BUFFALO, NY.- An exhibition at the
Albright-Knox, Imperfections by Chance: Paul Feeley Retrospective, 1954–1966, takes a long overdue look at the influential work of Paul Feeley (American 1910–1966). The artist’s first retrospective in more than fifty years, the exhibition explores the full spectrum of his creative output: early Abstract Expressionist-–inspired paintings from the mid-1950s, organic figure–-ground compositions from the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the idiosyncratic, diagrammatical compositions that preoccupied him from 1962 until his untimely death in 1966, which share a conceptual affinity with Minimalism and Op Art. The exhibition also includes a selection of the painter’s fluid works on paper, as well as several painted sculptures, some of the last works he made.
By the time of his death, Feeley had achieved a level of recognition that far exceeded the twelve-year trajectory of his mature work. He was honored during his lifetime by multiple solo exhibitions at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery and the Betty Parsons Gallery, and two years after his death by a full-bodied retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Feeley approached painting as an open-ended proposition, a discipline without constraints, rigorous yet fluid. Having cut his artistic teeth on the precepts of Cubism, honed by impeccable draftsmanship, he eventually gravitated to abstraction by way of Abstract Expressionism. What began as anthropomorphic figure–ground images bled into canvas had by the late 1960s evolved into more complex hard-edge configurations based on numerical systems and characterized by eccentric shapes and monochromatic colors. Even as his conception of painting changed, his images retained their sly and quirky humor, erotic undertones, and relational dynamics. And by the end of his life, the painter clearly envisioned the sculptural extension of his painted forms as ideas whose execution could be entrusted to others.
Feeley’s role in spearheading the art department at Bennington College (Bennington, Vermont) during the late 1930s is legendary. “Paul had enormous vitality,” recalled Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928–2011), one of his most formidable students, years later during an interview with Barbara Rose. “I mean, his whole style was energy, curiosity, appetite. Everything interested him.” Feeley’s distinguished tenure at Bennington, from 1939 to 1966, enabled his own artistic development through collegial friendships with Lawrence Alloway, Gene Baro, Anthony Caro, Clement Greenberg, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Jackson Pollock, and David Smith.
Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Feeley grew up in Palo Alto, California. In 1931 he moved to New York. During the 1930s, he painted several murals under the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. He served in the Marine Corps during World War II. After the war he resumed teaching at Bennington, where he remained for the rest of his life, directing one of the most influential art departments of the time. Feeley was widely exhibited during his career and had a significant influence on a younger generation of artists. His work is represented in many important collections, including those of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Imperfections By Chance comprises forty paintings, fifteen works on paper, and three sculptures. Initiated by Peggy Pierce Elfvin Director Janne Sirén and organized by Albright-Knox Chief Curator Emeritus Douglas Dreishpoon and Tyler Cann, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Columbus Museum of Art, the exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Dreishpoon and Cann and an illustrated chronology by Cary Cordova.
The exhibition will remain on view at the Albright-Knox until February 15, 2015, and will travel to the Columbus Museum of Art, where it will be on view from October 16, 2015, to January 10, 2016.
