Betty Parsons

Betty Parsons

1950s Works on Paper

November 20 – December 27, 2020
Betty Parsons, Southampton, NY (c. 1935)

Alexander Gray Associates, Germantown presents Betty Parsons: 1950s Works on Paper, its third exhibition of work by Betty Parsons (1900—1982). The Gallery’s presentation highlights a pivotal moment in Parsons’ artistic career after she abandoned figuration to fully embrace abstraction. Comprised of dynamic, intimately scaled works, the exhibition foregrounds what would later become the artist’s signature approach: fortifying the nonrepresentational with the richness of lived experiences, constant travel and exchanges with prominent artists, writers, and curators.

Building on her training as a landscape watercolorist, Parsons’ 1950s works on paper are direct and often urgent interpretations of impressions, places, and times. Rather than making a journal entry or taking a photograph of a particular moment, Parsons was known to open her sketchbook and set gouache to paper as she sought to capture the “sheer energy” of a place. These deft “plein-air” works like Stansford (1951) revel in an animated, playful fluidity that stands in contrast to the considered formalism of the artist’s paintings from this period.

Even after Parsons was able to concentrate more heavily on her painting practice following the construction of her Tony Smith-designed studio in Southold, Long Island in 1960, she remained committed to creating works on paper. On paper, Parsons felt free to challenge the rigid theoretical framework of modernist abstraction with works that are indexical not only insomuch as they’re documents of places, but also of a certain freedom and ease of expression that came while her eponymous gallery in New York was at the height of its success. Her notebooks and sketchbooks reveal the extent of her expressive improvisation, which would ultimately influence her paintings and sculpture.
Betty Parsons: 1950s Works on Paper, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2020)

Gouaches like Untitled (c. early 1950s) offer unique formal arrangements and a keenly melodious sense of color. Meanwhile, the luminosity of Maine (1958) lends a transportive quality that conveys distinct impressions of locales and emotions. In all works, washes of color are built up quickly in thin layers; often the wet gouache is vigorously incised with the back of a brush to further enliven the composition. Active and energetic—like Parsons herself—these works offer a personal connection to one of the seminal figures who shaped twentieth-century art.

Betty Parsons’ work has been the subject of numerous one-person exhibitions at Art Omi, Ghent, NY (2018); The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, East Hampton, NY (1992); the Montclair Museum of Art, NJ (1974); Whitechapel Gallery, London, United Kingdom (1968), and The Miami Museum of Modern Art, FL (1963). Parsons’ work is represented in prominent public collections including The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; Guild Hall, East Hampton, NY; The High Museum, Atlanta, GA; The Montclair Museum of Art, Montclair, NJ; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; The Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY; The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY among others.
"Betty Parsons: 1950s Works on Paper," installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2020)
- Betty Parsons
  Untitled, 1953
  Gouache on paper
  7 15/16 x 5 in (20.2 x 12.7 cm)
  15 1/2 x 12 5/8 x 1 5/8 in framed (39.2 x 31.9 x 4.1 cm framed)
  (BP051)
  
  Throughout her life, Betty Parsons traveled extensively, and she meticulously recorded her travels in her journals as watercolors and sketches. Though trained as a landscape painter, in 1947, she began to paint abstractly. She described this shift as an effort to capture not what a place or event “looked like, but what it made [her] feel.” This small scale untitled 1953 work came directly from the artist’s notebook, a record of a place she had visited. Using the back of her paintbrush, Parsons scrapes through wet gouache in rhythmic, free gestures. In describing works of this nature, the art critic Roberta Smith notes, “gouaches here resemble sinuous road maps, while others isolate shapes of color on contrasting grounds, like islands in a sea, or windows in the corner of a room. Inevitably several shapes are finished off with enlivening scribbles that scratch through to reveal contrasting shades beneath.”
- Betty Parsons
  Stansford, 1951
  Gouache on paper
  6 3/4 x 5 in (17.1 x 12.7 cm)
  14 1/4 x 12 5/8 x 1 5/8 in framed (36.2 x 31.9 x 4.1 cm framed)
  (BP105)
  Sold
- Betty Parsons
  Untitled, 1958
  Gouache on paper
  7 3/4 x 5 7/16 in (19.7 x 13.8 cm)
  15 3/8 x 13 x 1 5/8 in framed (38.9 x 33 x 4.1 cm framed)
  (BP122)
- Betty Parsons
  Untitled, 1952
  Gouache on paper
  8 1/8 x 9 in (20.5 x 22.7 cm)
  15 3/4 x 16 1/2 x 1 5/8 in framed (39.8 x 41.9 x 4.1 cm framed)
  (BP128)
- Betty Parsons
  Maine, 1958
  Gouache on paper
  7 1/16 x 5 1/4 in (17.9 x 13.3 cm)
  14 5/8 x 12 7/8 x 1 5/8 in framed (37.1 x 32.7 x 4.1 cm framed)
  (BP139)
  Sold
"Betty Parsons: 1950s Works on Paper," installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2020)
- Betty Parsons
  Untitled, 1950
  Gouache on paper
  23 11/16 x 17 3/4 in (60.2 x 45.1 cm)
  26 3/4 x 20 3/4 x 1 5/8 in framed (67.9 x 52.7 x 4.1 cm framed)
  (BP116)
  Sold
  
