Cleve Gray

Loretta Howard Gallery is pleased to present a group of 1960s oil paintings on paper by Shirley Goldfarb. These small format works were tipical of her studio practice, often used as studies for large scale paintings.

Following World War II, hundreds of artists from the United States flocked to the City of Light, which for centuries had been heralded as an artistic mecca and international cultural capital. Americans in Paris explores a vibrant community of expatriates who lived in France during the post war period.

The assembled works exemplify distinct strategies, demonstrating how painters-while maintaining the essential frontality of painting-have manipulated format to reorder the viewer’s experience. Ultimately, Building Models: The Shape of Painting highlights how artists continue to renew abstract art’s engagement with materiality, perception, and cognition. The exhibition affirms that this tradition remains a vital means for reimagining the relationship between artwork and viewer.

Curated by Saul Ostrow

Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation on view through January 17, 2026

In the 1960s, Gray was making increasingly loose, increasingly explosive, monumental paintings. This is evident especially in the Silver series of 1967. This sense of freedom is evident and deliberate in these charged canvases. Gray said “I thought I should do something untoward and without the rational guidance of my paintbrush. I had nothing to lose, and I wondered what would happen; I picked up a bucket of aluminum paint and threw it at the canvas lying on the floor.”