Sonia Getchtoff, “Hiroshige Revisited” (1988), acrylic and graphite on canvas, 58 1/4 x 40 1/2 inches (photo by Guang Xu, image courtesy the artist and 55 Walker, New York)

Sonia Gechtoff
55 Walker
(55 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan)
through August 26, 2022

HYPERALLERGIC Review excerpt
John Yau
July 27, 2022

Gechtoff’s work did not fit into any of the New York art world’s narratives of progressive art. It is time we look closer at what this marvelous artist achieved.

Consisting of 21 paintings and works on paper made between 1958 and 2017, a span of nearly half a century, the exhibition marks an important step in the art world’s consideration of Gechtoff. From relying on a palette knife to using acrylic and graphite in the same painting, as well as incorporating diverse sources within a collage-like single painting (architecture, landscape, and flames and wave-like forms), Gechtoff confidently pushed her art into new realms, inspired by collages she made in 1962 and ’63, none of which are in the exhibition. At the same time, working in New York under the sign of pure painting and later the “death of painting,” it is easy to understand why she was marginalized. Her work did not fit into any of the New York art world’s narratives of progressive art. The fact that drawing was a serious part of her practice and that she did not work on a monumental scale probably did not help her either. Nor did it help that she and her husband had two children.

Of the 21 works in the exhibition, 19 were made between 1984 and 2017, the year before she died. Eight of these works, done in acrylic and graphite on paper, are no bigger than 16 1/2 x 15 3/4 inches. Made when the art world was enthralled with Neo-expressionism, these and other late works make it clear that Gechtoff had no down periods. From the 1980s on, she combined figural allusions to landscape and architecture with abstract passages that evoke convulsive change, such as crashing waves and roiling skies. She seems preoccupied with time passing in both the daily sense and the larger, cosmic sense.

Read the full review at Sonia Gechtoff

Painting credit on home page: Sonia Gechtoff, “Celestial Red” (1994), acrylic on canvas, 77 3/4 x 78 inches (photo by Guang Xu, image courtesy the artist and 55 Walker, New York)

The exhibition was organized by Bortolami Gallery, kaufmann repetto, Andrew Kreps Gallery, and David Richard Gallery.