Muses, Magic & Monotypes

Mary Ryan Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of work by Richard Segalman in celebration of his latest book, Black & White: Muses, Magic & Monotypes (2015). The exhibition highlights his new and ongoing black and white study of the muse as well as a selection of early pastels and oil paintings of his iconic Coney Island imagery and Naples beach scenes.

Segalman’s romantic figurative realist paintings, largely executed in watercolor, oil, or pastel, feature anonymous figures in domestic settings, on beaches or before city architecture whose emotions are evoked by their physical positioning or clothing. Color and the depiction of light is essential to these works. When his shift to monotypes occured more than 30 years into his career, it introduced the absence of color into his later works. The unpredictable, accident-prone, experimental nature of the monotype intrigued Segalman as it pushed him to return to a drawing quality.

Richard Segalman (b. 1934, New York) began his career in the early 1960s, working with watercolor and oil, gradually adding printmaking and pastel to his oeuvre. His iconic groups of people in tranquil settings capture the true beauty of a shared contemplative moment. Segalman uses clothing and physical positions to communicate feelings and emotions left unknown by expressionless and nondescript faces.

Notable collections that include Segalman’s works are Bass Museum, Miami, FL; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH; Harvard University, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D. C.; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; St. Louis Art Museum, MO; and Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA, among others.