Exhibitions
Henry Niese | The Painter's Palette 1956–2011
September 20–November 20, 2011
Born in New Jersey in 1924, Henry Niese studied painting at Cooper Union Art School, art history and painting at Columbia University, and painting at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris.
A pioneer of American contemporary art, Niese came of age as a painter in New York City in the 1950s where he became friendly with Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and William Carlos Williams. Niese exchanged ideas and critiques with these great American masters. Art historian Bill Kloss writes, "Niese learned from the best examples, found and absorbed what suited his own growing expressive imperatives, and created his identifiable pictorial language through intuition and conviction."
The paintings and drawings in the exhibition date from the mid-1950s to the present. The range of subject matter includes portraits, interiors, exteriors and landscapes. Each work demonstrates Niese's ability to capture the inherent structure and organization of living and non-living objects. Art critic, Martica Sawin wrote of Niese's paintings, "The pleasurable aspects of everyday life…are described in terms of glowing color and unusual design which is at once a strong two-dimensional composition and an admixture of narrowing and expanding perspectives…There is an engaging candor to these paintings as well as an involvement which goes beyond the simplicity of the subjects and their treatment…"
Niese is also a gifted storyteller, writer and teacher. He is the author of the book The Man Who Knew the Medicine: Bill Eagle Feather's Teaching , published in 2002. Niese taught at the Montclair Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, The Newark Museum, Yale, the University of Maryland and other venues. He resides on a farm in Glenelg, MD with his wife Paula.
For further information please contact Lauren Hilyard at 202 833 2440 or Lauren@goldleafstudios.com.
The exhibition can be viewed by appointment only.
Pictured above:
Henry Niese (b.1924)
Midnite Snow Blues
2010
Oil on Canvas
36 x 48 inches
