Untitled by Reuben Kadish

Untitled by Reuben Kadish

Untitled

Reuben Kadish

Title

Untitled

 
Artist

Reuben Kadish

  1913 - 1992 (biography)
Year
c. 1940  
Technique
lithograph 
Image Size
11 1/2 x 14 5/8" image 
Signature
artist's monogram on the stone, lower right 
Edition Size
about 30 
Annotations
 
Reference
 
Paper
cream wove Rives watermarked 
State
proof 
Publisher
artist 
Inventory ID
20326 
Price
SOLD
Description

This dynamic lithograph - dimensional, energetic, touching on objective and reeling back into the fully abstract - is a prime example of the early influence of Abstract Expressionism and a precursor to Reuben Kadish’s exploration of sculpture. He uses a multitude of textures to suggest everything animalistic forms to smooth objects that appear carved from stone, and throughout, a thread of untethered automatic line springs forward, connecting the disparate elements in an elaborate dance.

Kadish would continue to be drawn to the sculptural in all of his print work, even when depicting trees and still lifes. No matter what the medium, a sensuous dimensionality remained.

As a WPA artist during the Great Depression, Kadish executed the brilliant and still extant A Dissertation on Alchemy mural in the Chemistry Building at San Francisco State University in 1937. It proved to be his solo San Francisco commission despite submitting twenty odd designs for the WPA. "[My designs] were too flamboyant, too revolutionary, too this, too that," recalled Kadish in an Archives of American Art interview.