Deborah Remington

Biography:

Deborah Remington's work, before her recent death in 2010, addressed the paradoxes of visual perception, the enigmas and quirks, and how it all forms the basis for our realities. The impact, excitement, and energies created by incongruity, juxtaposition and opposites all informed Deborah's art.

As Deborah Remington stated, "The images are couched in paradoxical terms, challenge the mind's eye, invoke opposites and hold them in tension. The work at times seems to refer to something in reality, but then the reference is denied. Identity; the fusion of so many experiences, so many inquiries, so many intuitions is also a primary issue."

Deborah Remington was born in 1935 and raised in Haddonfield, New Jersey. A descendant of the famed Western artist, Frederic Remington, she received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1955. In 1954, during the Beat years, she was one of the six painters and poets, and the only woman, who founded the now legendary 6 Gallery in San Francisco, where Alan Ginsburg first read his poem, Howl. Remington spent two years in Japan studying calligraphy after graduation, then traveled throughout South East Asia and India, pursuing a lifelong interest in those cultures, while doing odd jobs to support herself, including working as a cook, translator, and actress doing bit parts in movies and television, before returning to the United States to take up painting seriously. She moved to New York City in 1965. Remington has been the recipient of a several fellowships including a Guggenheim, a National Endowment for the Arts, and a Tamarind Fellowship, among others.

Deborah Remington gained renown after 1963 for an aggressive and emblematic visual language influenced by abstract expressionism and her undergraduate work. Her canvases featured machinelike shapes made of nested forms centered and floating on a ground. The frontal presentation of her imagery, heightened theatricality and use of intense color juxtaposition, together with ambiguous, radiating light, are all hallmarks of Remington's work. In 1962, she joined the Dilexi Gallery in San Francisco and had solo shows in 1962,’63,’ and ’65. In 1966, Remington became affiliated with the Bykert Gallery in New York and had solo shows there in 1967,’69,’72, and ’74. She lived in Paris in 1967 and 1968, and had the inaugural show at Galerie Darthea Speyer in 1968. This exhibition introduced her work to Europe.

During the 1970s, Deborah Remington continued painting and exhibiting both nationally and internationally, while pursuing and refining her unique imagery. In 1972, she was interviewed for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C. Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, NM invited Remington to make lithographs, and she produced 15 editions there beginning in 1973. Her work evolved again in the late 1970s; a different spatial dialogue emerged and the color took on a new intensity.

Deborah Remington had a 20 year (1963-1983) Retrospective exhibition which opened at the Newport Harbor Museum in California in 1983, and traveled to the Oakland Museum of Art and several other venues. In 1984, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship and began to pursue a new and different direction in her work. In1987, after a four-year hiatus from exhibiting, Remington showed radically transformed imagery at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York and at the Shoshana Wayne gallery in Los Angeles the following year. The mechanistic and didactic flavor of the earlier works had been replaced with looser, more expressionistic and organic qualities, subtlety and paradox, with vigorously painted surfaces and more all-over compositions. She continued exploring this new direction and exhibiting the work throughout the 1990s, including a 1992 show at Galerie Darthea Speyer, Paris. She was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1999 and also received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant that same year.

In 2001, Deborah Remington produced a breakthrough painting titled Eridan , which she says finally united the free-flowing gesturalism of both her very early and later work, with the more intense, emblematic, mechanistic, and sensuous aspects of the work by which she is best known. That same year, she exhibited new paintings and large scale drawings at the Mitchell Algus Gallery in New York. Also in 2001, an early lithograph from the Beat years was included in the Stamp of Impulse: Abstract Expressionist Prints exhibition at the Worcester Art museum in MA. The show traveled to other museums in the U.S. for several years and Remington’s piece was featured on the cover of the 295 page catalogue. In 2002, a large painting was included in the Parallels and Intersections exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Art. CA. Remington’s work is included in over 38 major museum collections worldwide. She lives and works in New York City and Pennsylvania.

 

Résumé:

Born: Haddonfield, NJ 1935

ONE WOMAN SHOWS: (partial listing)
1962 Dilexi Gallery, San Francisco
1963 Dilexi Gallery, San Francisco
1964 San Francisco Museum of Art
1965 Dilexi Gallery, San Francisco
1967 Bykert Gallery, New York
1968 Gallerie Darthea Speyer, Paris
1969 Bykert Gallery, New York
1971 Gallerie Darthea Speyer, Paris; Obelisk Gallery, Boston
1972 Bykert Gallery, New York
1973 Pyramid Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Gallerie Darthea Speyer, Paris
1974 Bykert Gallery, New York; Brooke Alexander, Inc., New York; Michael Berger Gallery, Pittsburgh, Pa.
1976 Pyramid Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Zolla-Lieberman Gallery, Chicago
1977 Hamilton Gallery, New York; Portland Center for the Visual Arts, Portland, Oregon; Museum, University of Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri
1978 Art Gallery, Miami Dade Community College, South Campus, Miami,Florida
1979 Michael Berger Gallery, Pittsburgh, Pa.
1980 Bonfoey Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
1982 Mary Ryan Gallery, New York
1983 Ramon Osuna Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, Ca.
1984 Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland, Ca.; Adams-Middleton Gallery, Dallas, Texas; Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, Ca.; Museum, San Jose State University, San Jose, Ca.
1985 Ianuzzi Gallery, Phoenix, Az.
1986 Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
1987 Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles, Ca.
1992 Gallerie Darthea Speyer, Paris
2001 Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York

