May 7 through June 27, 1982

Morris Gallery exhibitions are partially and generously funded by a grant from the Rohm and Haas Company

At the time of her inclusion in the influential New Image Painting exhibition at the Whitney Museum In 1979, Lois Lane had been working with recognizable yet mysterious Images for several years. Oscillating between real and abstract readings, Lane’s poetic and ambiguous pictures only hint at a narrative content. Fans, birds, plant forms, animals and clothing are often incongruously juxtaposed, presented against a flat and neutral ground. More iconic than picturesque, Lane’s images are archetypal, seemingly culled from our rituals, memories, and dreams. Yet the insistent beauty of her bold shapes and delicate surfaces draws us cut of an associational reverie and back to an awareness of the formal power of each composition.

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Judith Stein
Coordinator, Morris Gallery

Artist Statement

When I was in school in Philadelphia I found an old Japanese book in the library that interested me because the wry stylized images seemed to relate to things going on in art and then again, not. They propelled me into thinking about images. I didn’t want to work abstractly — it wasn’t that I didn’t like other things that were abstract — but I couldn’t find a means of working that way; for me, there was no meaning in it.

Also, when I was at the Philadelphia College of Art, I had a teacher in a printing and drawing class, Marvin Bileck, who had us start with branches and leaves and work up to trees. I became interested in plant forms through him and it seems to have continued.

Later when I was In New York, I became Interested in a more poetic use of imagery. I started drawing plant forms, quickly, in a sketch book, before I started to work. These forms interested me. They seemed to be an unconscious form of imagery. Subsequently the drawings developed into paintings.

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Lois Lane,
Excerpts from an interview with Carolyn Kinder Carr, Curator of Art at the Akron Art Museum, 1981.

Checklist

1. Untitled, 1981
oil and graphite on canvas
two panels, each 75″ x 60″
Smorgon Family Collection

2. Untitled, 1981
woodcut
45″ x 36″
Courtesy Willard Gallery

3. Untitled, 1981
woodcut
45″ x 36
Courtesy Willard Gallery

4. Untitled, 1981
etching on paper
45″ x 36″
Courtesy Willard Gallery

5. Untitled, 1981
etching on paper
45″ x 36″
Courtesy Willard Gallery

6. Untitled, 1977
oil on canvas
72″ x 60″,
Collection of the artist

7. Untitled, 1980
oil and graphite on canvas
75″ x 120″
Courtesy Willard Gallery

8. Untitled, 1980
oil on canvas
75″ x 60″
Collection of Mr. and Mrs.David Schneiderman

9. Untitled, 1982
oil stick and collage on paper; shaped frame
68″ x 50″
Courtesy Willard Gallery

Lois Lane’s work is shown through the courtesy of the artist and the Willard Gallery, New York City. A price list is available at the Academy Shop desk.

Lois Lane was born In Philadelphia in 1948. She received her B.F.A. from the Philadelphia College of Art in 1969, and attended the Yale Summer School of Music and Art in 1968. In 1971 she earned her M.FA degree from the Yale University School of Art and Architecture. She currently lives in New York City with her husband, artist Jared Bark, and their young son.

The CAPS Grant for Painting was awarded to Lane from the New York State Council on the Arts in 1977. She received a Grant for Painting from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1978. Her paintings, drawings and prints are represented in the public collections of: Museum of Modem Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of South Texas; Des Moines Art Center; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Akron Art Museum.

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Solo Exhibitions

1982
Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London

1980
Willard Gallery, New York, NY
Greenberg Gallery, St. Louis, MO

1979
Willard Gallery, New York, NY

1974
Artists Space, New York, NY

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Group Exhibitions (Selected)

1981
Transformations, New York Coliseum, NY

Lam, Obuck, Rothenberg, Sultan, Torreano, Young Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL

Menagerie, Goddard Riverside Community Center

The Great American Fan Show, Lerner-Heller Gallery, New York, NY, and Reynolds-Minor Gallery, Richmond, VA

A Now Bestiary: Animal Imagery In Contemporary Art, Institute of Contemporary Art of the Virginia Museum, Richmond, VA

1980
Lois Lane, Susan Rothenberg, Clarke Benton Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Selections from Art Lending, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

New Work, New York, Yarlow/Salzman Gallery, Toronto

Painting and Sculpture Today 1980, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN

