Larsen Warner is pleased to present the inaugural show with the gallery of Swedish based American artist Martha Edelheit. ‘The Naked Truth: Works from the 60’s & 70’s’ presents rarely seen paintings and newly discovered works on paper from this seminal period in Edelheit's artistic development. This is the artists first solo show in Sweden since her exhibition at Piteå Konsthall in 2009 and coincides with the artists 90th birthday, offering a wonderful opportunity to discover and celebrate the powerful work of this pioneering artist.
Martha Edelheit was born New York City in 1931, where she lived and worked until moving to Sweden in 1993. She studied at the University of Chicago, New York University and Columbia University in the 1950s where notable teachers included the artist Michael Loew and art historian Meyer Schapiro. During these formative years of Edelheit’s studies, Abstract Expressionism continued to be the dominant force of the New York art world. At this time, Edelheit began to create early abstract ‘extension’ paintings that broke the frame of the work and utilised utilitarian objects. By 1959, Edelheit’s passion and lust for figurative art was triggered on a tour of Europe, where she immersed herself in the depictions and representations of nudes from the cannon of historical western art. On her return to New York, Edelheit began to develop the figurative style for which she became widely known at a time when art thinking was not focused on a return to figuration. Determined to not follow prescribed ‘rules’, to develop her perception and challenge her ability to see and paint, Edelheit started to work from life, with an ever expanding menagerie of models coming by her New York studio. She was captivated by the experience of working with models and the interaction between artist and model that allowed her access into people’s personal lives and challenges. In a landmark article on feminist art, writer Maryse Holder said;
During the 1960’s and 70’s Edelheit established herself in the centre of the downtown New York avant-garde, becoming a member of the Tenth Street artist-run space, the Reuben Gallery, where her first solo show was held in 1960. She, like other members Jim Dine, Rosalyn Drexler, Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, Lucas Samaras, George Segal, and Robert Whitman, were expanding the definitions of art-making with the creation of Happenings and experimental objects. Each of the paintings presented in the exhibition are from this defining period, with many being exhibited for the first time.
“One of Edelheit’s talents is to offer a portrait of a personality through the body. She removes the female from the abstract realm of current female flesh fashions to show us familiar bodies. What Edelheit, who is acutely attuned to her models, was doing in the act of her painting was letting the woman’s life define her —her existence was her essence.”
Each painting reflects an artist exploring both inwards and outwards, excavating her past while absorbing new experiences and memories of the world around her. Edelheit’s work was never a mere exercise in object and form, instead each element has a deep rooted personal link to the artist; be it her relationship to the models or the snap shots of locations that Edelheit chooses to place her models within. In each work, the human form is depicted with a loving eye that is full of admiration for the body in all its intricacies . Edelheit’s mastery of the human figure and a deeply personal connection to each element of the paintings contribute to creating a sense of warmth and story between the artist and the captivating world she creates on the surface of the canvas. The seven pastels presented in The Naked Truth where a recent discovery and have never been shown since their creation during the 1970’s. Originally created within a series of sketchbooks, in each one Edelheit takes a magnifying glass to the human form, with close ups of stomachs, breasts, arms and knees. At once figurative and abstracted, the intense tones of the pastels and the confident drawn line of the artist create a surface that almost vibrates with energy.
For over 60 years Edelheit has devoted herself to a tireless investigation into the nature and possibilities of figurative painting, consistently pushing the boundaries of her work through rigorous experimentation and boundless energy. Presenting life, lust, joy and play, Edelheit’s work implicitly challenged social expectations of women as well as formalist ideas and traditional notions of figurative painting and the nude. Edelheit is a pioneer, driving the conversation about taboo sexual imagery and the censorship of women artists that remains as topical today as when these works where first created 50 years ago. The Naked Truth presents an artist striving for freshness within the never-ending possibilities of the figure.
Since 1961, Edelheit has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including 11 from the Reuben at the Guggenheim Museum, Three Centuries of the American Nude at the New York Cultural Centre, BLAM! at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City at the Grey Gallery of New York University. Edelheit's work was recently the focus of the critically acclaimed exhibition Martha Edelheit Flesh Walls: Tales from the 60's at Eric Firestone Gallery, New York. Her work is featured in numerous private and institutional collections including New York Public Library, USA, Piteå Commune, Sweden, Rowan University Art Gallery, USA and Minneapolis Institute of Art, USA.
