Adam Baumgold Gallery presents the exhibition "Philip Pearlstein: Paintings From the 60's" from April 7 through April 30.  A master of contemporary realism and figurative art, the exhibition will focus on several pivotal, large paintings from the 1960's when the artist began to paint monumental nudes in studio settings.
 
     Pearlstein's visual vocabulary has remained steadfast since the 1960's "when - deliberately provoking avant-garde taboo - he started to paint nudes, from life, in elaborate studio set-ups.  He brought a ruthless modernity to a time-honored (and dishonored) academic practice.  Unexpressive touch, stylized cropping and foreshortening, and awkward, affectless poses became his instantly recognizable trademarks."1  Included in the exhibition is the painting "Two Nudes with Back of Painting," 1965, where the back of a seated nude is shown facing a standing, cropped nude whose hands are resting on the back of a painting facing the wall.  In this work, Pearlstein's audacious and emblematic composition with its cropping, the foreshortening of the figures and space, and the raking reflections of light in the artist's studio magnify the intensity, mystery, and unease in this existentialist vignette. 
 
     Philip Pearlstein's work is included in the permanent collections of museums around the world, among them The Museum of Modern Art, NY, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art and The Carnegie Institute.
 
    Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11:00 - 5:30 P.M.  For additional information, please contact Adam Baumgold at (212)861-7338.

"Female Model Seated on a Green Sofa," 1971, detail
Oil on canvas
48" x 60"

"Back, Standing Female Model," 1962
Oil on canvas
30" x 26"