The Reece Galleries
presents
FRED OTNES
Collage Paintings
September 13 - October 25, 2008
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Exhibition Photographs | Selected Images | Artist Information | Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE New York, NY (August 2008) – Reece Galleries, located at 24 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019, takes great pleasure announcing Fred Otnes – Collage Painting, September 13 thru October 25, 2008. A distinguished collagist represented by Reece Galleries since 1992, Otnes has won over 200 awards internationally, including Gold and Silver Medals from the New York Art Director’s Club and the Museum of American Illustration. He studied at the American Academy and the Art Institute of Chicago from 1949 – 1952, later moving to Connecticut where he embarked on a thirty-year alliance with Artists Associates, New York, while exhibiting and lecturing internationally. This will be the 44th solo show in his exemplary career. Cited by Japan’s Idea Magazine as one of the world’s foremost contemporary collage artists, Otnes’s commissioned illustrations have appeared in over 44 movie advertising campaigns, as well as The Atlantic Monthly, The National Geographic, and Life Magazine, “Eugene O’ Neil – Four Plays”, “The Selected Poetry of Blake”, “The Stories of Guy Maupassant”, and seven Atlantic Records album covers, among hundreds of other notable commissions internationally. He has also designed 23 United States Postal Stamps-- 10 in the past two years. Following an extraordinary career as a highly renowned illustrator, it was inevitable that Fred Otnes would emerge into the world of Fine Arts and for the past 20-plus years his intricate collage paintings have received worldwide recognition and acclaim. His masterful artistry lies in his technique of blending elements such as rare manuscript and newspapers, old sheet music, pieces of fabric, flowers and photographs into a painterly background. Capturing a classical romanticism seen through a sepia-toned world of seasonal changes, mathematical principles and musical moments, the human figure often plays an enigmatic role. “Mr. Otnes’s decades of immersion in the commercial world have exacted a price. Despite the commercial background of many Pop artists of the 1960s, current art-world protocols fetishize the now-standard M.F.A. career track. Add to that a celebrity-consciousness that cares more about who makes things than about how they are made, and you have a formula for critical neglect. This is a terrific chance to see what timeless magic Fred Otnes makes with calibrated randomness and deep responses to specific moments in art history.” – Maureen Mullarkey, New York Sun Otnes has exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and internationally, including the Hirschhorn Museum, Washington D.C.; The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; The Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, The Islip Museum, Islip, NY; Tokyo Central Museum; Studio of Artists in Tokyo, Japan; Umeda Museum of Contemporary Art, Osaka, Japan. Fred Otnes is included in the collections of NASA, the National Academy of Science, Washington D.C.; Twentieth Century Fox, Los Angeles, CA; National Geographic Society, Washington D.C.; IBM, New York, NY and the Ronald Reagan Library, Los Angeles, CA, as well as many other prominent public and private collections. The publication Fred Otnes – Collage Paintings (238 pages, hardcover with 126 color plates) will be available for purchase. A reception for the artist will be held Saturday, September 13, 2008, from 2:30- 5:00 PM.
Contact: Shirley Reece, President & Director Gallery Hours
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