From her early expressionist works in the 1950s, to her “Talking Pop” and op-surrealist creations of the 1960s, New York-based expressionist Marina Stern has made an indelible impact on the world of modern art. At 89 years old, Stern will be having her first solo exhibition since 2007, and the first-ever presentation of her works on the West Coast. Collectors can explore the artist’s works at both CW American Modernism (by appointment and online) and in person at Bel Ami gallery, each based in Los Angeles.

Marina Stern, Snowy Barn #1, 1971. Oil on canvas, 19 x 23 in., signed and dated verso.

 

“Collectors should pay attention to Marina Stern’s work because she forged her own unique path, sometimes participating in prevailing trends, such as abstract expressionism, but often deviating from them. For a time during the 1960s, she was at the center of the Pop Art movement, exhibiting with many of the now well-recognized artists of the period such as Warhol,” says Chris Walther, owner of CW American Modernism. “Just as she enjoyed significant commercial and critical success with her work entering the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, she shifted to op-surrealist works, and by the early 1970s, gorgeous Neo Immaculate paintings, which created a unique synthesis of prior styles and movements, especially precisionism.”

Marina Stern, Silos/Iowa Yellow, 1974. Oil on canvas, 50 x 50 in., signed and dated verso.

 

Marina Stern, Provincetown, ca. 1950s. Oil on canvas, 20¼ x 30 in., signed and dated verso.

 

Stern’s success as a Neo Immaculate painter led to consistent New York gallery representation for more than two decades, first with Lee Ault & Co and James Yu Gallery, and then Forum Gallery, where she had six solo shows.

Walther continues, “Her works are so impactful in large part because of her technical mastery of depicting the built, natural and imagined worlds through essentialization of key forms. Very few artists during this period were so adept at capturing light and using it to create uncanny and perfected images of the world around them and the worlds they created in their own minds.”

Marina Stern, Interior with Cabbage, 1979. Oil on canvas, 48 x 42 in., signed and dated verso.

 

The exhibition is titled Marina Stern: Light, a call to the artist’s passion for depicting the interplay of light on the natural, built and imagined environment. The show is on view now, both in person and online, and hangs through January 31. —

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