Constructing Biederman 2021 — Meredith Ward Fine Art

Constructing Biederman:
Charles Biederman and the Pursuit of an American Abstraction

October 22 - December 17, 2021

View All Selected Works | Read About Biederman

Biomorphic abstraction of rounded shapes in gray, blue, red, and green on a yellow background

Charles Biederman (1906-2004)
#27, 1936
Oil on canvas
51 x 38 1/4 inches

Abstraction with textured surface in blue, black, green, grey, and yellow.

Charles Biederman (1906-2004)
#22, 1935
Oil on canvas
32 x 26 1/8 inches

Geometric abstract mixed media work with layered, patterned parallelograms floating on golden-brown plane

Irene Rice Pereira (1902-1971)
Duograph, c. 1946
Mixed media and collage on parchment
27 7/8 x 28 7/8 inches

Painting of abstract industrial scene with a black and grey smokestack, three red circles, and a green and grey box

Flora Crockett (1892-1979)
Untitled, 1941
Oil on canvas board
30 x 22 inches

Geometric abstract painting of different colored flat planes and cork relief in primarily yellow, red, blue, and brown

Frederick Kann (1884-1965)
Untitled, c. 1938
Oil and cork on canvas board
18 x 24 inches

Biomorphic abstract work on paper of floating shapes in black, brown, white, and blue

Charles Biederman (1906-2004)
6/36, 1936
Pastel and gouache on paper
29 1/2 x 23 inches

About the exhibition

“…they will be surprised one day, when looking past their long gray whiskers, that abstract art still is here & moving…people [think] that the final complete elimination of subject matter is the last & the end; they cannot see that that step is another beginning.” - Charles Biederman, New York, March 1936

Meredith Ward Fine Art is pleased to present Constructing Biederman: Charles Biederman and the Pursuit of an American Abstraction. This exhibition will take an intimate look at the early paintings and drawings of Charles Biederman. His work will be shown alongside those of his peers who were grappling with similar ideas in the search for a new, American abstract art. The mid-1930s was a particularly prolific, and experimental, period of Biederman’s life. He had gained the approval of key critics and peers, and achieved success as an abstract painter both in New York and abroad. Yet, after Biederman returned from Paris in June of 1937, he stopped painting and worked in sculpture for the remainder of his career.

“For me, there is no future for art except in N.Y.,” Biederman wrote from Paris in 1936. “The Americans don’t know & care less about art & at least one can start clean with them. On the other hand, here they are so saturated with the past & tradition in art…they shall just continue to vomit art…” Biederman realized that many of the veteran Parisian avant-garde felt that abstract art had run its course. While this was also the attitude of some art institutions in New York, like the Museum of Modern Art, Biederman and his American peers nevertheless pressed further into the realm of abstraction, synthesizing avant-garde styles with their own personal vision. Recognizing the potential for abstract art in the United States, European artists like Frederick Kann immigrated and anchored the American Abstract Artists group. American artists such as Irene Rice Pereira and Flora Crockett returned from abroad with new insight gained through training with modern masters like Fernand Léger. With ambitions to push beyond the bounds of subject matter, materials, and form, these artists gave abstract art new life across the Atlantic.