On view on the Upper East Side through December 14

Corbett discusses his personal and aesthetic interest in the work of Franz Kline.

Works from the 1960s and 1970s in shows at Elkon and Loretta Howard

He r work was invariably ambiguous, in the best tradition of abstract painting

This essay is an extract from A Memoir of Creativity: abstract painting, politics and the media, 1956-2008 published by iUniverse, 2009. The book unites art theory, politics, journalism and personal memoir. At its heart lies the author’s theory of abstract art, that instead of being non-representational, it constitutes a “multireferential” form of representation.

A “pink lady” is a cocktail made with gin, Grenadine, cream and egg white—the gin packs a punch masked by the more ladylike ingredients. The punch in this painting lies in how its image, suggesting (among much else) an orchid and a human heart, boils upward and outward, from its slate-blue core through the billowing peach and fuchsia of its sides to the splattering blast of blue and reds at the top.

Knoedler & Company 19 East 70th Street New York, NY 10021 tel: 212 794-0550 May 1 – July 18, 2003 The cult of the ugly, consisting of people who equate ugliness with artistic merit, would not approve of this exhibit. Helen Frankenthaler is still guiltlessly making beautiful pictures, even though her work has been dismissed, … Continued