Roy De Forest

During January and February, the George Adams Gallery presents in the Main Gallery, “A Simple Life,” an exhibition of small-scale paintings by Roy De Forest (1930-2007). The 11 paintings in the show, dating between 2000 and 2003, range in size from 24 x 24 inches to 33 x 33 inches and are mounted in the artist's carved and hand-painted frames. Created shortly before the artist’s death in 2007, these portrait-style works focus on De Forest’s favorite subjects of dogs, horses, donkeys, and men, playfully featured in his unique compositions of animated colors and rich mosaic patterns. De Forest, who showed regularly with the gallery since his first exhibition in 1966 (then known as the Allan Frumkin Gallery), is the subject of a retrospective exhibition being organized by the Oakland Museum in California scheduled for 2015.

Concurrently on view in the Drawing Gallery are three paintings and three drawings made between 1960 and 1969. Of particular note are two paintings from the early 1960s, “Lily of the Valley,” (c.1960) and “Untitled” (1961), which introduce several familiar motifs found in De Forest's later work.


Exhibition Checklist

1.
Untitled, 1960
oil, acrylic, and mixed media on wood
44 ¼ x 24 ¼ x 5 ¾ inches
RDs 13

2.
A Bird in the Hand, 1965
Acrylic on canvas
72 x 60 inches
RDp 19

3.
Untitled, 1969
Pastel, crayon, graphite, watercolor on paper
20 ½ x 29 ½ inches
RDd 61

4.
Untitled, 1961
PVA, acrylic polymer, and oil on panel
15 1/8 x 10 ½ inches
RDp 61

5.
Untitled, 1967
Pastel, pencil on paper
22 ½ x 30 inches
RDd 29

6.
Lily of the Valley, c. 1960
Oil on canvas
26 x 25 ½ inches
RDp 60