SEE THE WORK OF JAMES ROSATI
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James Rosati (1911-1988)
The following is a paraphrased excerpt of William C. Seitz's introduction to the
1969-1970 exhibition of James Rosati's sculpture 1963-1969.
By the end of the 1950s James Rosati was recognized as one of Americas most accomplished sculptors, and as an artist of deep convictions, probing intellect and poetic sensibility. His last one-man exhibition, at Otto Gerson Gallery in 1962, received the enthusiastic praise it merited. Most attention was given to the Delphi series, a group of rope-bound pillars in plaster, concrete or cast bronze, entirely abstract but human in reference and atavistic in their massiveness. They communicated an effect of power and freedom held in check to which every critic who commented on the 1962 exhibition responded.
During previous years Rosati's closest friends had been Phillip Pavia, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Vicente, Lewitin, Kerkam and other abstract expressionist artists. His intimate association with David Smith was reflected in the moving eulogy he delivered at Bolton Landing in 1965. None the less Rosati's work remained aloof from the spirit of his New York artist friends. Despite his admiration for the iron constructions of Julio Gonzalez and in contradiction to the open style that Gonzalez and Picasso had initiated, his work continued the organic, closed sculptural tradition stemming from Brancusi.
'In the brilliant proliferation of sculpture now going on in New York,' Hilton Kramer wrote in 1959, 'the work of James Rosati is something of an anomaly.' A sculptor of classical temperament who worked with stone and bronze in dense masses and vertical axes, but nevertheless a fluent technician receptive to new forms and methods, Rosati experimented with welding, and his first one-man exhibition, at Peridot Gallery in 1954, included open pieces. Soon afterward, however, he rejected the expressionist- and surrealist- inflected constructivism of Roszak, Lipton, Lassaw, Hare and Ferber as inappropriate to his aims. He could not abandon the idea of sculpture as inviolate mass, and of form contained within the block. As Dore Ashton observed, Rosati did not, 'depend on interstices or open spaces to delineate his forms.'
To
find out more about James Rosati's work or prices for his sculpture
you can contact:
Peter Rose Gallery at 212.759-8173 or
email: ART@PETERROSEGALLERY.COM |
