Detail from Untitled 1958-1959 painted collage 8 1/18 x 5 1/4 inches by George Nama.
In an important retrospective exhibition that spans sixty years of artistic evolution, George Nama’s distinctive visual language is displayed in Pasadena’s Jack Rutberg Fine Arts gallery. Opening March 16,”George Nama: 60 Years of Selected Works” presents a comprehensive collection that includes bronze sculptures, painted collages, gouaches, and etchings.
The New York-based artist’s work exists at fascinating intersections — monumental yet ephemeral, figurative yet inventive. While nature serves as Nama’s starting point, his forms evolve through the catalysts of poetry, music and personal musings, creating works that resist easy categorization.
Among the exhibition’s most intriguing pieces are small-scale works from 1958, created with the intention of achieving monumentality on an intimate scale. These pieces stand in notable contrast to the dominant Abstract Expressionist movement of that formative period.
Remarkable collaborations with literary luminaries have distinguished Nama’s career. His partnerships include projects with French writer Yves Bonnefoy, pianist-poet Alfred Brendel, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic (former editor of The Paris Art Review and recipient of the MacArthur ‘Genius’ grant), and filmmaker George A. Romero.
Romero’s final work — a poignant short story titled “Liberator” — was created in collaboration with Nama, whose related etchings and gouaches are included in this current exhibition. These collaborations highlight Nama’s unique ability to create visual counterparts to literary expression.
These collaborations have received substantial critical acclaim. Bonnefoy, known for his writings on artists like Goya and Giacometti, declared he “would not hesitate to place [Nama’s artist books] among the most remarkable creations in the past twenty to thirty years, in the United States or France, where the genre has a long tradition.”
New York Times critic Grace Glueck noted Nama’s works have “achieved a life of its own [apart from Mr. Brendel’s celebrated poetry],” while Art in America critic David Ebony characterized the work as “visual poetry.”
The exhibition includes etchings from 2000 related to Bonnefoy’s “Threshold’s Lure,” featuring surreal sculptural “gardenscapes” that critics have compared to Rembrandt’s greatest etchings in their extraordinary tonal range.
Nama’s work has found homes in prestigious institutions worldwide, including the Smithsonian Institution, Bibliothèque National in Paris, National Japanese Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, the Morgan Library, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among numerous others.
This exhibition continues the gallery’s presentation of museum quality exhibitions since its move to Pasadena as one of the longest-established fine art galleries in Los Angeles. The exhibition opens with a reception for the artist from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 16, and continues through May 17.
Jack Rutberg Fine Arts is located at 600 S. Lake Avenue, #102 on the corner of California Avenue in Pasadena. Free parking entrance is on S. Lake Avenue, with gallery entrance through the lobby. Normal gallery hours are Tuesday to Friday 10:00 to 6:00
and Saturday 10:00 to 5:00. For more information, call (323) 938-5222.
