Sonia Gechtoff

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Sonia Gechtoff
Born Sonia Alice Gechtoff
1926 (age 97–98)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Nationality American
Education School of Industrial Arts, now the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
California School of Fine Art, now the San Francisco Art Institute
Known for Painting
Movement Abstract Expressionism
Spouse(s) James Kelly (1953-2003; his death)

Sonia Gechtoff (born 1926, Philadelphia, USA) is an American abstract expressionist painter. Her primary medium is painting but she has also created dozens of drawings and prints.

Early life and education

Sonia Gechtoff was born in Philadelphia to Ethel (Etya) and Leonid Gechtoff. Her mother managed art galleries, including her own East West gallery in San Francisco.[1] Her father was a highly successful genre artist. It was he who introduced his daughter to painting.[2]

Gechtoff's talent was recognized early and she was put in a succession of schools and classes for artistically gifted children. She graduated from the Philadelphia Museum School of Art (now the University of the Arts (Philadelphia))with a BFA in 1950. [3]

Career

In 1951, she relocated to San Francisco, sharing her social and professional life with such famous Bay Area artists as Hassel Smith, Philip Roeber, Madeline Dimond, Ernest Briggs, Elmer Bischoff, Byron McClintock, Deborah Remington and Howard Hack. Her works from this period were on "big" canvases.[4] Gechtoff married James Kelly, another noted Bay Area artist, in 1953.

Gechtoff and Kelly moved to New York in 1958 where she immediately became a part of the New York art world. She was represented by major galleries, among which were Poindexter and Gruenebaum, receiving consistently excellent reviews for her work. Teaching appointments and visiting professorships to New York University, Adelphi University, Art Institute of Chicago and the National Academy Museum and School, among others, were part of her professional life.[5]

Sonia lives and creates from her studio in New York.

Work

Prior to leaving for San Francisco, Gechtoff was heavily influenced by Ben Shahn's style of social realism.[5] Her work was figurative at that time.

Art in San Francisco when Sonia arrived was heavily directed by artists who had studied or taught at the California School of Fine Art (now the San Francisco Art Institute). Above all were the works of Clyfford Still to which she was introduced by her friend Ernie Briggs.[5] She rapidly shifted to Abstract Expressionism, taking from Still's work important lessons about line and shape. She is sometimes referred to as a "second-generation" abstract expressionist. [6]

Some of her finest work was done in the Bay Area, including the lyrical "Etya" which is in the Oakland Museum of California. In 1956 she inaugurated her complex "hair" drawings, masses of line that tangled into wispy shapes that float on the paper. Her bold, swirling compositions won her a place in the United States Pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958.[7]

According to Charles Dean, whose collection of Abstract Expressionist prints was acquired by the Library of Congress, Gechtoff was "...the most prominent woman working in California in the '50s".[8]

Gechtoff has continued to develop her work throughout her career, never staying with one style. Always abstract, her work began to incorporate graphite after a switch to acrylics from oil. The result has given a sense of linear rhythm to her work. She also developed an interest in doing a series of work on a theme as well as sets, multiple canvases comprising a single complete work. One of her most recent sets is the six canvas "Skip's Garden".

Notable exhibitions

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Group exhibitions

  • USA Pavilion, Brussels World Fair: "17 American Painters", 1958 [9]
  • Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1977
  • Guggenheim Museum, New York, "Younger American Painters 1954-55"
  • Bella Pacifica-Bay Area Abstract Expressionism" at the Nyehaus Gallery, New York 2011

Solo exhibitions

  • 6 Gallery, San Francisco, 1955
  • De Young Museum San Francisco, 1957
  • Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, 1957,1959
  • Poindexter Gallery, New York, 1959, 1960
  • Gruenebaum Gallery, New York, Works on Paper, 1975-1987
  • "The Ferus Years", Nyehaus Gallery, New York, 2011–12

Awards

  • Ford Foundation Fellowship, Tamarind Lithography, 1963
  • Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant 1989, 1994, 1998
  • National Endowment for the Arts Mid-Atlantic Grant, 1989
  • Elected into the National Academy of Design, 1993
  • Lee Krasner Lifetime Achievement Award, 2013 [10][11]

Public collections

References

  1. ↑ Landauer, Susan, The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism, The University of California Press, 1996, p.237n11. ISBN 978-0-520-08611-1
  2. ↑ Acton, David, The Stamp of Impulse: Abstract Expressionist Prints, p. 110, The Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, 2001. ISBN 90-5349-353-0
  3. ↑ Landauer 1996, p. 156.
  4. ↑ Albright, Thomas, "Art in the San Francisco Bay Area: 1945-1950: An Illustrated History", University of California Press, 1985, p. 52. ISBN 978-0-520-05518-6
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Acton 2001, p. 110
  6. ↑ Landauer 1996, p. 152.
  7. ↑ "Americans at Brussels: Soft Sell, Range & Controversy", Time Magazine, June 16, 1958, Vol. LXXI No. 24, p.73
  8. ↑ "Collector's Eye: Abstract Expressionist Prints", Forbes Collector, November 2005, Vol. 3, No. 11, p. 6.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Further reading

  • "Drawings by Extraordinary Women", The Museum of Modern Art, July 22, 1977, No. 55.
  • "The Cool Revival: Sonia Gechtoff in San Francisco", by Hirsch, Faye, Art in America Magazine (on-line), 01/21/11.
  • "Sonia Gechtoff at Her Best at Gruenebaum", by Kramer, Hilton, The New York Times, January 8, 1982.
  • Kramer, Hilton, "Reflections on Sonia Gechtoff", essay for Works on Paper, 1975-1987, a show at the Gruenebaum Gallery, 1987.
  • "Sonia Gechtoff: Four Decades, 1956-1995: Works on Paper", Schick Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, July 13-September 17, 1995.
  • "Sonia Gechtoff: New Works January 5-February 13", Gruenebaum Gallery, Ltd, New York, 1982.
  • "The Most Difficult Journey-The Poindexter Collection of American Modernist Painting", The University of Washington Press, 2002.
  • "Can We Still Learn to Speak Martian?", by Yau, John, April 29, 2012, in Hyperallergic, an on-line forum/newsletter

External links

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