New EdItions/New Acquisitions, Delahunty Gallery, Dallas, TX

Emblems and Paint, Hallwalls Gallery, Buffalo, New York, NY

Lois Lane Paintings and Collages, Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH

1979-80
American Paintings: The Eighties, Grey Art Gallery, New York University; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX; American Cultural Center, Paris, France

1979
New Image Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Ten Artists/Artists Space, Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York, NY

Sixth Anniversary Exhibition, Artists Space New York, NY

1978
Hunt, Jenney, Lane, Rothenberg, Shapiro, Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York, NY

The Ronald Greenberg Collection, Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, TN

1977
P.S. 1, Long Island City, New York, NY

1975
Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA

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Bibliography

Collins James, review, Artforum, April 1974.

Kramer, Hilton, review, New York Times, October 1977.

Tannenbaum, Judith, review, Arts Magazine, December 197Z

Gholson, Craig, review, Arts Magazine, February 1978.

Gilligan, Lorraine, review, WomanArt, Winter 1977-78.

Lawson, Thomas, review, Art in America, March -April 1978.

Perrone, Jeff, review, Artforum, December 1977.

Kingsley, April “New Imagery Keep Its Cool,” Village Voice, Jan. 1, 1979.

Raynor, Vivian: “Art: What’s New, Whitney Style,” New York Times, December 8, 1978

Smith, Roberta, “The Abstract Image,” Art in America, March-April, 1979.

Hughes, Robert, “Roundup at the Whitney Corral,” Time, Feb. 26,1979.

Marshall, Richard, New Image Painting (catalogue), Whitney Museum of American Art, 1978.

Morrin, Peter, editor, Hunt, Janney, Lane, Rothenberg, Shapiro (catalogue), Vasser College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 1978.

Smith, Roberta, “Black on Black,” Ambiance Magazine, March 1979.

Rose, Barbara, “Art for ’79 Eyes,” Vogue, January 1979.

“American Painting: The Eighties,” Adix magazine, September 1979.

Rose, Barbara, American Painting: The Eighties (catalogue), Vista Press, 1979.

1979 Biennial Exhibition (catalogue), Whitney Museum of American Art, 1979′

Kramer, Hilton, “Neo-Modernists –A Sense of Deja-Vu,” New York Times, September 23,1979.

Wohlfert, Lee, “Young Artists New Yorkers Are Talking About,” Town & Country magazine, September 1980.

Denson, G. Roger, Emblem and Paint (catalogue), Hallwalls, Buffalo, New York, 1980.

Siegel, Jeanne, “Lois Lane and Robert Longo: Interpretation of Image,” Arts, November 1980, pp. 154-57.

Hess Elizabeth, “Personal Mythmaking,” Village Voice, Nov. 12 -18. 1980.

Carr, Carolyn Kinder, “Lois Lane: An Interview with the Painter,” Dialogue, The Ohio Arts Journal, January/February 1981.

Wallis, Bran, “Lois Lane,” a review, Arts Magazine, January 1981.

Donahue, Michael, “Wealth of Images Dots Modern Show,” Memphis Press Scimitar, Dec. 4,1980.

Sabel, Sussana, “Black Nears the Absolute,” Artspeak, Nov. 20, 1980.

Schulze, Franz, a review of Young-Hoffman Gallery, Chicago Sun Times, April 5,1981.

Merritt, Robert, “A New Bestiary (VM),” Richmond-Times Dispatch, June 2, 1981.

Carr, Carolyn Kinder, introduction to The Image In American Painting & Sculpture 1950-1980, catalogue for the Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio.

Hunter, Sam, “Post-Modernist Painting,” Portfolio, January/February 1982.

The Morris Gallery displays the works of artists with a connection to Philadelphia, determined by birth or residence. The exhibitions am chosen posed of area artists, museum personnel curatorial staff of the Academy. Currently serving on the Morris Gallery Exhibition Committee are: Bo Bartlett, Murray Dessner, Walter Erlebacher, Janet Kardon, Charles Mather III, Dr.. Perry Ottenberg, David Pease Ann Percy, Jody Pinto Seymour, Acey Wolgin; and Academy staff Richard Boyle, Frank Goodyear, Kathy Foster, Linda Bantal, Judith Stein.

Copyright Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1982