On February 27, 2013 I went to the Jay Defeo press opening at the Whitney Museum of American Art and was blown away by DeFeo’s work.  With the exception of her iconic, The Rose—a painting weighing 2300 pounds—I had never heard of, much less seen, most of  her work.

Being weighed down by my own writing responsibilities and deadlines, I was saddened that I could not produce a review of the exhibition. But, after hearing Dana Miller, the curator of the DeFeo exhibition, and curator of the Whitney’s permanent collection, address opening remarks to journalists regarding DeFeo and her work, I asked if we could publish the highlights of her talk.

Above: The Eyes (1958), Graphite on paper, 42 × 84 3/4 “. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of the Lannan Foundation © 2012 The Jay DeFeo Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Geoffrey Clements. artes fine arts magazine

Miller liked the idea. However, since the Whitney, and Miller, were knee-deep in planning their 2015 move to a new location in the meatpacking district in lower Manhattan, and I was in the midst of a busy travel schedule, it took some weeks for Dana and I to get the text and images ready for publication.

Fortunately for some, though, this ‘must see’ exhibition—the definitive showing of Jay DeFeo work—runs through June 2, 2013. At the outset of her career in the 1950s, DeFeo was at the center of a vibrant community of Beat artists, poets, and musicians in San Francisco. DeFeo created an astoundingly diverse range of works spanning four decades. Her unconventional approach to materials and intensive, physical process make DeFeo a unique figure in postwar American art who defies easy categorization.

Right: Reflections of Africa No. 8 (1989). Charcoal and graphite on paper, 11 5/8 × 17 1/8″. The Jay DeFeo Trust, Berkeley © 2012 The Jay DeFeo Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Ben Blackwell.

 She is best known for her monumental painting The Rose (1958–66) which she spent eight years making and which later languished hidden behind a wall for two decades, but is now in the Whitney’s collection and serves as the centerpiece for this current exhibit.

The full breadth of her work is being presented for the first time in this exhibition of more than 130 objects. This astonishing array of collages, drawings, paintings, photographs, small sculptures, and jewelry will illuminate DeFeo’s courageous experimentation and extraordinary vision. –Edward Rubin, Contributing Editor

Dana Miller’s Press Preview Remarks

Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective

Press Preview, February 26, 2013

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Jay DeFeo (1929–1989) set a fiercely independent course, and the astoundingly diverse range of art she created over more than forty-five years defies categorization. She made works that can be measured either in inches or in feet, in ounces or in tons, ranging from painting, drawing, jewelry, and photography to various hybrids that confound traditional classifications.

Born Mary Joan DeFeo, in Hanover, New Hampshire, she moved with her family as a toddler, to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she remained for most of her life. After receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees in studio art from the University of California, Berkeley, she came to the fore, professionally, as part of a vibrant community of avant-garde artists, poets, and musicians active in San Francisco in the 1950s—a moment in cultural history often referred to as the Beat Era.

Left: Untitled, from the Water Goggles series (1977). Synthetic polymer, charcoal, ink, grease pencil and graphite on paper, 15 × 20 “. Private collection © 2012 The Jay DeFeo Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Ben Blackwell.

By then DeFeo had established a set of visual concerns that can be traced across her career: a primarily geometric vocabulary, the presence of a central form or imagery, an attention to surface texture, and groupings of works that explore varying expressions of a seminal idea. Her early work was frequently three-dimensional, including the delicate metal sculptures and jewelry pieces seen in the first room.

Right: Blue One (1989). Oil on linen, 16 × 12 “.The Jay DeFeo Trust, Berkeley © 2012 The Jay DeFeo Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Ben Blackwell.

In 1954, DeFeo married fellow artist Wally Hedrick, and the following year they settled into a flat with studio space at 2322 Fillmore Street, in San Francisco. The building was inhabited by a rotating cast of fellow artists, poets, and musicians, and it would be a hotbed of creative activity in the city for the next decade. In the mid-to-late 1950s, DeFeo made a group of enthralling large-scale works using a palette knife to apply layer upon layer of paint. The highly textured surfaces would become hallmarks of her oil paintings and would culminate in the creation of works such as The Jewel and The Rose.

