John Ferren (1905-1970)The Witch Doctor, 1963

Oil on canvas, 59 x 65 inches

JOHN OPPERHERmaN CHERRy

JOHN FERREN

KylE mORRis

February 8 - March 8 , 2014

Monday - Saturday 10 :00am - 5 :30pm

O p e n i n g R e c e p t i o n : S a t u r d a y , F e b r u a r y 8 t h , 3 : 0 0 p m - 5 : 0 0 p m

DAVID FINDLAY JR GALLERYE S t a b l i S h E d 1 8 7 0

724 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

212-486-7660 www.davidfindlayjr.com

(cover) John Ferren (1905-1970)Bittersweet, 1958

Oil on canvas, 66 1/6 x 49 3/4 inches

Herman Cherry (1909-1992)Two Verticals (Wavering Columns), 1960-63

Oil on canvas, 60 x 42 inches

The three artists in this exhibition, John Ferren, Herman Cherry and Kyle Morris, congregated

to what had became an artists’ enclave at the East End of Long Island and settled there (as oth-

ers did), after having crisscrossed the world and straddled the country where they were educat-

ed.

Ferren, the oldest of the three, brought back a European sophistication to theUnited States, trans-

forming Stanley William Hayter’s concise, etched wave lines and Jean Helion’s plastic, floating

shapes. He would pass through Surrealist waters into his own quixotic and very vibrant, emo-

tional abstraction – deconstructing sculptural forms, ultimately calming and flattening his per-

sonal color space towards the end of his journey.

Morris left early colorful, romantic figuration and moved from almost monochrome gestural

shimmer of the Fifties into compressed and condensed bold gestures confronting the viewer like

geological faults; only to be absorbed in his following work into broad flat shapes – from action

to calm, from urban environment to landscape; eventually dissolving into minimal lines cross-

ing interrupted sculpted fields in his last pursuit.

Cherry, moving west from the East Coast and back as Ferren did, worked through early figura-

tion, some surrealist exploration – with color always being the important foil – and found his

place (having returned from Europe in 1950) in the American abstract gestural world. His was

a very personal, rhythmic and energetic language which calmed and crystallized into flattened

lyrical color space, organic charcoal lines defining limits, and lastly, to let color become the

structure of his paint.

All three artists interacted with each other in New York first, and later on the East End.

Inevitably, the particular environment and the intellectual, as well as social intercourse affected

the outcome of their efforts generating a certain calm and concentration in their later work.

Regina Cherry

New York City, January 13, 2014

(back) Kyle Morris (1918-1979)Number 2, 1953

Oil on canvas, 36 x 43 inches

Kyle Morris (1918-1979)Breakthrough, 1959

Oil on canvas, 48 x 54 inches

Herman Cherry (1909-1992)Green Band Red Square, 1958-59Oil on canvas, 51 1/4 x 68 inches

DAVID FINDLAY JR GALLERYEstablishEd 1870

724 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

212-486-7660 www.davidfindlayjr.com