|
C105
article
WHY
NY? TWINKLER
Jeanne
Greenberg Rohatyn describes how she found one Irish artist
in New York.
 |
| Elizabeth
Magill: Sky/ Branches, 2000, oil on canvas,
137 x 142 cm; courtesy Artemis Greenberg Van Doren
Gallery |
Every June, my father, Ronald
Greenberg, and I make the artworld pilgrimage to Basel
for the Basel Art Fair. For the past several years, we
begin our day upstairs where we hope to find an artist
of note, but as yet unknown. Dorsey Waxter, our gallery
director, has sent us with a mission - to identify a landscape
painter who might share an affinity with some of the young
painters who we show like Cameron Martin and Benjamin
Edwards.
The landscape?
Yes, the landscape had been virtually ignored by my father's
generation of '60s and '70s minimalist, conceptualist
and pop artists. His references were the barren desertscapes
of earthwork artists or Roy Lichtenstein's mock Chinese
landscapes. This would be a challenge.
From booth
to booth we went, until a twinkle emerged from a snowy
forest and caught our eyes. The artist had actually applied
a few glass gems to the surface of her painting, a subtle
and humorous application to great effect. A snowstorm
out of a Grimms fairytale. It turned out to be an Elizabeth
Magill painting from the Kerlin Gallery in Dublin, Ireland.
 |
Elizabeth
Magill: Burma, 2003, oil on canvas, 122
x 152.5 cm; courtesy Artemis Greenberg Van Doren
Gallery
|
e purchased the painting on the
spot, and our interest was registered. We were told that
Magill works slowly, destroying many canvases along the
way, her process being intuitive and organic rather than
conceptual. While she begins with a place via photographs
taken from her travels, the actual laying down of the
surface is not controlled.
Our interest
in her work grew throughout the year as I live with the
painting. While immediately seductive, this mysterious
winter scene turned out to be slow, brooding and contemplative.
The next
year in Basel we returned to the Kerlin Gallery to invite
Magill to show her work at our New York gallery. Two years
later, Elizabeth flew to New York to hang her show. And
on opening day, it snowed and snowed - as if she had cast
a spell on New York with her paintbrush in hand.
A prophetic
painting, found in Basel, tells our story.
Jeanne
Greenberg Rohatyn is Director of the Artemis Greenberg
Van Doren Gallery
Do
you have an opinion on this article? If so, please click here for our comments form.
| No reader feedback so far - awaiting your input! |
Back
to top of page
|
