American artist, celebrating her sixty-year career - from her immersion in the vibrant New York art world of the 1950s and 1960s to her current work - which has brought her recognition as one of the leading landscape painters of our time.
Wilson's recent paintings are luminous landscapes that hover between abstraction and representation, inspired by the sky, sea, and land of the East End of Long Island, New York. She focuses on events of the natural world--seasons of the year, times of day, and the many moods of the weather. Evoking these constant occurrences, Wilson directs her energies to making the most passing phenomena visible, to capturing the effects of shimmering light, heavy air, and passing thunderstorms. In many of her paintings, the sky, which can just as easily be taken as an abstract field of pattern and color, is anchored by the barest rudiments of recession and a low horizon that is a juncture of light and substance.
Wilson has been exhibiting steadily since 1953, when she was a founding member of the legendary Hansa Gallery on East 12th Street in New York City. At that time, she was working in an abstract expressionist mode, creating dynamic canvases that resonated with the energy of a defining moment in postwar American art. Later in the decade, she shifted to expressionist landscapes characterized by bold color and lively brushwork or subtle, open compositions that dematerialize form. She then focused on New York cityscapes, particularly atmospheric views of Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, as well as still lifes set in her apartment and studio, including a group of behind-the-scenes paintings of worktables and artist materials. In the early 1980s, she returned to landscapes and began creating the distinctive works for which she is best known today. Her paintings are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gardens, as well as other major museums across the country.
All of these periods are explored in the 192-page book, in a lavishly illustrated presentation featuring reproductions of over ninety paintings. The works are illuminated by an engaging essay by Elisabeth Sussman, Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which also considers the larger context of the New York art world. Further insights into Wilson's life and art are provided by an interview with the artist by Justin Spring, discussing her career and artistic influences. The book also includes a large group of photographs of her family and circle of friends, including Willem de Kooning, Fairfield Porter, Jane Freilicher, Larry Rivers, and other fellow painters, along with fashion and magazine images of Wilson by leading photographers of the day such as Diane Arbus, Francisco Scavullo, and Hans Namuth.
Jane Wilson: Horizons is an exceptional portrait of an artist who has created a rich body of work spanning six decades. Wilson has been a vital part of the New York art world since the heady days around 1950 when the city was emerging as the international capital of contemporary painting. She continues to create radiant landscapes that evoke the rhythms of the natural world, marked by constantly changing dynamics of everyday events of the sky. Capturing the light, air, and color of her work, this beautiful book conveys the artist's unique sensibilities and her many contributions to modern American painting.
In conjunction with the publication of Jane Wilson: Horizons, an exhibition of Wilson's new paintings will be held at DC Moore Gallery from November 11-December 23, 2009.
