Anne Tabachnick: Object as Muse

Lori Bookstein Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings by Anne Tabachnick. This is the artist's fifth solo show at the gallery.

Anne Tabachnick: Object as Muse will survey the artist’s career-long fascination with still life through several mural-sized paintings. A self-described “lyrical expressionist,” Tabachnick could be at once grounded to and disconnected from her subject. In “Blue Quilt–MacDowell” (1971), she chooses the most traditional of items for a still life study (a melon, a vase, a bouquet of flowers) but disperses them across an ethereal blue ground, arranged loosely along an imperfect grid. The objects depicted in her paintings, while filled with the essence of the thing represented, come together to transmit an abstracted state of the world which has decidedly little to do with reality.

Anne Tabachnick was born in Derby, CT in 1927. Her formal art training at Hunter College, University of California, Berkeley, and the Hans Hofmann School was supplemented by studies with the painters Nell Blaine and William Baziotes. Tabachnick's ever-evolving style drew life-long inspiration from the New York School, but was also heavily indebted to the "Grand Tradition" of European Masters: El Greco, Bonnard, Cézanne, and Matisse were among her favorites. Non-western sources, like Mai-Mai Sze’s seventeenth century Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, were also pivotal in Tabachnick's personal formulation of calligraphic drawing and vertical space.

Tabachnick's many honors and awards include the Longview Foundation Award, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Fellowship, and the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. Throughout her life, Tabachnick was awarded numerous residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, and Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the National Academy of Design, the Hyde Collection, and the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College. Tabachnick lived and worked in New York City until her death in 1995.

Anne Tabachnick: Object as Muse will be on view from January 8 – February 7, 2015. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, January 8th from 6-8 pm. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10:30 am to 6:00 pm. For additional information and/or visual materials, please contact Joseph Bunge at (212) 750-0949 or by email at joseph@loribooksteinfineart.com.