NOHRA HAIME GALLERY EXHIBITS JULIO LARRAZ: MAJOR WORKS FROM PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
The exhibition comprises fourteen key works from major collections, including most of Larraz’ notorious themes.
Larraz learned to paint from studying the paintings by great masters in the collections of museums in New York as he never had a formal training. He began his career as a caricaturist for major magazines and newspapers such as Rolling Stone, Time Magazine and the New York Times where he learned to capture the instance with humor and create works capturing the illusive moment.
At first Larraz was influenced by Hopper as he worked in Nyack, learning to capture light in his work, which would become one of his most salient effects. The influence of the Spanish masters, Francis Bacon and modern technology are evident in his iconic triptych Cross Fire as a man seems to be shot by a light beam.
-
Julio Larraz, Cross Fire, 1974, oil on canvas (triptych), 60 x 152 in. 152.3 x 386 cm.
Larraz’ dark side also appears in Sincerely Yours. Born in Cuba and the son of a newspaper man, the foyer of his home always had a fire arm as the police would often enter the premises. The honesty and straight-forwardness of this composition is enforced upon the viewer while the pleasant palette reassures us of its aesthetic power.
His still-life works often allude to ships passing by. And his sense of humor is evident in Detail, where a pan becomes a vessel and the bread a canon. In Total Eclipse, the first of this group, a still life is converted into a celestial universe.
In Approach to the Azores, Larraz’ curiosity with abstraction appears. His clouds stem from his love of abstract art. He feels in them he is the closest to abstraction. Often the negative spaces and the minimal number of objects are what make the compositions most interesting.
He infuses his works with humor and a magical realism where nothing is what it seems and the fleeting moment will escape us, giving different answers to what is happening and keeping us in suspense of what is really going on. In Main Attraction of the Circo Miguelito Larraz combines several of his themes: humor, canons, clouds, arenas.
JULIO LARRAZ: Major Works From Private Collections
Until October 16, 2021
NOHRA HAIME GALLERY
500 West 21st Street
New York, NY 10011
Related Topics
May interest you
LATIN AMERICAN ARTISTS IN NEW YORK – AMERICAS SOCIETY’S EXHIBITION
This Must Be the Place: Latin American Artists in New York, 1965–1975 is a group exhibition that explores the artworks, performances, and experimental practices of this generation of artists, as well as their involvement in the local art scene. Diversifying the city’s artistic life, these artists helped shape New York into the global art center it is today. The artworks presented in this exhibition are central to understanding the social and political landscape in the Americas and the tensions and bridges between north and south, exploring issues of migration, identity, politics, exile, and nostalgia.
“ANTONIO HERNIQUE AMARAL: INSIDE OUT” IN CASA TRIÂNGULO
Casa Triângulo exhibits Antonio Henrique Amaral: Pelo Avesso, Antonio Henrique Amaral's first exhibition at the gallery, curated by Pollyana Quintella and Raphael Fonseca. Multiple and polyphonic, Antonio Henrique Amaral (1935 - 2015) endeavored to create a body of work that would resist univocal meanings. His more than six decades of production have drawn a multifaceted path that has been the subject of recent revisions through essays and monographic exhibitions that place the artist beyond his iconic and emblematic Bananas, made between 1968 and 1975.
