Untitled (Blue, Multi-Color), 1961
Oil and pastel on paper
8 x 6 inches
Louis Stern Fine Arts is pleased to present Karl Benjamin: Drawings 1950-1965. The exhibition opens on Saturday, March 5 with a reception for the artist from 6-9 pm and continues through Saturday, April 9, 2005.
Who could have imagined that Karl Benjamin, best known for his radiantly hued hard-edge paintings, would carve such elegant geometric poetry from the restrictive palette of india ink and paper? Yet in these drawings, executed in the beginning stages of his career, Benjamin’s meticulous dissection of the space of a page echoes a lifetime’s commitment to the potency of linear invention.
The artist has written extensively on the significance of color in his painting. Yet his drawings celebrate the visceral power of line. Irregularly shaped columns of jet back cut into the white of the page at astonishing and delicate angles. Intermittently the lines’ abstractions suggest figures or landscapes. Always the lines suggest a vigorous conversation betwixt emotion and reason. In their evocative constructs, the drawings manage to conjure a world of imagined color without ever betraying the rigors of black and white.
The artist’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe and is included in a number of prestigious private and public collections. Karl Benjamin is represented exclusively by Louis Stern Fine Arts.