Untitled [Drawing #35]

 

Edward M. Corbett

  1919 - 1971 (biography)

1956  

ink drawing 

17 x 9 1/2" image 

ink signed, lower right 

1 of 1 unique 

dated 1956 in ink after the signature 

this drawing was used in a margazine advertisement in 2005 promoting an exhibition of "Modern and Contenporary Art" at the Canfield Gallery in Santa Fe 

 

 

 

MASC154 

SOLD

A sparse yet vibrant mid-career drawing by the artist known for his minimalist, though lyrical, compositions. By 1956 Corbett, a noted Abstract Expressionist who had begun his studies at age thirteen at the Dayton Art Institute, had studied and taught at the California School of Fine Art (now the San Francisco Art Institute) and was now dividing his time between Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Taos, New Mexico. Four years prior he was chosen by Dorothy Miller for inclusion in the seminal exhibition "15 Americans" at the Museum of Modern Art, drawing comparisons to his more famous contemporaries: Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, and Mark Rothko. Despite the attention, Corbett was less intrigued by the fame and more interested in the quietude of the quaint coastal town and the solitude of the high desert.

This ink drawing was executed in the era of his "Black Paintings" and the various series of monochromatic, meditative works he created on paper. A collection of spidery, inky lines sweep and crisscross along the paper's surface, intentionally looped and tangled at particular intersections while the majority of the work remains serene and untouched. Stunning in its simplicity, it reflects Corbett's own words regarding his art: "I intend my art as poetry." (Exhibition pamphlet, "15 Americans", Museum of Modern Art, New york, NY, 1952.)