The Rose occupied DeFeo almost exclusively for nearly eight years, and when she finished the work, it is estimated to have weighed more than 1500 pounds. As an aside, no one really knows how much the work originally weighed, as it was never officially weighed, so all of the figures you seen thrown around are really just guesses or estimates. The work was exhibited publicly only twice during DeFeo’s lifetime, both times in 1969, and both times against a wall painted black. The Rose was then brought to the San Francisco Art Institute, where it was installed in a conference room. In 1974, when it became apparent that The Rose was in need of conservation, a plaster coating was applied to the surface of the painting, in what was meant to be a temporary stabilization measure. But five years later, with no further progress on the conservation effort, a false wall was built in front of the painting, completely obscuring it for the next 16 years.

Left: The Rose (1958–66). Oil with wood and mica on canvas, 128 7/8 × 92 1/4 × 11″. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of The Jay DeFeo Trust, Berkeley, CA, and purchase with funds from the Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Committee and the Judith Rothschild Foundation © 2012 The Jay DeFeo Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Ben Blackwell.

The removal of The Rose from DeFeo’s Fillmore studio in 1965 was a catalyst for several major upheavals in the artist’s life. She moved to a small cottage in Marin County, her marriage ended, and she ceased making art for nearly four years. Among the first finished pieces DeFeo made, was the delicate and mesmerizing After Image (1970), a work on paper inspired by a photograph of a ribbed shell. The work signaled the direction ahead with the use of acrylic paint and a mimetic representation of an image or object taken from her surroundings.

In 1970 DeFeo incorporated a new medium into her practice: Photography. DeFeo’s students at the San Francisco Art Institute, where she was then teaching, introduced her to the basic fundamentals of photography and in 1973, a National Endowment for the Arts grant allowed her to buy a medium-format camera and set up a darkroom in her home. She spent the next three years working intensely in photography, producing works using a variety of techniques, materials, and processes.

Right: After Image (1970). Graphite, gouache, and transparent synthetic polymer on paper with cut-and-torn tracing paper, 14 1/2 × 19 1/2″. The Menil Collection, Houston; gift of Glenn Fukushima © 2012 The Jay DeFeo Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Paul Hester.

DeFeo continued to push the traditional boundaries of media throughout the rest of the decade and into the 1980s. Her imagery was often derived from man-made items in her surroundings: her camera tripods, a tape dispenser, and her swimming goggles. She treated these mechanical objects in an organic manner, so that the final images transcend their humble origins. One is often unclear when looking at a DeFeo work if her initial model was animal, vegetable, or mineral.

In the 1980s she enjoyed growing commercial success and she joined the art department at Mills College. She moved to a large new studio space in Oakland and returned to oil paint, after a hiatus of more than fifteen years, creating large-scale, brilliantly-hued paintings. In the spring of 1988, DeFeo was diagnosed with lung cancer, but she continued to work prolifically, producing smaller scale oil paintings and works on paper, often with distilled silhouettes but always with luscious surfaces. DeFeo lost her struggle with lung cancer on November 11, 1989, at the age of 60.

Left: Dove One (1989). Oil on linen, 16 × 20″. Collection of Dan and Claire Carlevaro © 2012 The Jay DeFeo Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph by Ben Blackwell.

DeFeo believed that her art was best understood when considered comprehensively. Certainly, The Rose functioned as DeFeo’s compass, as she labored over it for those eight years, but it is only once the myth of The Rose, seductive as it is, has been dispatched, that can one see the scintillating, fearless work of a career that lasted four decades. In taking such an expansive view, this retrospective demonstrates, in an unprecedented manner,the captivating sweep of DeFeo’s heterogeneous work, illuminating her extraordinary vision and the groundbreaking, experimental nature of four decades of her art.

By Dana Miller, Contributing Writer; Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, Permanent Collection

Editor’s Note: ARTES wishes to thank Whitney curator,Dana Miller, for her thoughtful commentary on the DeFeo exhibit and for framing her observations as a narrative for our readers to enjoy. -RF