Current Exhibitions

Throughout August and September, the exhibition will focus on each artist bi-weekly, providing visitors with an opportunity to delve into each painter’s theme, technique, and artistic voice. By comparing the works of these artists, viewers can gain a deeper understanding of their individual contributions to the contemporary art landscape.

This group exhibition is an engaging and insightful showcase of the diverse talent within the Findlay Galleries’ stable of artists. Whether you’re an art enthusiast or a casual observer, it’s an excellent opportunity to explore and appreciate the artistry of these contemporary painters.

FOCUS: Ptolemy Mann

British Contemporary artist Ptolemy Mann applies a unique approach to the creation of her artworks. Aesthetically, they reflect her full and deep understanding of the principles of the Bauhaus school as well as the nuances of color theory. The result is an intelligent yet sensitive approach to a process filled with detail and painstaking levels of craftsmanship. Her time-consuming and unique approach has evolved over a twenty-five-year period. Exquisite dynamics of color move across their fine surface, creating a painterly sweep. The term ‘Chromatic Minimalism’ has been applied to her work, and Abstract Expressionism and architecture heavily influence her. 

Mann has completed many site-specific art installations and has exhibited worldwide. She regularly lectures throughout the UK and abroad, writes for the magazine Selvedge, curates, and has received three grants from the Arts Council of England. Findlay Galleries is pleased to represent Ptolemy Mann exclusively throughout the USA.

“For a long time, I’ve been interested in two specific things: accidental colour and unconscious colour. It transpires that these two ideas; when filtered through the act of painting, reveal a surprising vivacity and capture a dynamic colourful moment…In complete contrast to the exquisite slowness of the woven artworks these pieces are large scale punches of spontaneous, emotional colour.

The synergy between the woven works and the paintings is striking – despite being opposites in their making process they share a surprising energy and connect to each other completely. Both techniques project light through colour and are steeped with intuitive colour theory investigations. It is the interaction between colours that makes this work sing; alongside complex tonality and saturation.” 

  – Ptolemy Mann, 2022

Schedule

Ptolemy Mann – September 16

Findlay Galleries, Palm Beach, is pleased to present the exhibition Impressionism, which explores our collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works from artists including Lucien Adrion, Andre Hambourg, Albert Malet, Jacques Martin-Ferrieres, Pierre-Eugene Montezin, Robert-Antoine Pinchon, and Gaston Sébire. The exhibition showcases the similarities and contrast between both schools, from the impressionists’ depiction of the fleeting effect of light, atmosphere and movement to the post-impressionists’ symbolic content, formal order and use of color to portray emotion. The exhibition offers a unique opportunity for visitors to explore the rich artistic history of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

Learn More About Each Artist

• Lucien Adrion
• Andre Hambourg
• Albert Malet
• Jacques Martin-Ferrieres
• Pierre-Eugene Montezin
• Gaston Sébire

Eugène Paul (known as Gen Paul) was born July 2, 1895, on rue Lepic, the same street of Montmartre where Van Gogh had stayed with his brother Théo. The French painter spent most of his life in Montmartre, where the Impressionist revolution, Fauvism and Cubism began.

The Moulin de la Galette, Place Pigalle and Place du Tertre were everyday sights for Gen Paul. The Bateau-Lavoir was well established as the meeting place of independent painters and writers of the early 1900s. Picasso, Braque, Metzinger, Juan Gris, along with Van Dongen, Matisse, Derain, and Dufy, were among the distinguished company that gathered there, Gen Paul was no stranger to it as a young artist looking for inspiration.

Gen Paul never received any formal or academic art training, his art was influenced by his direct exposure to the innovators of Montmartre. His work was an amalgamation of the spatial breakdown of Cubism with the line and flow of the Fauvist painters, especially Raoul Dufy’s. Structurally, Gen Paul’s Cubism was less severe, less firmly organized and less sharp-edged than that of the originators of the movement. Joyous spontaneity, warm high-keyed color and fluidity differentiated Gen Paul’s application of Cubist principles to his compositions. 

From the beginning, Gen Paul’s focus was to create art. He made painting his way of life and made no effort to build a career in any specific field. Lacking an academic or professional nucleus, his was a difficult start. He began selling his work on café terraces in Montmartre for ten years, finally earning a chance to have a gallery exhibition at Bing’s in 1926. Representation by Galerie Bernheim followed along with exhibitions at Galerie Drouant-David. By the early 1950s Gen Paul was well established and had gone from a street painter to being part of the heart of Parisian art. Wally Findlay Galleries began representing the work of Gen Paul in those years and has continued to do so ever since. 

