Irving Petlin (1933 - 2018)
“Whatever your life story, it is part of a larger history” I.P.
Irving Petlin was born in Chicago (1934) to post WWII Polish immigrant parents. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago during the height of the Chicago Imagist movement in the 1950s, becoming the youngest member of the “Monster Roster” existentialist group. Petlin’s youthful work flourished in Paris (1959-1963), and again later during his artistic prime, (1990-2018). He lived and worked in New York
Petlin’s work flourished in Paris during an initial youthful period, (1959-1963), and again in later years as a mature artist (1990–2018). He lived and exhibited in New York, and in Europe during the decades between the Paris years (1968-1990).
Photo Credit: Jeanna ShepardIt was in Chicago, while at the Art Institute and during his subsequent fellowship at Yale School of Fine Art, (MFA 1959), where he studied under Joseph Albers, that Petlin developed and refined the skills to transform metaphor and fantasy into composition. The power of negative space on a canvas, the sanctity of drawing, and a profound understanding of color are salient features of his expression in paint and pastel. The work is distinctive in its subtle commingling of the abstract and the figurative - his mastery of the medium rendering ethereal figures in dreamlike landscapes blur the divide between reality and imagination. Petlin is lauded as a singular contemporary master of pastel.
The Island Series, from Mythology and the Island, 2014
A group of four pastels was made in the artist's Paris studio to be exhibited on Martha's Vineyard in 2014, as part of a broader exhibition: Mythology an the Island. Each is a symbolic representation of the four seasons : ‘Winter Sun’, ‘Night Sun’, ‘Fate of the Island’ and ‘Lovers, Summer Storm’.
The island is represented as a giant rock, rendered close in a reversal of perspective, a mythic apparition.
Night Sun (2014) • pastel on handmade paper • 22 x 30 inches • $25,000
Winter Sun (2014) • SOLD
Lovers, Summer Storm (2014) • pastel on handmade paper • 22 x 30 inches • $25,000
Fate of the Island (2014) • pastel on handmade paper • 22 x 30 inches • $25,000
Selected Works: Commemorative Open Studio in Chilmark 2022
Irving Petlin each year for almost four decades would invite friends and patrons to view new work he had conceived of and produced that summer while on the Vineyard. These substantial bodies of work were mostly completed over the course of the summer. A few pieces would be refined once he'd returned to his Paris atelier, and later exhibited in Paris and Switzerland.
In 2022 A Gallery collaborated with his family to host a three-day Open Studio, serving to honor and renew this longstanding tradition, which he looked forward to each year. A selection of fourteen pastels were shown. All but four were made in his beloved studio, in one of the oldest stone-walled barns in Chilmark where he'd worked during the summer months for forty years.
Available to view in person on Martha’s Vineyard.
Fire Tree II, from The Farm (2007) (MV) • pastel on handmade paper • 25.6 x 19.7 inches • $24,000
European Birch, Sarajevo Bosnia, from the Trees of Sarajevo,(1993) (MV) •. pastel on handmade paper •. 26 x 20.1 inches • $20,000
Song of Time (2013) (Paris) • pastel on handmade paper • 25.6 x 19.7 inches • $25,000
The Pastel Mercury, from Primo Levi series, the Periodic Table (1988) (MV) • pastel on paper • 29 x 23 inches • $24,000
The Pastel Arsenic, from Primo Levi series, the Periodic Table (1988) (MV) • Pastel on paper • 26 x 20 inches • $22,000
Small Spelling Song, from Songs for Sarah, (1985) (MV) • pastel on pastel paper • 30 x 20 inches • $22,000
The Drawing Lesson (1986) (MV) • pastel on handmade paper • 20 x 27.8 inches • $22,000
The Devil's Lamp II (1999) (MV) • Pastel on handmade paper • 19.7 x 25.6 inches • $24,000
Study for the Four Seasons (1996) (Paris) • charcoal and pastel on paper • 35.5 x 41.3 inches • $28,000