ESPHYR SLOBODKINA:  JOURNEY INTO ABSTRACTION

October 1 – 30, 2004

Esphyr Slobodkina’s (1908 – 2002) second exhibition at Kraushaar Galleries opens on October 1^st.  Journey Into Abstraction features works from 1937 to 1950, small gouaches, two WPA mural studies and two major, rarely seen paintings, The Witching Hour (1949) and Turboprop Skyshark (1950).

Journey Into Abstraction focuses on the development of the Slobodkina’s abstract voice during her brief marriage to Ilya Bolotowsky and their participation in the 1937 founding of the American Abstract Artists. By the late 1930s she had begun working in a flattened, abstracted style that incorporated line, suspended or interlocking forms, and pure, unmodulated color and began to synthesize the both cubist and surrealist abstraction.

          Born in Siberia, Slobodkina moved with her family to Manchuria to escape the political unrest of the Russian revolution.  As a young woman, she traveled alone to America, enrolling at the National Academy of Design, an experience she found stultifying. Like other Russian modernists, surrounded by ancient icons and a rich craft tradition, Slobodkina developed a lifelong appreciation of clear, rich colors, and flat, stylized forms.

          Slobodkina’s work is in the collection of major public institutions around the United States included The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and a recent acquisition by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.