New Representation
Stanley Whitney
Gagosian is pleased to announce the representation of Stanley Whitney. Renowned for the depth of his exploration into the expressive potentials of painted color and form, Whitney has been committed to abstraction since the mid-1970s. While living in Rome in the 1990s, he consolidated a process-based painterly approach which he has now sustained and developed over the course of three decades.
Dividing square canvases into sequences of loosely defined rectangular blocks of saturated color that are demarcated by linear bands, Whitney chooses each successive color in relation to those laid down previously. His visible brushwork establishes nuanced passages amid the boundaries of these planes. The resulting chromatic and spatial interactions define relationships between each shape and the composition as a whole. The strictures of the modernist grid are loosened in his paintings, their freehand geometries at one with their progression of vivid hues.
Following the 2020 exhibition of his work at Gagosian Rome, Whitney will have a solo exhibition with the gallery in London in 2023.
#StanleyWhitney
Photo: Jeannette Montgomery Barron/Trunk Archive
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Auction
Artsy Spotlight Auction: Stanley Whitney
In Support of the Art for Justice Fund and Planned Parenthood of Greater New York
September 27–October 7, 2022
The Freedom We Fight For (2022), a new painting by Stanley Whitney, will be featured in a single-lot benefit auction hosted by Artsy, in partnership with Gagosian. All proceeds from the sale will support Art for Justice Fund and Planned Parenthood of Greater New York in their respective urgent fights for decarceration and criminal justice reform and reproductive rights in the United States. The artwork is viewable at Gagosian, Park & 75, New York, during the auction.
The eighty-inch-square oil-on-linen abstract painting underscores Whitney’s facility as a colorist. Pieced together from rectilinear fields of red, yellow, green, blue, orange, brown, black, and gray divided by horizontal bands of red, blue, and teal, its “stacked” composition, translucent layers of paint, and energetic brushwork effectively deconstruct the modernist grid. Whitney draws inspiration from Greek and Mediterranean ceramics and the juxtaposition of ancient and modern Roman architecture.
Stanley Whitney, The Freedom We Fight For, 2022 © Stanley Whitney
Commission
Stanley Whitney
Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies
The Baltimore Museum of Art has commissioned Stanley Whitney to create a set of three large-scale stained-glass windows, titled Dance with Me Henri, for the new Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies, an approximately 2,500-square-foot space on the first floor of the museum dedicated to the study of Henri Matisse, opening December 2021. Whitney has long been recognized for his vibrant explorations of color and light within the painterly structures of the grid and has often cited historic European painting—including the work of Matisse and, in particular, Matisse’s glass windows for the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence in southern France—as a source of inspiration for his formal investigations. To create the panels, Whitney is working with Franz Mayer of Munich, one of the world’s oldest and most celebrated artist glass studios.
Stanley Whitney’s installation Dance with Me Henri (2021) at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Artwork © Stanley Whitney
In Conversation
Stanley Whitney
Matthew Jeffrey Abrams
Thursday, October 15, 2020, 2pm EDT
In the context of Stanley Whitney’s exhibition of recent paintings at Gagosian, Rome, which closes on October 17, Whitney and author Matthew Jeffrey Abrams will discuss Abram’s new monograph on the artist and the diverse formative influences on the artist’s imagination. To join, register at zoom.us.
Stanley Whitney at his studio near Parma, Italy, 2012. Photo: Marina Adams, courtesy the artist
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