Perle Fine
Perle Fine (1908-1988)
(Boston area, Massachusetts, 1905 – 1988, Long Island, New York)
“To the serious artist, it is the painting that dictates the direction. The sum total of 40 or so years of painting experience have led me from Academism, through Impressionist and Expressionist stages, inevitably through Cubism and Abstraction…then completely Non-Representational painting. I work to evoke new depths of feeling and to enrich the world of painting as well.” – (Perle Fine)
“…How deeply do you feel about what you see, and how did you get that way? One thing is certain, only when it came to expressionism in my own language, through my own variety of experiences, both subjective and cumulative, did it sharpen my perception, and appreciation.” – (Perle Fine)
“My paintings speak in the only language I know- color…I like to light up a canvas with color; make it spin…or make forms melt softly over the whole picture.” – (Perle Fine)
Born in 1908 on a dairy farm in Boston, Perle Fine knew as a child that she wanted to be an artist. In the early 1920s, a teenage Perle Fine moved to New York City and enrolled in the Art Students League, where she met her first inspirational teacher, drawing instructor Kimon Nicolaides. She also met a young fellow abstractionist artist and future husband Maurice Berezov. Though committed to each other as a couple, they chose to exhibit separately to retain their distinct artistic identities. In the late 1930s, Fine moved into a cold water flat on Eighth Street and studied across the street at Hans Hofmann’s Eighth Street School. Not always in agreement with Hofmann’s figure and nature-focused abstraction, Fine would escape to her flat across the street to work on her own.
On a visit to the Guggenheim Museum, Fine finally found her place among the abstract world in the works of Vasily Kandinsky and other nonobjective artists. One of the few selected for the sponsorship by the Guggenheim Foundation and by its director Hilla Rebay, Fine received funds to cover the costs of materials. In exchange, Fine and other sponsored artists would bring in works once a month, which Rebay showed to Solomon Guggenheim. In 1945, Rebay produced a showing of women artists, including Fine, at the Guggenheim entitled “31 Women.” There, at the Guggenheim Museum, Fine met and befriended unknown artist and Guggenheim guard, Jackson Pollock.
Fine was a multitalented artist, achieving success in not only painting but also in printmaking and lithography. First introduced to printmaking in 1944, Fine worked with Stanley William Hayter’s experimental graphic workshop, Atelier #17.
Perle Fine’s first successful solo show was in 1945 at the Willard Gallery. She went on to show at the Nierendorf Gallery in 1946 and 47 where her pieces employed a wide range of geometric forms and organic elements. In the late 1940s she joined the American Abstract Artists (AAA), an American group of painters and sculptors formed in 1936 in New York with the aim of introducing American abstract art to the public. As soon as she joined, Fine proposed her friend Jackson Pollock for membership for which she was almost thrown out. The AAA was devout to their cubist foundation and believed Pollock to be “impure,” loose and unstructured. Fine’s show at the Betty Parsons Gallery in the early 1950s showed her ability as one of the first generation of Abstract Expressionist women artists. Her canvases were larger, her brush strokes looser and her imagery cloud-like. In the mid 1950s, Fine was elected to the Tanager cooperative. She moved into a large but deteriorating loft which she allowed the Tanager group to use as a gallery while she used the back of the loft as a studio.
In 1954, Fine decided to leave the crowded city and moved to Springs, near East Hampton, Long Island. Springs was an art colony, the country outpost of the New York School. There she was surrounded by artist friends William de Kooning, Lee Krasner, and Jackson Pollock and was free to work in the serenity of the country while continuing to show in the city. At the age of 46, Fine became an associate professor of art at Hofstra University where she taught for 12 years until she became ill in 1966. This break from teaching sparked a stylistic change in Fine’s work. Unable to work on large canvases, Fine created a series of collages that combined wood pieces with painted grids. Graph paper designs led to a series of serene, calm grid like paintings entitled the Accordment series. Tannerbaum commented in his November article in ARTS Magazine that the Accordment series basis “…is the balanced interrelationship and bringing together into harmony or ‘accordment’ of several diverse, opposing and even contradictory elements- the opulence of soft, sensuous color vs. the control of a hard edge, rectilinear motif, dynamic movement vs. quietude, shifting or atmospheric space vs. surface flatness, coolness vs. warmth.”