GROUP SHOWS: (partial listing)
Whitney Museum Painting Annuals, New York, 1965, 1967, 1972
Drawings from West Coast America, Auckland Museum, New Zealand, 1962
Recent California Painting and Sculpture, La Jo11a Museum, Ca., 1965
San Francisco Museum of Art Painting Annuals, Ca., 1956,'60,'61,'63,'64,'65
11 Salon de Galleries Pilotes, Lausanne Museum, Switzerland, 1966
University of Illinois Biennial, Champagne-Urbana, Illinois, 1967
Recent Acquistions Show, Whitney Museum, New York, 1966
Art Vivant 1965-1968, Fondation Maeght, St. Paul de Vence, France, 1968
The Art of Organic Form, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1968
Art on Paper, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, 1968
L'Art Vivant Americain, Fondation Maeght, St. Paul de Vence, France, 1970
Painting and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana, 1970
American Painting Today, Virginia Museum, Richmond, Virginia, 1970
Drawings by New York Artists, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, 1971 (circulated to other museums, 1972-1973)
A Period of Exploration, Oakland Museum, Oakland, Ca., 1973
Woman's Work American Art, 1974, Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center, Phila., Pa., 1974
71st American Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ill., 1974
Image, Color, and Form: Recent Paintings by Eleven Americans, Toledo Museum, Toledo, OH, 1975
Painting Endures, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Mass., 1975
American Artists '76:A Celebration, McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, Texas, 1976
Drawing Now: 10 Artists, SoHo Center for the Visual Arts, New York, 1976
Drawing Today in New York, Exhibition traveled to six university museums in 1976, 1977
Painting and Sculpture in California: the Modern Era, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, S.F., Ca., 1976.
National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C., 1977
Three Artists: Three Viewpoints, Museum of North Texas State University, Denton, TX, 1976
Drawings of the 70's, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 1977
41st Annual National Mid-Year Show, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, 1977
New in the 70's, Blanton Art Museum, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, 1977
New Dimensions in Drawing, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Conn., 1981
The New Spiritualism, Oscarsson Hood Gallery, New York, 1981. Exhibition traveled to two university museums in 1981, 1982
LIS '81, International Exhibition of Drawings, National Gallery of Modern Art, Lisbon, Portugal, 1981
La Part Des Femmes Dans L'Art Contemporain, Gallery Municipale, Ville De VitrySur-Seine, France, 1984
The Dilexi Years: 1958-1970, Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland, Ca., 1984
American Art: American Women, Stamford Museum, Stamford, CT., 1985-86
Fall Invitational, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT.,9/26/87 - 1/3/88
39th, 40th, 41st Annual Purchase Exhibitions, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, 1987, 1988, 1989.
The Question of Drawing, South Campus Art Gallery, Miami-Dade College, Miami, FL. 1989(circulated to other museums, 1989-1990)
The 6 Gallery 1954-1957, Natsoulas Noveloso Gallery, Davis, CA., 1990
ler Trieannale des Ameriques, Maubeuge, France. April 24 - June 30, 1993
The Print Club of Cleveland Publication Prints 1924-1994, 75th Anniversary Exhibition, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio. March 9 - 3une 26, 1994
175th,178th, 180th, 182nd Annual Exhibition, National Academy, New York, N.Y. 2000, 2003, 20005, 2007
Reconstructing Abstraction, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, N.Y. 4/12 – 5/13/2000
The Stamp of Impulse: Abstract Expressionist Prints, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA 2001
travels to Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, Amon-Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX,, and others
Parallels and Intersections: Art/Women/California, 1950-2000. San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, Ca. 6/29-10/22/2002
Contemporary Prints from the Collection, National Academy of Design Museum, NY, 7/2 – 9/26/2004
Disegno 180th Annual Exhibit, National Academy, New York. May 25-July 3, 2005
Paths to the Press: Printmaking and American Women Artists, 1910-1960
Mariana Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS..2005.
travels to Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston, IL 2005 and other venues in 2006-2008
The Abstract Impulse. Fifty Years of Abstraction at the National Academy, 1956-2006.
National Academy Museum, New York, NY. 9/18/07-1/06/08.
Printed in Omaha: A Retrospective Exhibition of the UNO Print Workshop. Omaha, Nebraska. Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha. Feb. 29-April 5, 2008. Il: Tempus. p.44
The Artist’s Mark: Then and Now, Sirolli Fine Art, New York, NY. 3/17 – 4/12/ 2008
Psychedelic: Optical & Visionary Art Since the 1960s, San Antonio Museum of Art, TX. 2009.
travels to other museums in the U.S. through 2011.

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS: (partial listing)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Boymans Museum, Rotterdam, Holland
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
Centre d'Art et de Culture George Pompidou, Paris
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California
Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, PA.
Phoenix Museum of Art, Phoenix, AZ.
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI.
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris
Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana
Auckland Museum, New Zealand
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts
Aachenbach Foundation, San Francisco, CA.
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT.
Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland, CA.
Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio
Museum of Art, University of California, Berkeley, CA.
Museum of Art, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M.
Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.
Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champagne, 1L.
Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN.
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL.
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE.
New York Public Library, N.Y., N.Y.
Bryn Mawr College Art Gallery, Bryn Mawr, PA.
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Logan, Utah
Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA.
University of Texas-Pan American’s Permanent Collection, Charles & Dorothy Clark Collection
National Academy of Design, New York, N.Y.
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA.
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio
The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA
Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, OK
Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ

AWARDS
National Academy of Design, NY, Benjamin Altman Prize for Painting, 178th Annual Exhibition, 2003
Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, 1999
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Hassam & Speicher Purchase, 1988
Guggenheim Fellowship, 1984
National Endowment Fellowship, 1979
Tamarind Fellowship, Artist-In-Residence, Fall, 1973
Elected to the National Academy of Design, 1999
Interviewed by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. 1972 and 2004