"Walter Plate: East End Abstractions" opens at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center on August 1, 2019 and remains on view until October 31, 2019. The exhibition presents a selection of 11 paintings and works on paper by Walter Plate (1925-1972), one of the foremost young American abstractionists to emerge after World War II. The art on view features works inspired by Plate's frequent visits to Long Island's East End.
A reception and gallery talk by the artist's son, Marc Plate, takes place on Sunday, August 4, 2019, from 5 to 7 p.m., at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in the historic Springs in East Hampton, NY.
Plate was born in Woodhaven, New York. After serving in the Marines during the war, he studied art in Paris under the G.I.Bill. When he returned to the United States, he settled in Woodstock, New York, where he became a respected member of the art colony's abstractionist contingent.
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Walter Plate in his studio, Woodstock, New York, ca. 1960. Courtesy Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center.
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His gestural canvases of the 1950s and 1960s were featured in solo exhibitions at the Stable Gallery, as well as five Whitney Annuals and group shows at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Denver Art Museum and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, where his painting, Hot House, was awarded the 1959 Gold Medal and purchase prize. His work was also included in "Abstract Impressionism," organized by the Arts Council of Great Britain, and the 1959 "International Exhibition of Abstract Art" in Tokyo.
From the early 1960s on, Plate paid annual visits to his brother William, who had a home one block from the Atlantic Ocean in East Hampton, NY. There he would indulge his passion for swimming in the surf, observing beach-goers, and absorbing the ever-changing maritime light and atmosphere. Those experiences found their way into his paintings, even though his studio was in a wooded area far from the coast. The examples in the current exhibition, painted between 1961 and 1971, show how the artist internalized and translated his responses, using luminous color and lively gesture to evoke the East End environment.
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"Beach Music" by Walter Plate, 1971. Oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches. Courtesy Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center.
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Plate's untimely death at age 47 cut short a career characterized by devotion to subjective expression and painterly finesse. As his close friend, the artist Herman Cherry, remarked, "He skated across a canvas as gracefully as a champion Olympic ice skater. There were no missteps with his brush."
The exhibition, organized by the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center's director, Helen A. Harrison, is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog with an essay by Marc Plate, which offers insights into the artist's background and motivations. It is made possible by funds from the Pollock-Krasner Endowment and the Research Foundation, Stony Brook University, designated by Drs. Bobbi and Barry Coller. The works are lent by the Estate of Walter Plate, courtesy of Levis Fine Art, New York.
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BASIC FACTS: "Walter Plate: East End Abstractions" is on view from August 1 to October 31, 2019 at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, 830 Springs-Fireplace Road, East Hampton, NY 11937. An Opening Reception and Gallery Talk takes place on Sunday, August 4, 2019 from 5 to 7 p.m. For details on the exhibition, click here.
The museum is open Thursday and Friday by reservation only and on Saturday with no reservations necessary. Click here for details on visiting. www.stonybrook.edu/pkhouse.
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