Lois Lane: L
Aug. 23-Oct. 7, 2022
Opening Reception, Thursday, Sept. 8
Art Alliance
The Philadelphia Art Alliance at University of the Arts is pleased to present "Lois Lane: L", an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Lois Lane. Lane is a 1969 alumna of University of the Arts and received her MFA from Yale University in 1971.
Born in 1948, Lane first became critically known through her inclusion in the 1978 "New Image Painting" exhibit at the Whitney Museum. New Image painting was seen as a way to go beyond the status quo and to include simple imagery without the austere limits imposed by Minimalism or the crass consumerism of Pop. As such, it was not unlike similar efforts of Joel Shapiro and Donna Dennis in sculpture. In the Whitney exhibit, Lane’s work was associated with Jennifer Bartlett, Neil Jenney, and Susan Rothenberg.
Yet Lane’s paintings honed a unique direction. Her works tend to be almost monochromatic; blacks and silvery passages predominate with accents of blue. In these rich tenebrous paintings there is painterly gesture and a delicate and subtle interplay between close value ranges. But Lane’s works are not merely formal exercises; her canvases contrast flatness with metaphysical mystery, at the cusp of disclosing symbolic narratives. She plays repeatedly with a simple iconography that is almost proto-feminist; compositions contain hints of decorative flora and images of single women, homes, skirts, or fans that literally fan out across the picture plane instead of relying on deep space. It is this dichotomous interaction between loaded image and blank abstraction, restrained gesture and crucial modernist flatness, that give Lane’s work a substantial richness of thought and sensuality.
Exhibtion works courtesy of Ivy Shapiro and Partners. We are grateful to Ryan Wallace of Halsey McKay Gallery for assistance in this exhibition.
Our exhibitions are free and open to the public.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
Installation view of Lois Lane's work. Photo: Joseph Hu.
About the Artist
Lane has had solo exhibitions at Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles; John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco; Hood Museum, Dartmouth, N.H.; Artists Space, New York; Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York; Barbara Toll Fine Arts, New York; Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, N.Y.; Willard Gallery, New York; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; and Nigel Greenwood Gallery in London.
Her work has been included in numerous group exhibits including Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colo.; Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Conn.; The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis; Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.; Akron Art Museum, Akron; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; The Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati; Albright Knox Art Gallery and Hallwalls Gallery, Buffalo; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; P.S.1, Long Island City, N.Y.; Artists Space, Blum Helman Gallery, Cue Art Foundation, Grey Art Gallery, New York University, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; New York State Museum, Albany; Vassar College of Art, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Neuberger Museum, Purchase, N.Y.; Moore College of Art, The Print Club, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis; Institute of Contemporary Art of the Virginia Museum, Richmond; and internationally at the Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv; the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon Collection, Portugal; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland; Ludwig Collection (Neue Gallerie), Aachen, Germany; and the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany, among others.
Her work is in the collections of Akron Art Museum, Akron; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, N.Y.; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C; Neuberger Museum, Purchase, N.Y.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Lane lives and works in New York City and Warwick, N.Y.