2024 Primary Colors: Dan Gorski Paintings, 1962-65
The Jung Center Gallery, Houston
Dan Gorski created a group of paintings between 1962 and 1965 that demonstrate his intense interest in color and its effects on both artist and viewer. These abstract paintings, with their specific color combinations and biomorph8ic compositions, offer viewers a contemplative space for reflection and inspiration.
Gorski’s early engagements with minimalism, color field, and hard-edge movements as they developed int eh United States mark a critical period in 20th century art, and illustrate the journey of artistic experimentation and investigation that he pursued throughout his entire career.
His work from this period in the mid 1960s was selected by the curator Kynaston McShine for inclusion in the groundbreaking exhibition Primary Structures at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1966. Alongside artists such as Larry Bell, Judy Chicago, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, and Walter de Maria, Gorski was featured in the historic exhibition, which is widely considered to be the first to spotlight artists working in a minimalist mode, with a focus on essential forms, geometries, and planes of color.
Geography played a formative role in Gorski’s work and career as well, with the artist calling Houston his home for almost thirty years. He influenced a new generation of artists as Director of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s Glasell School of Art, demonstrating a passion not only for his own studio work but also arts education. His tenure at the Glassell was preceded by his leadership of the painting department at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore.
This exhibition features important examples of the mid-60s work by Dan Gorski, many never before exhibited in Houston, and spotlights a remarkable chapter in the history of an artist who lived and worked in the city for a large part of his career.
Details of photos:
Entry Area:
Untitled (triptych), 1964, acrylic on canvas mounted on panel, 90 x 90, $52,600
Main Gallery:
Rebound, 1963, acrylic on canvas, 14 x 14, NFS
Untitled (diptych), 1963, acrylic con canvas, 50 x 42, $13,650
The Long Arm of the Law, 1965, acrylic on canvas, 65 x 50, $21,100
Untitled, 1963, acrylic on canvas, 59.625 x 61.5, $23,800
Sentinel 1, 1963-64, acrylic on canvas, 85 x 23, $15,000
Sentinel 2, 1963-64, acrylic on canvas, 85 x 23, NFS
Untitled, 1964, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 90, $23,400
Side Gallery:
Poon’s Rug, 1965, acrylic on canvas, 79.75 x 66, NFS
Untitled (diptych), 1963, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 107, $27,800
Untitled, 1963, acrylic on canvas, 80 x 45, $17,500
Untitled, 1962, acrylic on canvas, 32 x 38, $7,900