John Zurier at Gallery Paule Anglim

After making arrangements with the lobby manager at 455 Market for an informal reception to take place after hours, i visited a few galleries to see what was going. I know there have been some major changes in the gallery world, especially in the 49 Geary building. My main focus of the day was to visit Gallery Paule Anglim to see the work of John Zurier, whom i've mentioned in my blog a few times. The image of the postcard was scanned using my ancient scanner and the splotches are not part of John's gorgeous painting - my apologies! But to be in the presence of John's work is to be emersed in light - i wish there were benches in the gallery so i could just sit there in front of "Muuratsato 3", and ponder if this is a visualization of heaven? I love how the linen edges are exposed, an homage to his materials. In one of the smaller paintings, the tacks are visible on the side of the painting. This so much reminds me of Philip Guston's paintings and is very retro. All the paintings were done in 2009 which suggests that he has had a very busy year indeed.

I noticed that many galleries don't seem to be offering postcards with the image of the current show which i find lamentable. I save the images for inspiration and to remind me of what i've seen. Modernism is one gallery that still produces some of the nicest postcards around. I would also like to mention that they have some of the nicest staff working in the gallery. An upcoming show, "Hunted & Gathered" will present photographs from the private collection of Robert Flynn Johnson, who was the curator of Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. I took a history of printmaking class from him while studying at the San Francisco Art Institute. The class was amazing and he was nice enough to invite all the students over to his house for dinner one night.