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Reuben Nakin Myths & Muses Sculpture, Plaques & Drawings Reuben Nakian was a giant of the twentieth-century modernist American sculpture. His art-historical stride extended from an apprenticeship with Paul Manship and a studio assistant ship with Gaston Lachaise, to his role as a major participant in the discourse surrounding Abstract Expressionism, particularly with Arshile Gorky and Willem DeKooning. During his seventy-five year career as an artist, he established a profound oeuvre based almost entirely on energetic, daring, and often erotic abstractions of the female figure. A prolific sculptor in stone, terracotta, plaster, steel, and bronze, Nakin remained a vital creative force until his death in 1986. While Reubin Nakian's work has been shown in museums and galleries around the world (the Reubin Nakin Centennial Retrospective exhibition is currently on view at the Reading Public Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania until January 10, 1998, and moves in early February to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., for a two-month stay), this exhibition is his first solo show in Boston. To introduce Boston Area audiences to his work, the Creiger-Dane Gallery has assembled a set of works which spans his carer, introduces its major themes, and provides an in-depth look at one of Nakian's preferred media:bronze. The earliest work include animal studies from the 1920's, which reveal Nakin's stylistic relationship to direct stone carving. This popular style, which emerged from the more linear Art Deco style, stressed mass and volume over line, but retained Art Deco's stylized surfaces and suggestively abstracted forms. Related works on paper reveal that the issue of drawing, however, was always central to Nakin's aesthetic. Nakin's freestanding figures and figurative groups- Voyage to Create, Nymph and Goat, Europa and the Bull with Dolphions, ect.- represent the work for which he is best known. These gestural, Abstract Expressionist sculptures are based on the radical abstraction of the female form as a way to transcend mere appearance to address more primal, essential issues. They are often erotic, sometimes tragic and always passionate engagements of deep emotional and spiritual states. The titles, appropriately, refer to characters and stories from classical mythology, which underscores the deep psychological underpinnings of the work, and reveals Nakin's undying allegiance to Mediterranean history and culture. These sculptures also exhibit Nakin's consistent preoccupation with drawing, through their insistent linear thrust into space. Drawing and sculpture come most smoothly together in Nakin's bronze plaques. These low relief sculptures are metal casts of plaster objects, into which the artist drew with following, exuberant, and earthly incised lines. The themes are the same- nymphs, mystic lovemaking, charged encounters between humans and animals- but the spare quality of line and broad surfaces lead to a more bucolic and pastoral content than the more explosive interpretations of the Classical tradition found in the freestanding bronzes. If you are interested in any of these works, feel free to email geeta@creiger-dane.com. The navigation buttons on the upper right will take you to the top (this page), previous, and next page in this show. You may click on our logo at any time to return to our home page. We hope you enjoy your visit, and invite you to sign our Guest Book. |
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 Europa with Dolphins Voyage to Crete Nymph and Goat (Long Legged Nymph) Nymph and Goat (1980) Juno Nymph and Goat (1982)(Roses II) Leda and the Swan Nymph and Goat (1970) Europa with Cupid Nymph and Dolphin Europa and the Bull with Cupid Swan Pose Bull Seal with Ball Bull Standing #2 Bull and Cow Leda and the Swan |