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PAUL KASMIN - Jules Olitski

3,898 views · Published 11 March 2014 · 4:54 · Indexed 27 September 2026

Channel: NYC GALLERY OPENINGS · 2014 · Entertainment

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Jules Olitski
Mitt Paintings

Paul Kasmin Gallery 515 West 27th Street
515 West 27th Street
New York, NY 


March 6th - April 19th, 2014
Opening:  March 6th 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Paul Kasmin Gallery is pleased to present Jules Olitski: Mitt Paintings, March 6 -- 
April 19, 2014 at 515 West 27th Street, New York. The exhibition is comprised of 
ten "mitt pictures" made between 1988 and 1992 that showcase Olitski's 
groundbreaking, tactile approach to painting. Many of the works have never 
been exhibited. Olitski created his mitt pictures by using his hands to spread 
paint across canvases in fluid movements that blended colors and created 
textural imprints that recorded his active gestures. A catalogue will be published 
at the time of the exhibition and will include a foreword by Olitski's daughter 
Lauren Olitski and an essay by Alex Grimley.

Known throughout his career for exploring new materials and techniques in 
painting, Olitski began making his mitt paintings in the late 1980s when Golden 
Artists Colors sent him a new kind of paint they had recently developed. Using 
painter's mitts left in his Bear Island studio by his wife Kristina he mixed the new 
paint with thick acrylic gels, and the mitt pictures were born. Much like the 
brooms, squeegees, and spray guns previously used by Olitski, the mitts quickly 
became an important tool, and one that proved to be a harbinger of further 
curiosity and experimentation.

The works were neither planned nor sketched in advance; they document the 
spontaneous and visceral decisions the artist made with his paint-soaked mitts. 
The iridescent pigments and many shades of shimmering colors shift with the 
viewer's position and in response to light.

In an interview, Olitski explained "I never wanted to make... paintings to be seen 
at a single glance." The essence of a "mitt picture" cannot be grasped in one 
look; the canvases' surfaces and color must be viewed from different angles to 
experience the evocative illusions they form when merged together by Olitski's 
hand.

The exhibition will coincide with Alexander the Great: The Iolas Gallery 
1955-1987 at Paul Kasmin Gallery's 293 10th Avenue location. That exhibition 
will celebrate 20th century art dealer Alexander Iolas and the artists whose 
careers he helped to shape, including Olitski.

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