JULES OLITSKI Mozart Night, 1992 - Signed

Jules Olitski (1922–2007) was a Russian-born American artist—renowned painter, sculptor, and printmaker—celebrated as a pioneering figure in Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction Bernard Jacobson Gallery. Born as Jevel Demikovsky on March 27, 1922, in Snovsk (now Ukraine), he emigrated to Brooklyn in 1923 with his mother and grandmother after his father was executed amid Soviet purges. Early on, he studied at the Pratt Institute, the National Academy of Design, and the Beaux-Arts Institute in New York. Later, he honed his craft in Paris at the Ossip Zadkine School and Académie de la Grande Chaumière under the G.I. Bill. Olitski’s evolution as an abstract painter took flight in the late 1950s and early 1960s. After initial monochromatic work, he transitioned fully in the mid‑1960s to spraying vibrant acrylic paint onto unstretched canvas, creating luminous, ethereal color fields that redefined abstraction; he often described his goal as creating “a spray of color that hangs like a cloud” nature works from this era—such as Patutsky in Paradise—are considered landmark examples of post-painterly abstraction. He gained early critical support from influential critic Clement Greenberg, who helped launch his career through exhibitions in Paris and New York, including major shows at French & Company and the Poindexter Gallery by the late 1950s. Olitski was among four artists representing the U.S. at the 1966 Venice Biennale and became the first living American artist to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1969. During the 1970s and beyond, Olitski periodically returned to richly textured, impasto painting, working with new acrylic mediums and exploring gestural abstraction. In the 1990s and 2000s, he revisited more saturated compositions and introduced his late “With Love and Disregard” series (2002–2007)—a vivid return to color-field illusions filled with lyrical energy. Over his career Olitski exhibited widely, including retrospectives at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1973) and the 2011 traveling showcase organized by the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. He also taught at C.W. Post College (Long Island University) from 1956–1963 and at Bennington College from 1963–1967. Olitski's work is held in major institutions including MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, National Gallery of Art, Tate Modern, and SFMOMA Bernard Jacobson. Although he passed away in New York on February 4, 2007, his legacy endures—he is remembered as “one of the most radical and innovative abstract painters of the recent past”.