Vered Gallery Opens American Modernism and It’s Color on July 2
Vered Gallery in East Hampton is opening two new summer exhibitions, American Modernism and It’s Color, this Saturday, July 2.
The first exhibition, American Modernism, comprises a selection of works by American masters John Singer Sargent, Albert Pinkham Ryder, John Graham, Milton Avery, Oscar Bluemner, Joseph Stella, Charles Demuth, Norman Bluhm and Robert Mapplethorpe, among others.
The gallery has placed special emphasis on the inclusion of Albert Pinkham Ryder, who they call “one of the most important American artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries.” His paintings, the gallery explains, present simplified, rhythmic forms, which foreshadow the modern art that would come to prominence just a few decades later. Ryder’s “Homeward at Twilight,” which has an extensive provenance going back to its original purchase for $35, will be among the marquee pieces featured in American Modernism. The work depicts an ominous man riding a horse against a golden sunset highlighted by the impasto of the artist’s visceral and deliberate brushstrokes.
An early Milton Avery painting from 1931, “Coney Island,” will also be on view. Depicting the crowds and frenzy on Coney Island’s beaches at the time, the painting is less simplified and Matisse-like than Avery’s later work, but it marks the beginning of his signature style, and charts the direction his art would follow over the next 30 years.
In addition to masterful paintings, Vered brings photography into its American Modernism selections. The gallery will display work by Mapplethorpe and, in a nod to this year’s big election, five distorted Weegee photographs of former US presidents, including JFK, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, LBJ and Ronald Reagan.
Vered’s concurrent exhibition, It’s Color, features works by Wolf Kahn and local artists Miles Jaffe and David Demers. Kahn is known for his colorful and expressive landscapes; Jaffe is showing his giant, realistic sculptures of paint tubes; and Demers offers bright canvases representing flow of movement and only the most essential strokes of paint.
American Modernism and It’s Color open with a special reception this Saturday, July 2 from 6–9 p.m., and they will remain on view through Friday, August 5. Vered Gallery is located at 68 Park Place in East Hampton. For more information, call 631-324-3303 or visit veredart.com.