At her death in 1988 in East Hampton, New York, Fine had totaled 13 solo exhibitions in New York, 1 solo exhibition in California, and 75 group exhibitions. She was a member of the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors, American Abstract Artists, and Guild Hall. Fine received several distinguished awards amongst which are the Guggenheim Scholar and a National Endowment for the Arts Grantee. Perle Fine’s harmonious, atmospheric works can be found in major private and permanent collections including the Cheekwood Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery, the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
(Boston area, Massachusetts, 1905 – 1988, Long Island, New York)
“To the serious artist, it is the painting that dictates the direction. The sum total of 40 or so years of painting experience have led me from Academism, through Impressionist and Expressionist stages, inevitably through Cubism and Abstraction…then completely Non-Representational painting. I work to evoke new depths of feeling and to enrich the world of painting as well.” – (Perle Fine)
“…How deeply do you feel about what you see, and how did you get that way? One thing is certain, only when it came to expressionism in my own language, through my own variety of experiences, both subjective and cumulative, did it sharpen my perception, and appreciation.” – (Perle Fine)
“My paintings speak in the only language I know- color…I like to light up a canvas with color; make it spin…or make forms melt softly over the whole picture.” – (Perle Fine)
Born in 1908 on a dairy farm in Boston, Perle Fine knew as a child that she wanted to be an artist. In the early 1920s, a teenage Perle Fine moved to New York City and enrolled in the Art Students League, where she met her first inspirational teacher, drawing instructor Kimon Nicolaides. She also met a young fellow abstractionist artist and future husband Maurice Berezov. Though committed to each other as a couple, they chose to exhibit separately to retain their distinct artistic identities. In the late 1930s, Fine moved into a cold water flat on Eighth Street and studied across the street at Hans Hofmann’s Eighth Street School. Not always in agreement with Hofmann’s figure and nature-focused abstraction, Fine would escape to her flat across the street to work on her own.
On a visit to the Guggenheim Museum, Fine finally found her place among the abstract world in the works of Vasily Kandinsky and other nonobjective artists. One of the few selected for the sponsorship by the Guggenheim Foundation and by its director Hilla Rebay, Fine received funds to cover the costs of materials. In exchange, Fine and other sponsored artists would bring in works once a month, which Rebay showed to Solomon Guggenheim. In 1945, Rebay produced a showing of women artists, including Fine, at the Guggenheim entitled “31 Women.” There, at the Guggenheim Museum, Fine met and befriended unknown artist and Guggenheim guard, Jackson Pollock.
Fine was a multitalented artist, achieving success in not only painting but also in printmaking and lithography. First introduced to printmaking in 1944, Fine worked with Stanley William Hayter’s experimental graphic workshop, Atelier #17.
Perle Fine’s first successful solo show was in 1945 at the Willard Gallery. She went on to show at the Nierendorf Gallery in 1946 and 47 where her pieces employed a wide range of geometric forms and organic elements. In the late 1940s she joined the American Abstract Artists (AAA), an American group of painters and sculptors formed in 1936 in New York with the aim of introducing American abstract art to the public. As soon as she joined, Fine proposed her friend Jackson Pollock for membership for which she was almost thrown out. The AAA was devout to their cubist foundation and believed Pollock to be “impure,” loose and unstructured. Fine’s show at the Betty Parsons Gallery in the early 1950s showed her ability as one of the first generation of Abstract Expressionist women artists. Her canvases were larger, her brush strokes looser and her imagery cloud-like. In the mid 1950s, Fine was elected to the Tanager cooperative. She moved into a large but deteriorating loft which she allowed the Tanager group to use as a gallery while she used the back of the loft as a studio.
In 1954, Fine decided to leave the crowded city and moved to Springs, near East Hampton, Long Island. Springs was an art colony, the country outpost of the New York School. There she was surrounded by artist friends William de Kooning, Lee Krasner, and Jackson Pollock and was free to work in the serenity of the country while continuing to show in the city. At the age of 46, Fine became an associate professor of art at Hofstra University where she taught for 12 years until she became ill in 1966. This break from teaching sparked a stylistic change in Fine’s work. Unable to work on large canvases, Fine created a series of collages that combined wood pieces with painted grids. Graph paper designs led to a series of serene, calm grid like paintings entitled the Accordment series. Tannerbaum commented in his November article in ARTS Magazine that the Accordment series basis “…is the balanced interrelationship and bringing together into harmony or ‘accordment’ of several diverse, opposing and even contradictory elements- the opulence of soft, sensuous color vs. the control of a hard edge, rectilinear motif, dynamic movement vs. quietude, shifting or atmospheric space vs. surface flatness, coolness vs. warmth.”
At her death in 1988 in East Hampton, New York, Fine had totaled 13 solo exhibitions in New York, 1 solo exhibition in California, and 75 group exhibitions. She was a member of the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors, American Abstract Artists, and Guild Hall. Fine received several distinguished awards amongst which are the Guggenheim Scholar and a National Endowment for the Arts Grantee. Perle Fine’s harmonious, atmospheric works can be found in major private and permanent collections including the Cheekwood Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery, the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
(American, 1905 – 1988)
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