September 7th – 28th, 2023
Gallery hours: Wedn-Sunday 1-6PM

OPENING, Thursday, September 7 2023, 6-8 pm.

Westbeth Gallery
155 Bank Street
Enter through courtyad
New York, NY 10014

Ken Wade moved into WestBeth Artist Housing on January 1, 1970 where the artist has lived and worked for 53 years. This September, Wade will be opening a one-person Selective Retrospective with drawings, paintings, and sculptures dating from 1964 to the present.

“I began making art in the early 1960s while living on the Island state of Tasmania; 125 miles off the SE coast of Australia. Four years later, back in the USA, my first American exhibition (1968) was at the Corcoran Museum, Washington DC; I exhibited a series of large Zig-Zag paintings.
The images to follow represent selected work from early 60s (Tasmania/Melbourne), work done in Washington (67-69), ultimately concluding with NYC during the 70s-80s up to the present.
On New Years’ day 1970, my family and I moved from Washington, DC into the WestBeth Artist Housing. With us, a huge crate, that had followed us from Melbourne, to London, to Washington DC to New York City. The crate was packed solid with paintings and drawings that I had done in Australia, and weighed nearly 1500 lbs . We gratefully accepted management’s offer of storage space in the basement facing the Westside Highway.
Long story short—there was a flood.
‘BIRD IN THE BUSH’ #9 was one of many dozens of BIRD’s & NUDE’s in the BUSH I painted during my 2 years in Tasmania. BIRD# 9 is the only painting from the crate that survived Westbeth’s first flood. ”

More about Ken Wade and his work at Westbeth Artist Page: Ken Wade