Estate of Jake Berthot [1939 – 2014]
Untitled, 2002
Graphite on paper
22 1/2 x 27 1/2 in. (57.15 x 69.85 cm)
JB10269
Untitled, 2008
Pencil on paper
24 1/2 x 17 1/2 in. (62.23 x 44.45 cm)
JB12807
The Longing For, 2010
Oil on linen
26 1/2 x 34 1/2 in. (67.31 x 87.63 cm)
JB13318
Untitled (Angels Putti), 2007
Ink Wash and Gesso on Paper
18 1/2 x 19 3/8 in. (46.99 x 49.21 cm)
JB13686
Skull in Landscape, 2011-2012
Oil on Panel
10 1/2 x 10 1/2 in. (26.67 x 26.67 cm)
JB13719
When the News Filtered to the Angels They Were Overwhelmed by Their Sudden Aloneness (Angels Putti), 2007
Ink Wash and Gesso on Paper
28 1/4 x 20 5/8 in. (71.76 x 52.39 cm)
JB13690
Artist Model, Angels Putti, Poetry Visual Prose
July 5 – August 10, 2012
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 12th 6 – 8 PM
Betty Cuningham Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition, Artist Model, Angels Putti, Poetry Visual Prose, works on paper by Jake Berthot. This will be the artist’s fourth exhibition at the Gallery, located at 541 West 25th Street, New York, NY. The artist will be present for an opening reception on Thursday, July 12th, from 6 – 8 PM.
The exhibition will include 32 works on paper and according to Berthot these drawings are not preparatory for painting, as is true of his recent, well-known landscape drawings. They stand alone as his own personal visual vocabulary. As the title for the show indicates, the works divide into three categories: 1. Artist and Model, 2. Angels and Putti and 3. Poetry and Visual Prose. Berthot did several Artist Model drawings in 1986 and then revisited this theme in 2005-7. In these drawings he explores the relationship between an artist and his models: the dilemma of a blank canvas, the focus on the voluptuous model or a bow to earlier masters. They are, in the high art sense, classical cartoons. The Angel and Putti works honor masters of past generations such as, Tiepolo, Raphael or Puvis de Chavannes. And finally the last category, Poetry and Visual Prose, deals with line as meaning and letters as drawing, where Berthot blends his own poetry in to the line on the page. The works on paper are in ink wash and gesso; they range in size from 18 x 9 inches to 23 x 35 inches, and they are selected by the artist from works of the last 25 years.
Jake Berthot was born in Niagara Falls, NY in 1939. He attended the New School for Social Research and Pratt Institute in the early 1960’s and has been exhibiting in New York since the early 1970’s. The artist has held teaching positions at Cooper Union, Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, and currently is teaching at The School of Visual Arts. He has received a number of awards and grants, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1981, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1983 and an Academy Institute Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1992. Berthot’s work can be seen in a host of notable museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, all in New York City. Nationally, his work can be found in the collections of The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, the Museum of Art, University of California, Berkeley, CA, among numerous others. The artist currently lives and works in upstate New York.
Click below for full press release.
