Interactive Timeline of Ary's Artwork

Representational

Palestine Watercolors

Morocco Drawings

Early Abstracts

New York Folio

Drawings

Prints

Early Mexican

Gouaches

Houston-
Cuernavaca

Leyendas

Gouaches (1961-1966)

 

We read everything on pre-Cortez times that we could find. Prescott's history of the conquest of Mexico and Peru; Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who described so quaintly and so graphically the country and the people and the details of the coming of the Spaniards, as one of Cortez' men; more recent writers on the culture of the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Incas. Also general mythology such as the Golden Bough, poetry such as The White Pony, an anthology of Chinese poetry from 1100 B.C. through 1921. All this fired Ary's imagination, and what with improved physical condition, greater peace of mind, and new stimuli to inspire him, Ary's incredibly rich imagination began to reassert itself. Now, he fantasized, he had discovered through excavating among ancient ruins, a "palace of the prince" and everything that poured forth as he sat in the arm-chair in the corner of the verandah was something he carried away from the walls of this ancient palace. So in 1960 he began a series of gouaches, which in creativeness, in spontaneity, in line and form are perhaps the culmination, or at least the beginning of the culmination of his entire career as a non-representational painter. Ary felt that himself, "I am a new Ary" he would say. He even decided that this new Ary should have his name on the paintings rather than the old Stillman whose depression he had fought off. So one will find that practically all of the gouaches and many of the later canvases bear the name "Ary." Later on, after we left Mexico, he drifted back into signing "Stillman" again.

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Dream
Dream
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Dualist Motif from Temple
Dualist Motif
from Temple

c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Echo
Echo
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Enchantment
Enchantment
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Museum Collection]
Fantasy
Fantasy
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Fantasy
Fantasy
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Fantasy in Green and Black
Fantasy in
Green and Black

c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Untitled
Untitled
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Forms in Space
Forms in Space
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
13 x 19 1/2 in.,
[Private Collection]
Four Images
Four Images
1966,
gouache on paper,
18 x 13 in.,
[Foundation Collection]
Four Images
Four Images
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
25 x 20 in.,
[Museum Collection]
From an Aztec Temple
From an
Aztec Temple

c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
From the Book of Death
From the Book
of Death #3

c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Private Collection]
From the Book of Death
From the Book
of Death

1962,
gouache on paper,
18 x 13 1/2 in.,
[Museum Collection]
From the Book of Records
From the Book
of Records

c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
From the Book of Wisdom #1
From the Book
of Wisdom #1

c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
From the Book of Wisdom #2
From the Book
of Wisdom #2

c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
From the Temple of Young Prince
From the Temple
of the Young Prince

1961,
gouache on paper,
22 x 21 in.,
[Museum Collection]
Gay Memory
Gay Memory
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
24 x 19 in.,
[Private Collection]
Horizontal
Horizontal
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
In the Beginning
In the Beginning
1964,
gouache on paper,
[Museum Collection]
In the Beginning #3
In the Beginning #3
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
In the Beginning #4
In the Beginning #4
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
In the Beginning #5
In the Beginning #5
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Indian Motif #2
Indian Motif #2
1962,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Interplay
Interplay
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Interplay #2
Interplay #2
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Layout for Mural in a Temple
Layout for Mural
in a Temple

c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Leyenda #1
Leyenda #1
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Leyenda #2
Leyenda #2
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]

 

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Art Review

New York Times

"From the Summer of ’50, Luminous Drawings"
By Benjamin Genocchio
August, 19, 2007

Sayville #23

Current Exhibition

Coming Up Soon...

Ary Stillman: From Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism

From Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism Edited by James Wechsler Foreword by Donald Kuspit

Upcoming Exhibition

Ary Stillman
(1891-1967):
Spirits of the Underworld

Spirits of Underworld

Van Deren Coke Gallery
at the University of
New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque

October 7-December 2, 2008

Foundation's Catalog 2007

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