Press Release:

TWO VIEWS OF ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM:

SEYMOUR BOARDMAN (1921-2005) AND ERNEST BRIGGS (1923-1984)

July 14 – September 8, 2023

Seymour Boardman and Ernest Briggs explored contrasting expressions of abstraction, both vigorous and dynamic, yet while the former demonstrated cool and controlled forms, the other spoke a more forceful and fiery language of raw and cataclysmic nature. Together these masters display an appreciation of the many subtleties of abstract expressionism.

Seymour Boardman spent his formative years in New York and Paris before and after WWII. His style developed alongside fellow influential artists such as Sam Francis, Larry Calcagno, John Hultberg, and Frank Lobdell. Exhibiting in solo and group shows from the 1950s until his death in 2005, Boardman's paintings can be found in national and international collections.

Boardman's paintings are marked by an apparent underlying grid, heavily influenced by his time in Europe. His work would mature and evolve into an almost jazz-like improvisational musical score of lines moving across canvas, setting the stage for an orchestra of linear motifs.

Contrary to the cool intellectual and European influence of Seymour Boardman's oeuvre, Ernest Briggs followed a more radical aesthetic that grew from the environment at the California School of Fine Art. There he studied with Douglas MacAgy, Clifford Still, Mark Rothko, and Ad Reinhardt. Upon Still's suggestion, Briggs moved to New York in the 1950s and was immediately accepted as a member of the New York avant-garde.

Briggs would continue to create works exploring a beastly-like vision where the paint wildly comes alive with a forceful and energetic strength, juxtaposing a luminous atmosphere with rhythmic, strong brushstrokes.

Briggs taught at the University of Florida, at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn for over 20 years, and briefly at Yale University. His paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions since the 1940s. His works are held in The Whitney Museum in New York, The Brooklyn Museum, The Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., The San Francisco Museum of Art, and The Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, PA.