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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Stained Glass #2
Stained Glass #2
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Museum Collection]
Stained Glass #3
Stained Glass #3
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Stained Glass #4
Stained Glass #4
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Strange Flight
Strange Flight
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Strange Flight #2
Strange Flight #2
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Structural
Structural
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Temple Decoration in Bronze and Turquoise
Temple Decoration in
Bronze and Turquoise

c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Temple Priests
Temple Priests
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Private Collection]
The Prince
The Prince
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
The Song of Songs
The Song of Songs
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Museum Collection]
The Three Spirits
The Three Spirits
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Twilight
Twilight
1960,
gouache on paper,
18 x 13 in.,
[Museum Collection]
Two Spirits in the Green Underworld
Two Spirits in the
Green Underworld

c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Untitled
Untitled
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Untitled
Untitled
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Untitled
Untitled
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Untitled
Untitled
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Untitled
Untitled
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Private Collection]
Untitled
Untitled
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Private Collection]
Untitled
Untitled
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Private Collection]
Untitled
Untitled
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Private Collection]
Untitled
Untitled
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Private Collection]
Untitled
Untitled
c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Private Collection]
Variations on a Chinese Theme, Four Images
Variations on a Chinese
Theme (Four Images)

c.1961-1966,
gouache on paper,
[Foundation Collection]
Vertical and Horizontal
Vertical and Horizontal
1964,
gouache on paper,
[Museum Collection]
When the Clock Struck 13
When the Clock
Struck 13

1963,
gouache on paper,
18 9/16 x 13 13/16 in.,
[Museum 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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