Nancy Hoffman Gallery

HOWARD BUCHWALD
Howard Buchwald was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1943. He received a B.F.A. from Cooper Union, New York and an M.A. from Hunter College of the City University of New York. His awards include two from the National Endowment for the Arts; a Guggenheim Fellowship; and grants from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and Creative Artists Program Services. The artist resides in New York City. In the 1970s the artist dared to violate the sacred picture plane by cutting into the support giving these frontal works an iconic presence. This presence is enhanced by the geometrical shapes Buchwald used; the circle, the triangle, the square. With many layers of oil paint, he built a rich surface juxtaposing the color of the ground often stemming from the primaries with the color of the geometric shape.A regal green painting that conjures nature in its palette has a buff color triangle, an object of contemplation; a royal red painting has a darker red square around its perimeter, a meditation on space.
TRIANGLE painting green

Howard Buchwald, UNTITLED, 1974,
oil on linen, 64 x 64 inches
These works from the 1970s are limited in palette, elemental in their approach to the figure ground relation-ship. They are powerful, quiet and as fresh today as they were when painted 25 years ago. In contrast to the quiet of the early paintings is the pictorial complexity of Buchwald's new work. Line has taken over the rhythmic field of these paintings in both large and small scale, functioning as a unit of color. Line next to line the colors dance across the canvas surface suggesting ribbons unfurled in the wind. An evolution of the artist's paintings from the late 1980s and early 1990s when the artist used line in a rectilinear fashion, the new works use line in curvilinear fashion.
Untitled

Howard Buchwald, UNTITLED, 1999,
acrylic on canvas, 40 x 55 inches
Revisit/Review

Howard Buchwald, REVISIT/REVIEW, 1998,
acrylic on panel, 18 x 24 inches
The lines dart in and out of pathways and circuits, with no obvious beginning or end. The energy in the paintings is high, their suggestive nature is undeniable. Are they the inner workings of the artist's mind, a depiction of the current state of the world's energy, the inner workings of the most complex high-wired computer, perhaps none of the above, but the works are indeed pure crystallized energy.
The palette has changed in the paintings as well. Moving away from the calm of his 1970s simplified color system, Buchwald dives in feet first to the splendors of a joy-filled palette. Yellows bound into oranges rebound on pinks careening into purples while red swirls around mustard into olive, around a green-blue that cannot be named, to an anchoring black.
Slap/Dash

Howard Buchwald, SLAP/DASH, 1999,
acrylic on board, 31 x 49 inches
Picture Book

Howard Buchwald, PICTURE BOOK, 1998,
acrylic on canvas, 18 x 32 inches

These are paintings about the sheer joy of color and painting but rigorously conceived intellectually. If the drawing line were not just right and colors not perfectly calibrated they might run off the canvas edge, but no such short sight here.

HOWARD BUCHWALD's 2001 Exhibition

HOWARD BUCHWALD's Biography
Untitled

Howard Buchwald, UNTITLED, 1999, acrylic on canvas, 22 x 96 inches