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Press Release Checklist John O'Reilly Photomontage: 1967-1997 October 16 - November 16, 1999 The Julie Saul Gallery is pleased to announce our third solo exhibition of collage work by John O'Reilly. The exhibition will survey works going back to his earliest experiments with collage in the 1960s, up to his most recent Polaroid montages made this year. His two previous exhibitions in New York, held in 1995 and 1997, were comprised of new works, making this his first survey exhibition in New York. For those who have followed O'Reilly since his New York debut in the 1995 Whitney Biennial, this selection of 38 works should produce some surprises. Although his style has changed considerably, themes of identity, art and artists of the past, sexuality, and confrontation with aging have remained constant. A catalog has been produced in conjunction with the show which includes over thirty plates and an essay by Klaus Kertess, who first selected O'Reilly's work for inclusion in the Whitney show. Copies are available for $20pp. Kertess introduces O'Reilly as an artist who "has literally and figuratively cut his way into art history, piecing and pasting fragments of photographic reproductions from past and present, montaging history into a synchronous permanent present, so that the clock ticking inside his space tells his own psychic time." The works have been chosen to represent various series O'Reilly has created over the years. With the exception of the earliest work in the show "About a Sun", 1967 (40 x 50") all of the images are of a small scale. Works from the â70s and early '80s are composed from relatively few elements. "My Constellation" series combine body parts and birds, floating against a deep space of dark inky casein, and the DeChircoesque Italianate compositions from later in the decade are also surreal and timeless. O'Reilly began using a black and white Polaroid camera in the late â80s and early â90s, and his use of this new process leads to increasingly more dense imagery and iconography. After 1990 the work begins to coalesce into more simple and powerful compositions. The theatrical stage-like settings transform from pageants to arias culminating in his most recent series "To Patrick". O'Reilly was born in 1930, and has lived for over thirty years in Worcester, Massachusetts. He studied painting at Syracuse University and received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1956. He received an NEA award in 1988. His work is included in the collections of many public institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, The New York Public Library, Princeton Art Museum, The Addison Gallery, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Worcester Art Museum, and the Williams College Museum of Art. Images (top to bottom): In A French Studio, Studio Break, With Italian Infant, With Filipe Prospero, Photographing In The Studio, About A Sun, Death In Venice: Bike, The Open Gate, Backyard, In Eakin's Studio, At Mill Creek, Before The Pitti Palace, Italian Night, Nijinsky, Young Man. John O'Reilly Photomontage Survey: 1967-1999 MAY 27- JULY 2, 1999 1. In A French Studio, 1983 12 3/4 X 9 1/2" photo and half-tone montage 2. Getting Ready For Picasso, 1984 3 3/4 x 5 7/16" polaroid and half-tone collage 3. Modeling For Velazquez, 1984 3 3/4 x 5" polaroid montage 4. Preparing A Pose, 1984 3 11/16 x 5 5/8" polaroid and paper montage 5. Studio Break, 1984 3 3/4 x 3 7/8" polaroid and paper montage 6. Memorial #1, 1990 3 3/4 x 10 3/8" polaroid montage 7. With Italian Infant, 1991 6 1/4 x 10 1/8" polaroid collage 8. Among The Masks, 1988 7 5/8 x 3 11/16" polaroid collage 9. With Filipe Prospero, 1986/96 3 3/4 x 4 1/8" polaroid montage 10. Looking At Bacchus, 1986 3 7/8 x 6 1/4" polaroid montage 11. Beneath Cupid, 1989 8 1/4 x 3 11/16" polaroid collage 12. Photographing In The Studio, 1986 3 3/4 x 6 7/8" polaroid montage 13. Balance, 1989 7 1/8 x 5 5/8" polaroid montage 14. French Glass, 1999 7 11/16 x 5 13/16" polaroid montage 15. My Constellation- Parrot, 1972 7 1/2 x 9" paper montage and casein 16. My Constellation- Finger, 1974 7 7/16 x 9" paper montage and casein 17. About A Sun, 1967 38 1/8 x 49 3/8" paper montage and casein 18. Parakeets, 1977 8 7/8 x 6" photo and paper montage 19. On A Perch, 1977 9 x 5 5/8" photo and paper montage 20. Death In Venice: Bike, 1994 6 5/8 x 5 1/16" polaroid collage 21. The Open Gate, 1982 9 1/8 x 13 1/4" paper collage 22. Backyard, 1980 8 7/8 x 7 3/8" paper montage 23. Boat, Death In Venice Series, 1994 5 1/4 x 3 11/16" polaroid collage 24. In Eakin's Studio, 1985/86 2 5/8 x 3 1/4" polaroid montage 25. At Mill Creek, 1995/96 3 3/4 x 5 9/16" polaroid collage 26. Puppets, 1985 3 11/16 x 7 5/8" polaroid montage 27. The Artist's Museum, 1987 3 3/4 x 7 7/16" polaroid montage 28. Sculpture Hall, 1987 3 3/4 x 9 1/8" polaroid montage 29. Before The Pitti Palace, 1979 7 3/16 x 9 7/16" half-tone paper montage 30. Italian Night, 1979 10 3/4 x 8 1/8" photo and half-tone montage 31. Nijinsky, 1977 10 3/8 x 7 3/4" paper montage 32. Young Man, 1982 9 7/8 x 10" half-tone montage 33. With Degas, 1995 3 3/4 x 2 7/8" polaroid photograph top For additional information contact the gallery back |
   
  
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