Ten From The Drawing Center

In celebration of its tenth year, The Drawing Center organized Ten From The Drawing Center, an exhibition of recent drawings by ten artists, many of whom had first been seen publicly in exhibitions at The Drawing Center. At this point in time, The Drawing Center had featured the works of 359 artists, since its establishment in 1977.

The exhibition spanned The Drawing Center's ten-year history, ranging from the work of Terry Winters, who had exhibited in the first group exhibition Summer 77, to that of Tim Stocco and Blake Summers, both included in the recent exhibition, Selections 33. Demonstrating the rich diversity of work within The Drawing Center's broad definition of drawing, the exhibition included oversize works on paper by Taka Amano, Richard Bosman, Peter Drake, James Elaine, Thomas Lawson, Joseph Nechvatal, Graham Nickson, Tim Stocco, Blake Summers and Terry Winters.

The continuing involvement with the figure as a subject by contemporary artists was demonstrated by Graham Nickson's sunlit charcoals of bathers and Blake Summers's dark mysterious portraits which combined the traditional medium of charcoal, pencil and ink with asphaltum and spray paint. Peter Drake evoked an eerie dreamworld in his large sanded ink drawings, while Richard Bosman explored menacing aspects of the natural world. Flesh Winter, a series on blueprint paper by James Elaine, juxtaposed classical nudes with signs of contemporary civilization, including oil derricks and TV antennae. Thomas Lawson placed classical sculpture in a witty context which used overall abstract patterns, recalling contemporary artists' involvement with surface. Joseph Nechvatal employed an abstract patterning and gradations of color that all but obscured underlying line drawings, while Taka Amano's geometric abstractions were a layering of pale washes of red, yellow and blue watercolor which seemed to hover on or below the surface of the work. Tim Stocco's work took nature as a source of inspiration as well as material, incorporating fruit pulp, burning sticks and pine needles in addition to more conventional mediums such as powdered pigment and charcoal. Terry Winters, also inspired by nature, had developed a personal abstract vocabulary based on elemental animal and vegetable forms.

The exhibition was on view in the PaineWebber Art Gallery, on the ground floor of PaineWebber's headquarters at 1285 Avenue of the Americas.