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January 11, 2006
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PAINTINGS BY DAVID KRIVIN (1895-1982), A POLISH IMMIGRANT AND SELF-TAUGHT ARTIST WHO PRODUCED MORE THAN 1,000 WORKS OF ART, ON VIEW IN BEN SHAHN GALLERIES
Paintings by David Krivin (1895-1982), a Polish immigrant who began painting in 1939 at the age of 44, will be on exhibit in the South Gallery of the Ben Shahn Galleries at William Paterson University in Wayne from January 30 through March 3, 2006. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. A reception for the exhibit will be held on Sunday, February 26, from 3 to 5 p.m.
Krivin, who came to the United States at age five, was a self-taught artist who spent most of his life working as a house painter and decorator after giving up an earlier dream of being a farmer. He admired the work of established artists, particularly the European modernists, and he learned the craft of painting by copying their works. “Although he painted still-lifes, portraits and abstractions, the body of his work deals with the landscape. However his images seldom address the pristine, the idealized or the beautiful; instead, through the references to labor and industry, they are a working man’s expression of a landscape at work,” says Fiona M. Dejardin, in the exhibit’s catalog’s essay.
Krivin lived most of his adult life in Spring Valley, New York. He painted sights and scenes of Rockland County… “brooding hills and mountains, and always, in the tiny houses, factories, smoking chimneys, railway lines, and small figures of the workers, there is the presence of humanity,” notes Dejardin. His works include many fall and winter scenes of barns and villages, bare trees, and overcast skies.
Over the course of the next 43 years, Krivin produced more than 1,000 works of art. He continued to paint houses and create works of art simultaneously until his retirement as a housepainter in 1961. In 1968, when he moved to Florida, his works took on a brighter color palette and he painted in watercolors. He continued working as an artist until his death in 1982, and donated several works to organizations in Rockland County.
This is the first solo exhibit of works by Krivin, and it was organized by Nancy Einreinhofer, director of the University’s Ben Shahn Galleries, Fiona M. Dejardin, director, The Yager Museum of Art and Culture at Hartwick College, Oneonta, New York, and Megan Kirkpatrick,
curatorial assistant, The Graduate Program in Museum Studies at Cooperstown, Oneonta State University. After this show, the exhibit will travel to the Yager Museum of Art and Culture.
The exhibit is one of three shows on view concurrently in the Ben Shahn Galleries. “In Search of the Duende,” on view in the Court Gallery, is an exhibit of paintings by Sheba Sharrow. “Prints and Drawings” by Rene Bord, a French artist who explores themes of nature and the cosmos, are on view in the East Gallery.
The exhibit is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Ben Shahn Galleries are wheelchair-accessible. Large-print handouts are available. For additional information, please call the Ben Shahn Galleries at William Paterson University at 973-720-2654.
Note to editors and reporters: High-resolution, downloadable photographs are available at http://ww2.wpunj.edu/publicityphotos/BenShahnGalleries/DavidKrivin
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