Sigmund Abeles

My family and I began the morning early, driving four and a half hours through the remaining rain of Hurricane Ida to arrive at the Culture Center in Manhattan. Sigmund Abeles art work is here, the last day of the seven days total that it has hung in this space.

Sigmund’s a master printmaker, draftsman, painter, and sculptor with a humanist viewpoint. Our time today amounts to four hours of visiting and seeing...added to the whirlwind four and a half hours to get back.

The rain softens enough later on our drive for us to find CA, PA, and NC, among other states visible on the license plates, people all driving in the same direction. It creates a sense of connectedness, and this in summary, seems to be the gist of Sigmund’s work.

The Culture Center is lovely, with bricked walls, high ceilings, and old wood floors,…it’s a place that houses art with ease, and perhaps the empathetic, figurative work of Sigmund’s, more easily. On either side of the stairwell are prints by Sigmund, including two self portraits to the right. They’re intense, searching images, with a rich value and mark making range that makes me want to remain with them, as do his other lithographs and even more so, his intaglio and drypoint works. The stairwell is lined with elegant pastels, oils, prints, and drawings, and although the main room is small, work rises above and below eye vision to acknowledge the fun of crouching down and straining up as many of his figures do within their fields. His titles suggest loose narratives, the gestures of his models inviting further story telling, but it’s his particular vision and handling that draws the viewer in, with its curious, physical, demanding, compassionate, and sensual attention. His talk, like his work, is complex, engaging, time oriented, and personal.

I did not have the chance to look at every image equally, but loved the human touch felt in his line, the solidity of his figures, the beautiful, deep color of his pastels and the overall years of living and experience felt in his work. There is genuine warmth to his gaze as you feel it rest on the same forms he’s loved and worked from for years: family members, models, and the animals throughout his life.

‘Tyrone with Drawing of Renee', 'Black Man, Knee Bent’, and ‘Carol In Beret With Hand Against Face’, are a few among the many powerful works visible in this exhibition, and seeing both him and his work has been a privilege.