Tondo, 1973, oil on canvas, 48" diameter

Hedda Sterne was the only female Irascible in the famous Rudy Burkhardt photo of that group on the cover of Life Magazine in 1951. Strong examples like Tondo, rarely come to market, as a large portion of her strongest works was donated from her estate to the Museum of Modern Art.

Theodoros Stamos, Untitled, 1954, oil on board, 22 1/4 x13 inches

Long Island Sound, 1949, gouache on board, 7 by 9.75 inches

This marvelous small composition was inspired by Stamos' visits to Long Island Sound where he sought both solace and inspiration for his work. He is one of the Irascibles.

Green Tax, mosaic, 1954, 21 x 14 inches , exhibited at Stable Gallery

Jeanne Reynal is one of the truly hidden gems of American modernism. She is the pioneer mosaicist of the mid century. Her works are both abstract and figurative.

Untitled, 1982, oil on honeycomb board, 39.5 x 29.5 inches

Milton Resnick was a master at making his own pigments, and when he sold his formulas to a paint company in the late 1970's, he negotiated a lifetime supply of paint as part of the deal. His paintings transformed in incredibly deep impasto landscapes of color, where he literally "painted himself out of the picture". One can spend a long while just peering into this three dimensional field of textured color. This example was created in the summer of 1982, where he taught at the Skowhegan school of art in Maine. The painting was shipped to Norway afterwards for a gallery show and sold into a collection where it remained for the next 30 years before being acquired by a US collector in 2012.

Untitled, 1972, oil on paper, 25 x 20 inches

Milton Resnick painted this oil on paper composition and gave it to Elaine de Kooning, where it has remained with her heirs for the past 45 years. It is in beautiful condition.

Egypt Beach, 1968, oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

Walter Plate is truly an example of an extraordinary mid century artist, who saw a rapid ascent alongside his protege Phillip Guston, only to have his life end in his mid 40's at a time when the market turned its back on the Abstractionists. During the last 8 years of his short life, Plate responded to the POP art movement with his own far more edgy imagery. And while he flattened the visual plane over what he had mastered with his pure abstractions of the prior decade, his exquisite use of color and line produce imagery that is both suggestive and timeless. Like Guston, Plate painted his own emoitionally infused journey inventively, and was much of a recluse. Few people ever saw the inside of his studio.. Unlike Guston, even though Plate received a great deal of critical acclaim, he was little interested in embracing his dealers. As such, his legacy for the most part remained a secret for much of the 45 years following his death in 1972.

Blue X, 1968, oil on paper, 32 x 36 inches

Walter Plate created a series of paintings and drawings on X.

Untitled, 1956, oil on paper, 24 x 19 inches

Plate, like so many artists of the New York School in the 50's, drew inspiration from peers including de Kooning and Guston. This painting is one of a small group he created in 1956 that lead to his major composition titled, Attic Toys.

Walter Plate, Memories, 1969, mixed media on paper, 18 x 24 inches

Plate, a great draftsman, became increasingly depressed by the late 1960s. This drawing done in 1969 suggests that much of what was love and happiness was only a memory. Much of his body of work was a a personal narrative.

Grace Hartigan, The Dream, 1962, oil on canvas, 81 x 91 inches

This is painting was one of the first major paintings Grace Hartigan created upon leaving New York for Baltimore. It is the sister painting to the work that was acquired by Governor Nelson Rockefeller and exhitited in Albany next to the Governor's mansion, before arson partially destroyed it.

Ibram Lassaw, The Red One, 1964, welded mixed metals, 72 x 29 x 24 inches

Ibram Lassaw created very few outdoor sculptures. The Red One, created in 1964 is a weathered tower of numerous geometries. It sat outdoors his studio for 50 years before it was removed to our location.

Untitled 84-6, Gouache on paper, 1984, 9 x 11 inches

Ibram Lassaw created several non-objective, organic and geometric compositions. They were done in tandem with many of his sculptures. This painting comes from his estate.

Ibram Lassaw, Hyperion, 1990, welded and soldered mixed metals, 17.25 x 17.5 x 14 inches

Ibram Lassaw. From the artist's estate

Connie Fox, The Marble Faun, 1955, Encaustic on Masonite, 20.25 x 11.25 inches

Connie Fox is one of Elaine de Kooning's earliest students, a great friend and longtime neighbor. Elaine acquired a number of Connie's early paintings. We are priveleged to offer this and other works by Fox directlyl from Elaine de Kooning's heirs.

Elaine de Kooning, Bull, 1960, mixed media collage, 18 x 24 inches

Elaine de Kooning is most well known for her Bull series artworks, created between 1958-64. This work comes with her estate provenance.

Elaine de Kooning, Portrait of Michael Sonnabend, 1956, oil on canvas, 50 x 29.75 inches

Elaine de Kooning notariety as a portraitist was cemented with her receiving the commission to paint President John F. Kennedy's portrait for the White House. It was her ability to quickly capture the gesture with her rapid brush strokes as seen here in her portrait of Michael Sonnanbend, as well in so many other portraits between 1950 and 1962 that earned her the reputation to secure the commission.

Elaine de Kooning, Rocks and Foliage(Catskill Series), 1965 mixed media on paper, 26 x 32 inches

When Elaine finished her Bull Series, she turned to landscapes inspired by the woods of upstate New York where she kept a small studio.

Elaine de Kooning, Cave #49-Morning Horses,1984, oil on canvas mounted on board, 30 x 40 inches

Most of Elaine de Kooning 's cave paintings were large, being up to 15 feet wide. This particular painting is one of the few exceptions known. It is 30 x 40 inches, and has all of the stylistic attributes of her larger works.

East End Artists 1949-1972

Hidden Gems of Post-War Abstraction

07/05/2017

The East End of Long Island was a sleepy place in 1949, when artists like de Kooning, Pollock, Brooks and other big names were just seeing their careers beginning to spark. They sought refuge from the endless push in their New York studios by finding small houses well out on Long Island's East End. These artists played hard, often memorializing their emotional release of the moment in their art. This on-line exhibition brings together artworks by some of the well known artists (Elaine de Kooning, Theodoros Stamos, Ibram Lassaw and Grace Hartigan) with artworks of equal caliber by their less well known peers including Walter Plate and Hedda Sterne who frequented and painted at times on the East End. With a renewed interest in the works of the less well known modernists being undertaken by many of the nation's museums and curators, opportunities abound to collect these artists with more confidence. We invite you to take a look. This is a small sample of the inventory available.