152.4 x 127 cm
Front: NS or DF
Back: S&D
“This abstraction of the sea and the sky and Sleat – I was possessed by it… there is no colour I could define: the greys were not grey, the silver was not silver, the blacks were not black. It was light and all darkness. Believe me, I have seen eternity, and it is frightening and it is most beautiful…”
- Jon Schueler
Introduction by Ray Waterhouse
ray@modernfineart.com
It is my great pleasure to present this exhibition of paintings by two artists I greatly admire, both of whom inspired by the changing atmosphere and colors of the sky and coastline: Jon Schueler and Martyn Brewster.
I have worked with Schueler’s widow and trustee of his estate, Magda Salvesen, for 6 years, presenting his work at exhibitions and fairs in London, New York, Miami, Palm Beach and San Francisco. She has been able to place many works in important public collections. One of the greatest compliments I can pay the artist is that soon after a visit to his studio, I visited my mother on the south coast of England and I saw clouds in a different way; I noticed colors and interactions in the sky I hadn’t seen before.
As you will read in the catalogue and see for yourself in this exhibition, Schueler’s paintings are ‘abstracted’ but are not purely abstract. In fact, he railed against the rigid dogma of some of his contemporary abstract artists who were defiantly against any notion of the figurative. Schueler wrote in 1970: “My ‘avant-garde’ was to paint, not nature, but about nature”. And he continued to depict nudes throughout his career.
I have worked with Martyn Brewster for over 10 years, and we held various sell-out shows in London. I have recently been delighted to introduce his work to an American audience, from his early London paintings of the 1970s and ‘80s with their rich colors and thick impasto, through to later work inspired by the coastline of Dorset, lighter in tone and feeling.
