Next time you go to Transfigurations: Modern Masters from the Wexner Family Collection – and you should go again before Dec. 31 – know that a large exhibition like this, with so many masterworks, bears repeated viewing.
Once you have taken in everything, go back and spend more time with fewer works. I would like you to try this: Walk up the long ramp to the top-level gallery of the Wexner Center for the Arts, where you will find a large group of works by Susan Rothenberg (born 1945, BFA Cornell University 1965). Rothenberg is the only contemporary artist in the group, and this reaffirms her longstanding position as an important American painter. Despite her stature, it is hard to see her works in person; many are in private collections or museums around the world.
Her paintings using the horse motif – such as Hector Protector, acrylic and tempera on canvas – were the works that brought Rothenberg critical acclaim in the mid-1970s. The horse was chosen because she doesn’t actually like them, but they gave her a point of departure to explore painterly ideas.
So when you can get in front of a piece, let the scale engulf you; the areas of muted reds and blacks will play a game of tug of war. Do you “see” a horse? Do you see only the shapes? The rich painterly surface makes a reference to abstract expressionists; the break-up of the surface at once implies a depth and reinforces the flatness of the picture plane.
In 1975, the use of a figurative motif combined with a minimalist reduction of elements was a daring move. Minimalist works. Geometric abstraction, with emphasis on an almost machine-like flatness and execution, had dominated modernist painting. Rothenberg was the first of a wave of figuratively influenced artists who gained notice in the 1980s.
Rothenberg did about 50 horse paintings, and here you have several to see.
When a couple collects, the collection is like a conversation between them. They will find works to suggest to each other, and so the collection grows. It has been noted elsewhere that Rothenberg is a particular favorite of Abigail Wexner; together, the Wexners and center staff have selected some of Rothenberg’s most significant early works.
So go back and spend more time with the works, join the conversation and thank the Wexner family for sharing this with you.
I might add that Rothenberg attended classes at the Corcoran School of Art/The Corcoran Museum of Art and George Washington University in 1967.
I attended the Corcoran School of Art from 1974-78 and well remember the considerable buzz about the success of Rothenberg, who, at 35, was considered a rather young artist to have achieved so much.
Nationally renowned local artist Michael McEwan teaches painting and drawing classes at his Clintonville area studio.
