Graham Nickson: Dual Natures captures the essential core of Graham Nickson's paintings of the past 30 years: the figure in the landscape, in particular the coastal landscape. The long, low-lying horizon that sharply divides the picture is in stark contrast to the nearly always uprightness of the figures. An unstated proposition arises: Do nature and man co-exist or is man simply a passing moment, an incident that marks time?
 The text by Andrew Forge and Harold Cooper address this question and examine the profound scholarship of and homage to certain key figures in art. Obvious references include Cezanne's Bather, the quiet and solemn paintings of Picasso's blue period, Matisse's color and light, the sculptures of Rodin and Degas. Nickson straddles the depictive and abstract in a way that brings vigor to the work, using enigma and ambiguity to engage the viewer in the drama of a moment.

Graham Nickson: Dual Natures

Arts & Photography

Forge, Andrew

Nickson, Graham

Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum

Cooper, Harold

Painting

Frye Art Museum

The product of six years of research, this book takes a close look at the life and impact of the New York Abstract Expressionist painter Mercedes Matter (1913–2001). Matter was a part of the social axis around Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Hans Hofmann, Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, and occupied roles as painter, muse, model, critic and educator (she was the founder of the New York Studio School, and was responsible for its hiring Guston, Alex Katz and Morton Feldman among others). Matter's painting might more usefully be called Abstract Impressionism, since her particular skill was for a form of abstraction drawn from still life, but only just recognizable as such, and often not at all, as her figurations frequently tipped over into a joyously dispersed mark-making. This volume, the first thorough survey of its subject, includes reproductions of Matter's paintings, previously unpublished correspondence from her circle (including letters from Hofmann, Krasner and Pollock), vintage portraits of Matter by her husband, the Swiss photographer and graphic designer Herbert Matter, and essays exploring her numerous activities and impact.

Mercedes Matter

Zakian, Michael

Landau, Ellen

Braff, Phyllis

Kraskin, Sandra

Individual Artists

MB Art Publishing Co.

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