'George Tooker: A Retrospective' at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA)

Written by Administrator Tuesday, 10 March 2009 02:02

Philadelphia, PA - George Tooker’s luminous paintings are among the most mysterious and prescient figural works in postwar American art. A student of Reginald Marsh and intimate of Paul Cadmus, Tooker built upon their closely observed urban narratives to draw spiritual lessons about the modern world. His instantly recognizable imagery ranges from complex works of “social protest” such as Subway (1950) to an intimate series of men and women illuminated before open windows. On exhibition at PAFA January 30  through April 5, 2009.

This exhibition, Tooker’s first museum retrospective in three decades, provides a comprehensive examination of his place in American art and reveals the full scope of his achievement. This is a major opportunity to see rare examples of Tooker’s consummate skill and uncommon imagination.

From the beginning of his career, Tooker has examined profound human experiences such as aging, death, intimacy, joy, loneliness, and spirituality. He has often combined the style and narrative techniques of late-Medieval painting with those of European surrealism to illuminate modern experience and conjure provocative settings.  Tooker is best-known for a haunting series of “public protest” paintings that established his reputation as a socially conscious artist in tune with the anxious climate of the Cold War in the 1950s. Yet he has consistently explored intimate and sensual settings, revealing his ability to reflect both the public and private aspects of humanity. By focusing on individuals and the lives they lead in society, whether evident in their choices of intimacy or struggle against dehumanizing political systems, Tooker has given the world multiple stories about what it is to live in the second half of the twentieth-century and now in the twenty-first

Curator:
Robert Cozzolino, Curator of Modern Art

Organizers:
Jointly organized by the National Academy Museum, PAFA, and the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio.

Sponsors:
The Philadelphia presentation of George Tooker: A Retrospective is generously supported by the Richard C. von Hess Foundation. Additional support provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Verdis Investment Management, and DC Moore Gallery, New York.

Visit the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) at : www.pafa.org/