Every fall the city of Palm Springs, California, hosts its four-day mini Modernism Week—its full week happens in February over Presidents’ Day weekend—with more than 50 events happening around the city. This year’s festivities will take place October 14 to 17. In celebration of modernism in the city, Rubine Red Gallery will host the exhibition Abstraction: Mid-Century Works on Paper with artwork by Malcolm Myers, Reginald Murray Pollack, Lynne Mapp Drexler and Jacob Semiatin from October 1 through 25.
Malcolm Myers (1917-2002), View of a City I (NYC), 1958. Intaglio, color stencil, silver spray paint, ed. of 11, 36 x 23½ in.
Throughout Myers’ career he created paintings and watercolors, but is considered one of the American masters of intaglio printmaking. He created many series, including one dedicated to the rhythms of jazz music. His 1951 woodcut and color stencil Abstraction Jazz is one such instance. On the influence of jazz, Myers once said, “I change the lines and shapes—usually many times—until I feel some image that I like is emerging. I have been a devotee of progressive jazz for a long time and like to think that my attitude about executing a print has something in common with the improvisational aspects of good jazz music.”
Lynne Mapp Drexler (1928-1999), Untitled (Orange), 1959. Mixed media on paper, 9 x 12 in.
Born in 1928, Drexler studied art as a child as well as music, which would influence her mature work. It was in 1956 though, after moving to New York, that she immersed herself in abstract expressionism. She studied with Hans Hofmann in both Provincetown, Massachusetts, and New York. She was significantly influenced by his color theories. Later studying with Robert Motherwell, Drexler only added to her style, which was primarily “swatch-like patterns and painterly blossoms of color.” 
Malcolm Myers (1917-2002), Abstraction Jazz, 1951. Woodcut and color stencil, ed. of 20, 11 x 21 in. (image size), 13¼ x 24¾ in. (paper size).
Finding inspiration in nature, she made the transition to abstract landscape paintings, and after 1972 her works “are clearly inspired by the landscape with the concepts of musical elements helping to guide the pictorial arrangements. Drexler’s affinity with nature and music became deeply intertwined in her work.” Drexler was a rare woman in the field and often found it difficult to gain gallery representation compared to her male counterparts. She eventually moved away from New York to Monhegan Island in 1983 where she remained for the rest of her life.
Reginald Murray Pollack (1924-2001), Woman & Still Life, ca. 1947. Mixed media on paper, 11 x 14 in.
During his career, Pollack established many important art associations, and became a founding member of Galerie Huit in Paris. The gallery was the first in the French city to be operated by Americans, and the membership was 12 artists who were all World War II Veterans. Pollack lived for 14 years in Paris and “said the tutelage of the Parisian artists he came in contact with (Giacometti, Fernand Léger, Man Ray, Francis Poulenc, Jacques Lipchitz, and Constantin Brâncusi) made him realize ‘my responsibility to civilization.’” In this show is a mixed media on paper by Pollack titled Woman & Still Life, from around 1947. —
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