ad astra! New works by Richard Meier
On view through March 31st, 2016 at Gary Lichtenstein Editions, 888 Newark Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jersey City, NJ 07306. T: 201-484-1485. Hours of operation: Monday-Friday, 10am-6pm. Weekends by appointment.
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Throughout his career Meier has contributed consistently to another important portfolio: the creation of his own artwork.
Richard Meier began experimenting with collage in the early 1950’s, during his undergraduate years at Cornell University. In addition to architecture, he studied art history and painting under Alan Solomon and John Hartell, respectively. After a brief apprenticeship following graduation, Meier took off on a European tour, intent on finding a “finishing” position abroad. Every avenue of Meier’s exploration introduced new and noteworthy collage materials and as his collection grew, so too did his body of work.
Upon his return to New York in 1961, Richard Meier was hired by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, where he worked under Gordon Bunshaft on the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. Bunshaft purchased two of Meier’s early collages, becoming one of his first collectors.
Six months later, Richard Meier joined the firm of Marcel Breuer, the Hungarian-born German Bauhaus architect who had fled to the United States in 1937 and who much later became the architect of the Whitney Museum in New York. Meier was put to work on a project for a synagogue in New Jersey as well as a new ski resort for Flaine in France. Simultaneously, Meier decided to take up painting and he began attending evening classes at the New School for Social Research taught by the painter, Stephen Greene, who also taught at Princeton University. It was through Greene that Meier met Frank Stella, who would become a lifelong friend.
For a short period of time, Meier shared Stella’s West Broadway studio space along with the sculptor, Carl Andre and the photographer Hollis Frampton. Predictably, the studio space proved to be too small for all four artists. Shortly thereafter, Meier met Michael Graves, a fellow architect who also happened to be painting in his spare time. In the summer of 1962, the two rented studio space in the Tananger Gallery on East 10th Street, from the painter Philip Pearlstein.
In 1962, 10th Street, particularly between 3rd and 4th Avenues, personified the downtown art scene in New York. The 10th Street Galleries had been operational for a decade and boasted impressive membership rosters that included Margaret Bartlett, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning, Al Held, Wolf Kahn, Alex Katz, George Segal and Tom Wesselman. Willem de Kooning’s studio happened to be two doors away from the Graves/Meier studio and one day de Kooning surprised the two artists by walking in un-announced. De Kooning took a look at the work on the walls and, according to Meier, he stalked out without a word. It was on that afternoon that Meier decided he could not succeed as both an architect and a painter. Concentration on architecture, his primary interest, was required. Meier walked away from painting at that time (though he has since returned to it) and a dozen years would pass before he returned to the subject of collage.
Over the years, Richard Meier’s artistic practice has expanded in parallel with his architectural practice. In 1992, Frank Stella introduced Meier to sculpture which resulted in the creation of a dramatic suite of cast, stainless steel works, many of which are on view in the neighboring Model Museum and all of which were inspired by the architectural models that are, in fact, their predecessors. Meier’s collection of sleek, sophisticated designs is equally impressive and includes, among others, furniture for Stow Davis and Knoll International, a wristwatch for Pierre Junod and a grand piano for Rud Ibach Sohn.
Meier’s collages, however, have always been at the forefront of his artistic practice, perhaps because they both record and illustrate his historical thought process. Each collage tells a story or at least, a portion of one. There is magical mystery in Meier’s collage work which, like his architecture, continually explores spatial and social relationships. The compositions are contemplative and they echo one of Meier’s defining principles:
Connect the present with the past; the tangible with the intangible.
In 2011, Richard Meier met Gary Lichtenstein, a publisher and master printer of limited edition silkscreen prints. Together they embarked on a journey that they are still on – evidence of every aspect can be found within the exhibition as well as within the rest of the studio. From silkscreen collage, to silkscreen with hand embellishment, silkscreen on paper and silkscreen on canvas – examples of each are here. The newest edition of collages is also on view and incorporates the process of encaustic, which uses melted wax as the primary component of the collage.
Collage has gained a firm place in the arsenal of 20th century fine arts and the degree of its influence has created a new consciousness. ad astra! New works by Richard Meier encompasses a uniquely diverse exhibition of collaged artworks, offering a glimpse of the artist’s sources of inspiration, study and reflection.
About Gary Lichtenstein Editions
Gary Lichtenstein Editions is a publisher and printer of limited fine art silkscreen editions. Over the course of his remarkable 40-year career, Gary Lichtenstein has published a wide range of silkscreen editions with artists including Carole Feuerman, Joanne Greenbaum, Bob Gruen, Gerard Hemsworth, Charles Hinman, Robert Indiana, Eugene Lemay, Richard Meier, Rebecca Miller, John Newsom, Yigal Ozeri, Gary Panter, Shelter Serra and Jessica Stockholder. He has printed for industry legends including Marina Abramovic, Karl Benjamin, Robert Cottingham and Ken Price.
