| |
 |
Abstract Expressionism drew on the longstanding modernist
interest in formal and abstract structure, which in painting
culminated in the Cubism of Braque and Picasso; it also drew on
the lessons of Surrealism, which sought a psychologically
authentic art in the United States... the two movements merged
to form an art that was both non-representational and
psychologically intense.
- Michael J. Lewis
As acolyte and close student of Hans Hofmann in New York and
Provincetown, Dina Werfel was of that generation of women
abstract expressionists which included Helen Frankenthaler,
Joan Mitchell, and Lee Krasner, among others.
Driven by emotions hidden from others, Werfel painted fiercely
but privately for the two decades following World War II. She
exhibited in New York at Gallery 15, together with other women
not readily welcome at the men-only galleries characteristic of
those early years.
The bulk of her work was uncovered at the time of her death
in 2004, and was immediately recognized as having gone too
long unknown. For those looking at the work of women
abstract expressionists of the postwar period, Werfel's pictures
represent an unusual opportunity.
|
|
