NEW YORK, NY.- Anita Shapolsky Gallery is presenting a new exhibition, “COLOR MEETS FORM,” featuring two masters who, over the course of their long artistic careers, have brilliantly explored both color and form.
Amaranth Ehrenhalt's evocative and bold paintings are exhibited in Gallery 1 (located downstairs), while David Hayes's abstract sculptures, made of welded and painted steel, are on display in Gallery 2 (located upstairs).
The exhibition centers on the dialogue between the movement and dynamic, interactive brushstrokes in Ehrenhalt’s paintings and the playful, abstracted natural and organic forms in Hayes's sculptures. The interplay between two-dimensional canvases and three-dimensional sculptures invites viewers to engage with color, light, structure, shadow, and texture. By placing paintings and sculptures in conversation, the exhibition highlights how different mediums can challenge perception and deepen visual experience.
Amaranth Roslyn Ehrenhalt (1928-2021) was an American painter, sculptor, and writer who spent the majority of her career living and working in Paris, France, before returning to New York City. She was born in Newark, NJ, and grew up in Philadelphia, PA. After receiving her BFA on scholarship from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, she moved to New York City’s Greenwich Village and later to Paris, where she met artists such as Seymour Boardman and Sonia Delaunay. Delaunay became Ehrenhalt’s patron, providing her with art supplies and introducing her to many artistic circles.
“I didn’t have money, but I always had to paint,” Ehrenhalt once said.
Ehrenhalt mastered many mediums, creating paintings, drawings, watercolors, sculptures, mosaics, prints, tapestries, scarves, poetry, and writing. She used bold, dynamic brush strokes and strong, vibrant colors. Her home on the outskirts of Paris was famously covered in her own colorful tiles.
Amaranth titled her works with unique, often unusual names, frequently referencing specific memories and reflecting the rich, emotionally charged, and dynamic nature of her art. Her work was exhibited in numerous group and solo shows around the world and is held in various public and private collections. As a woman artist associated with an important school of abstraction, her work is an inseparable part of the visual art of the twentieth century.
David Hayes (1931–2013), an American modern master, created steel sculptures inspired by organic forms over a six-decade career. After earning his MFA in 1955, and influenced by his teacher David Smith and friend Alexander Calder, Hayes worked alongside Smith, mastering steel forging and gaining early recognition with exhibitions at MoMA and in the Guggenheim’s inaugural show in 1959. He received numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Paris, where he connected with Calder, Henry Moore, and Giacometti. In the 1970s, he shifted from forged steel to large-scale works in cut steel plate, ultimately presenting more than 500 exhibitions and earning placement in over 100 institutional collections. Since his passing in 2013, his estate has continued to present multiple museum exhibitions each year, and this summer his work was featured in a solo exhibition at the Anita Shapolsky Art Foundation in Jim Thorpe, PA.
“Primary sources of my imagery come from what I see every day which evoke response and quick pencil sketches of shapes and forms. It is these sketches which translate into colored working drawings, varied colors on the two-dimensional paper representing planes in the eventual three-dimensional piece. I tack these drawings up in my studio and begin making the sculptures. Interpretations of the sculptures are left to the viewer, subject to their own unlimited fantasies.”
David Hayes, excerpt from “Notes on Vertical Motifs, Mobile Museum, 2005,” (https://www.davidhayes.com/statements.htm)