  Though Parsons’ shifted from her roots as a landscape painter toward abstraction in 1947, a sense of place remained essential throughout her enduring artistic practice. This untitled (1950) work calls attention to the artist’s innate ability to at once capture the essence of a given environment, while also transforming subjective experience into compositions that feel universal and familiar. In describing works of this nature, critic Roberta Smith noted, “gouaches here resemble sinuous road maps, while others isolate shapes of color on contrasting grounds, like islands in a sea, or windows in the corner of a room. Inevitably several shapes are finished off with enlivening scribbles that scratch through to reveal contrasting shades beneath.” In this untitled gouache, one can discern hints of pale and dark blue shades of sky penetrating planes of thick green brush, as Parsons employs a sgraffito technique to scratch through layers of gauche, applied in varying viscosities, to outline organic forms. Pastel blue, pink, and yellow frame the composition in cloudy lines produced by using a frayed, dry brush against the paper’s surface—drawing the viewer’s eye inward to the more vivid iterations of the same pigments. A brilliant red, applied sparingly, strategically imbues the composition with a sense of warmth, while also suggesting the shifting of time from day to night.
- Betty Parsons
  Undersea #2, 1956
  Gouache on paper
  20 1/8 x 15 11/16 in (51.1 x 39.9 cm)
  23 1/8 x 18 5/8 x 1 5/8 in framed (58.7 x 47.3 x 4.1 cm framed)
  (BP192)
  Reserved
- Betty Parsons
  Untitled, 1950
  Gouache on paper
  20 x 16 in (50.8 x 40.64 cm)
  22 7/8 x 19 x 1 5/8 in framed (58.1 x 48.3 x 4.1 cm framed)
  (BP155)
- Betty Parsons
  Untitled, c. late 1950s
  Gouache on paper
  7 1/16 x 5 1/4 in (17.9 x 13.3 cm)
  12 7/8 x 14 5/8 x 1 5/8 in framed (32.5 x 37.1 x 4.1 cm framed)
  Sold
  
  Throughout her life, Parsons traveled extensively, and she meticulously recorded her travels in her journals as watercolors and sketches and regularly drew on a sense of place in her work. Though trained as a landscape painter began to paint abstractly in 1947. She described this shift as an effort to capture not what a place or event “looked like, but what it made [her] feel.” This small-scale work came directly from the artist’s notebook, taken out of the studio, and brought with her as she chronicled her journeys worldwide. In this untitled work, a vivid orange plane of color permeates a sea of loose, organic forms in contrasting cooler, dark tones. Fine lines inscribed into the top layers of paint were made with the back of the brush and evidence her method of working in multiple layers of thin color. In describing works of this nature, critic Roberta Smith noted, “gouaches here resemble sinuous road maps, while others isolate shapes of color on contrasting grounds, like islands in a sea, or windows in the corner of a room. Inevitably several shapes are finished off with enlivening scribbles that scratch through to reveal contrasting shades beneath.”
(View more details about this item in a popup).

(View more details about this item in a popup).

(View more details about this item in a popup).

(View more details about this item in a popup).

(View more details about this item in a popup).

(View more details about this item in a popup).

Betty Parsons: 1950s Works on Paper, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2020)
- Betty Parsons
  Untitled, 1980
  Signed and dated on verso
  Acrylic on wood
  34 x 14 1/2 x 3 in (86.36 x 36.83 x 7.62 cm)
  (BP403)
  
  Parsons explained that her motivation in the studio was a desire to capture “the invisible presence,” a phrase she coined in 1977, which was indicative of her interest in mysticism related to indigenous American art. Her aim to represent pure energy was present in her paintings, assemblages, and diaries. Beginning in 1965, she created painted wooden sculptures, such as this untitled (1980) work composed of wood elements found during walks on the beach near her studio in Southold, Long Island. As curator Abigail Winograd notes, these geometric assemblages which furthered Parsons’ formal explorations, “are, in some ways, reminiscent of Dada sculpture but also indebted to a lifelong interest in Native American and forms of non-Western artistic practice.”

Betty Parsons: 1950s Works on Paper

1950s Works on Paper

November 20 – December 27, 2020