Lynne Drexler: Play of Color

Curated by John Kenneth Alexander

Charting the evolution of her signature style from early to mid-career through works on paper, works on panel, and oil paintings, the exhibition will celebrate Lynne Drexler (1928–1999), an inimitable 20th century artist whose charged work is now experiencing overdue appreciation.

Trained by Robert Motherwell at Hunter college and Hans Hofmann in both his New York and Provincetown schools, Drexler worked within the Abstract Expressionist world of 1950s New York. Like many other artists, she socialized at the Cedar Tavern, which also had been frequented by luminaries such as Jackson Pollock. Her embrace of Hans Hofmann’s “push-pull” color theory is evident in her work, such as her distinctive mosaic fields that exude vitality and establish atmospheric depth.

Drexler’s discontent with the male-dominated commercial New York scene—where she saw limited success—urged her to relocate to the remote Mohegan Island, Maine. A self-proclaimed “hermit”, this coastal reprieve proved to be both profoundly spiritual and productive for the artist, functioning akin to Giverny for Monet; Tahiti for Gauguin; New Mexico for O’Keeffe. Drexler became prolific, voraciously painting almost every day, with paintings lining the hallways and stacked in the rooms of her quaint island home. “Everything here is reduced to essentials,” she said of the island. “I’ve forgotten how to act on shore. On shore is the false reality. Here, is the true reality.”

In 2008, the Monhegan Museum and the Portland Museum of Art presented the first retrospective exhibition of Drexler’s art. Her works are in the collections of major institutions including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. Today, her works regularly fetch top prices in the secondary market.

The exhibition at Bonhams charts Drexler’s artistic career from 1957 to the late 1960s, as she pushed the boundaries of color and play, to establish the signature style for which she is best known.

Don't miss your chance to view Lynne Drexler: Play of Color at Bonhams New York, online through 23 June.