Though he was original and vigorous both as a draftsman and a colorist, Gen Paul was never a standard bearer for any new art movement. At no point was he a theoretical crusader trying to further any one style of painting. He always loved the act of painting and pursued his own work with vigorous freshness. Consequently, his paintings are spontaneous and full of verve; they are works to be savored with great pleasure.

Gen Paul died in his beloved Paris on April 30, 1975 and was buried in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre. A few months after Eugène Paul’s death, Jean-Paul Crespelle, the famous historian and specialist in the artistic and nocturnal life of Montmartre and Montparnasse, wrote that Gen Paul “was the last of the great painters of Montmartre.” His works can be found in important public and private collections in France, America and Asia. Findlay Galleries is proud to present this beautiful collection of paintings by the Last Master of Montmartre.

Findlay Galleries is pleased to present an exhibition of Michael Dunbar sculptures and hard-edge paintings on view from September 5 to October 3. Dunbar’s small-scale bronze and steel sculptures, which reference clocks, compasses, and sextants, share an interest in mathematical relationships with hard-edge painters such as Ilya Bolotowsky, John Ferren, and Ward Jackson. 

Though backgrounds and philosophies may differ, craftsmanship, clean lines, geometry, and scale are the primary concerns of all artists in the exhibition. Ferren’s work from the 1960s reveal an interest in the concept of dynamic symmetry. This concern led him to explore the mathematical construction of space as it relates to squares and rectangles and concepts such as the catenary, a parabolic curve evidenced in works such as Royal Choice, 1969. 

Ward Jackson, by contrast, was inspired to move away from gestural painting by the work of Piet Mondrian and Josef Albers. Volume II, c. 1973 evinces the austere, hard-edge style Jackson began in the early 1960s and developed into his signature style. Like Jackson, Ilya Bolotowsky also looked hard at Mondrian’s neo-plastic paintings, initiating a purification of form and color evident in works such as Rhomb, Pale Yellow, Blue and White, 1976. In such works, the composition’s right angles and primary colors have no association with the natural world, exorcising all suggestions of illusionistic space and emphasizing the overall flat tension of the painting. 

Findlay Galleries invites you to explore the relationships and connections among this select group of artists at our New York Location.

Findlay Galleries, New York, is pleased to present its Works on Paper & Multiples exhibition this summer. The selection features drawings, prints, and paintings by gallery artists including John Ferren, Robert Richenburg, Leonard Edmondson, and Ptolemy Mann. Intricate designs and details that can only be achieved through these mediums will highlight the importance of the delicate process of creating art on paper. The artists’ styles vary from abstract to realistic, but each work showcases individual talents and unique approaches to creation in these important mediums.

Pablo Picasso’s interest in ceramics began in Paris in the early 20th century when he discovered the works of Paul Gauguin and met the potter Paco Durio. However, Picasso’s first ceramics were not created until after World War II while staying with his friend, engraver Louis Fort, in the South of France in 1946. The pair decided to attend a local craft fair in the town of Vallauris, the first crafts fair after the end of the war in a town where pottery has been a tradition since Roman times. Picasso took a particular interest in the works from the studio Madoura and requested to meet the owners, Suzanne and Georges Ramié. That very same day, after being invited by Suzanne and Georges to their workshop, Picasso created three clay figurines as a trial. Delighted with the result, Picasso expanded his oeuvre to include ceramics, a medium he would continue to explore until 1971, sometimes as the exclusive focus of his creative energies.

Picasso found inspiration in the primitive and mythological elements of ceramics, as well as in the process of metamorphosis from clay through fire to finish. This process of metamorphosis, using earth, water and fire, and the physicality of its constructs appealed to Picasso greatly. He applied his previously learned techniques in painting, etching, sculpting, and printmaking to create works that transformed utilitarian household items into art objects, often with playful brushstrokes and deep etched incisions and reliefs.

Picasso’s ceramics constituted one of the central pillars of his artistic production and provided him with a stage of rebirth, exploring the creative potential, language, and tradition of the medium. Additionally, he wished to make his ceramics accessible to all, saying that he wanted “everyone who bought a ceramic to leave with change in their pocket.” Today, as appreciation for the medium has grown and the true power of Picasso’s creation within it has come into focus, art lovers and collectors continue to search for choice works from this beautiful and valuable body of work.