Excerpt from Interregnum: Ethel Schwabacher, 1960 to 1962
By Patricia L Lewy
Ethel Schwabacher's paintings begin with color. Color as "pure reflected light" - its associative and affective power-was for her the prelude to compositional design, so much so that one might see color as the sine qua non of her prolific sixty-year career. A case in point is The Bride Returns I (1960, Plate 14), whose subtly shifting tonalities she called to mind almost twenty years after she made it as she looked out from her sick bed during the final years of her life. On April 3, 1980, she wrote in her journal, "And the yellow double jonquils!-you remind me of my own painting, 'The Bride Returns,' where I played yellow against yellow in such a way as to push some of the tones toward orange and others toward green, giving a sense of variety with the simplest means." The means, though, were anything but simple. Here as in other works from these years, Schwabacher captures light as color forms, which she uses to "set . . . color planes in motion."
Essay by Patricia L Lewy, Ph.D., Director, Friedel Dzubas Estate Archives
Designed by Mark Robinson
Published by Berry Campbell and printed by GHP Media
