Description
Book SynopsisPaul Gruhler opened his first studio in 1962 at the age of 21 — a year later he had a solo show at the DeMena Gallery in lower Manhattan. From the beginning, Gruhler, a self-taught artist, was compelled by what came to be known as geometric abstraction, in which the deliberative arrangement of color, line, texture, and scale, in paintings and collage, evoke from these disparate elements a sense of meditative harmony. For sixty years, he has continued to explore the subtle differences that can be made from color and line. Gruhler was fortunate in the early years to have met and become good friends with three older artists who were also important teachers and mentors — first Michael Lekakis, then Harold Weston and Herb Aach. Lekakis, a celebrated sculptor, who already had had exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Americans 1963, took Gruhler under his wing, navigating him through New York’s thriving avant-garde art scene. As Carolyn Bauer writes, “Michael Lekakis was instrumental in encouraging Gruhler to attend art events, while taking him to invite-only museum openings.” He also introduced him to renowned artists — among them, Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, Louise Nevelson, and Barnett Newman — whose works influenced the young Gruhler, as did such artists as Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, and Ad Reinhardt. Lekakis was also instrumental in Gruhler’s first show, giving titles to his paintings and writing catalog copy that drew upon his own abstract poetics. “These canvases,” he wrote, are “multi colored fire densely cascades to suspension hanging a counterpoint of rhythmic patterns in space covering it like a shroud united by a golden fragmentation.” Over these years Gruhler has had numerous solo and group shows in the U.S. in New York and Vermont, in Mexico, and abroad in Finland, Germany, Sweden, and The Netherlands. HARMONICS is both a retrospective and a current view of Paul Gruhler’s intensive art. “My work,” he says, “has been a meditative exploration of vertical and horizontal relationships in space, in order to achieve both harmony and tension within color, line and form.”
Trade Review“Practicing hard-edged geometric abstraction, Gruhler’s works are alive with subtleties that are largely invisible in reproduced images. His colors are closely calibrated, and he juxtaposes textures with equal precision. His use of line becomes a narrative in itself. Mark Awody, Seven Days -- Mark Awody * Seven Days, Vermont Alternative Weekly *
“In many of his [Gruhler’s] pieces planes of color seem actually to advance or recede in space, while lines bisecting those planes appear to vibrate in place. Gruhler's exuberant use of color, coupled with deceptively straightforward compositions, result in works that fairly radiate energy.” Times Argus
“For all their formality, minimalism or whatever label one might choose to apply, Gruhler’s painting pack an instantaneous wallop, an emotional impact attributable to their clarity. [His work] was influenced by color-field painters, by Mark Rothko and the New York School and by Chinese art, but his work stands, and even soars, on its own.” Alex Hanson, Valley News -- Alex Hanson * Valley News *
