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NEW YORK, NY -- On view through December 22, 2017 at Berry Campbell Gallery is “Albert Stadler: Studies in Color.” This exhibition presents twenty-one works dated from 1973-1986. “Studies in Color” is the second one-person show of Stadler’s paintings held at Berry Campbell; the first, which ran from September 11 through October 11, 2014, featured Stadler’s works from the 1960s. The two shows juxtaposed show an evolution in technique and palette range with a constant devotion to color.

On my last visit to Chelsea, a must-see was the Syd Solomon show at the Berry Campbell gallery. Surveying all the paintings in this show, one can quickly see that Syd Solomon, an abstract painter who from 1959 and for the next thirty-five years split his time between Sarasota and the Hamptons, lived to paint. These works, from the ’70s and ’80s, today still look fresh and energetic; the aerosol enamel and acrylic paint he used is vibrant. The paintings are composed of exuberant swaths of color, his northern and southern coastal imagery melding together, collage-like. In “Morning Light Signs” the flotsam and jetsam of pink and orange recede and return to the foreground as if floating. There is an excitement to Solomon’s abstraction, as in “Lunareach,” where ribbons of orange and yellow tangle in an infinite darkened distance.

Patrick McMullan photographed Martha Campbell and Christine Berry of Berry Campbell gallery at Art Miami 2017.

The pairing of the painters Perle Fine and Marguerite Louppe opens corresponding windows on two vibrant art scenes of the 20th century: New York's AbEx, and Paris from the 1930s to the '60s. They were remarkable colorists, Louppe with her geometric, purist landscapes and still lifes in rich earth tones, and Fine with her luminous Prescience series.

Even before entering the Berry Campbell Gallery in Chelsea, one can see through the broad window paintings that glow with amazing use of color. They are the works of important artist Albert Stadler (1923-2000), honored with the current show that runs through December 22 at the gallery owned by Christine A. Berry and Martha Campbell. The exhibit is appropriately called “Albert Stadler—Studies in Color.”

Some have called it the “Paris of the Prairies.” It’s a nickname that now seems even more apt for the fast-growing city of Saskatoon, which last month celebrated the opening of Canada’s newest modern and contemporary art museum. The Remai Modern houses works by renowned Canadian and international artists as well as the largest collection of Picasso linocuts, and it aspires to be a world-class attraction that draws tourists to this urban center of Saskatchewan.

Berry Campbell Gallery is pleased to announce a special exhibition of paintings by Albert Stadler (1923-2000) from November 16 through December 22, 2017. Albert Stadler was a leading figure in the rise of color abstraction in the mid-1960s, addressing the nature of the optical experience in art. This exhibition at Berry Campbell will highlight these developments in Stadler’s career focusing on paintings from the 1970s and 1980s. The opening reception for Albert Stadler: Studies in Color is Thursday, November 16 from 6 to 8 pm. In the catalogue for Albert Stadler’s first solo exhibition held at Bennington College in 1962, he stated that he saw his canvases as invitations “for the viewer to participate in events, in the activity of color and the relativity of space.” For Stadler, “space . . . and the “to illuminate and elucidate all parts of a painting,” while allowing viewers the opportunity to find their own way through an image. Creating both hard-edge and more ethereal paintings, Stadler united directions in Color Field and Minimalist art, often bridging the gap between the intellectual and sensual and the conceptual and spiritual.

In this exhibition's museum-quality catalogue, Gail Levin makes a plausible case that we don't know Syd Solomon better only because he enlisted. The mildly infirm and the conscientious objectors were able to form their art in the modernist heyday of early-1940s New York City while Solomon was off earning Bronze Stars and contracting frostbite in the Battle of the Bulge.

When 99-year-old Annie Solomon attends an opening at an art gallery, she’s as much of a focal point as the paintings on the walls. Artists, art lovers, students and retirees all want to hang out with her.

Some admire her because she’s a vibrant link to Sarasota’s days as an arts colony in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. The widow of abstract expressionist painter Syd Solomon, she has clear memories of those bohemian times, when she and Syd hosted parties for local artists, writers and musicians, as well as famous visitors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Elia Kazan and Betty Friedan.

Glenn Glissler designed a space at the Brooklyn Heights Designer Showhouse with pieces of artwork by Judith Godwin, Dan Christensen, Larry Zox, and Walter Darby Bannard from Berry Campbell gallery.