Laura Rathe Fine Art announces an upcoming solo exhibition Celebrating Eighty-Five Years featuring the work of renowned abstract expressionist, Tony Magar. LRFA will be hosting the opening reception on March 18th at their Upper Kirby Gallery.
Celebrating Eighty-Five Years represents the culmination of an astounding half a century of work for Tony Magar, who throughout his impressive career has sought to explore without limitations, longing to reach the highest, most complex form of expression. Still painting into his eighties, Magar represents one of the last surviving members of the quintessentially American, Abstract Expressionist movement.
Inspired greatly by the musical stylings of Coltrane, Mozart and Wagner, Magar’s creative approach is one of contemplation, engagement and retreat. The language of instruments guides his application of paint to the canvas, with the strokes of Magar’s brush echoing the strokes of a musician’s bow. Fields of washed color bleed into each other, gracefully supporting the light and brittle forms that seem to almost vibrate on the canvas. The deliberate clumsiness of the drawing – giving forth the appearance of dissolution – bring to mind the likes of Magar’s contemporaries Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg, and mentor, Mark di Suvero. The results of Magar’s work reflect an intimacy between art forms developed over a long and noted career.
This solo exhibition will be on display through April 15th.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in London, Tony Magar began his artistic career studying at the Royal Albert Hall School. In his early twenties, he moved to New York City and joined the legendary Martha Jackson Gallery. He participated in the landmark exhibition, New Forms, along with Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, John Chamberlain, and Claus Oldenburg, as well as earlier masters, Dubuffet, Schwitters, and Arp. In 1960, with the help of Mark de Suvero, Magar cofounded the Park Place Gallery.
Magar moved to Taos, New Mexico in 1976 and became one of the most well-respected painters in the contemporary art scene. By the mid-1980s, Magar split his time between Taos and Houston. Magar currently resides and works in Corpus Christi, TX.