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Drawing Attention: Joyce Treiman on Paper
More than 60 influential drawings and prints spanning the career
of Los Angeles figurative artist Joyce Treiman will be presented at Loyola
Marymount University's Laband Art Gallery beginning September 14, 2002.
The special retrospective exhibit, Drawing Attention: Joyce Treiman on Paper,
will run through November 16, 2002. (left: Joyce Treiman, Self
Portrait, 1975)
A realist ahead of her time, Treiman (1920-1991), painted humanist themes encompassing tragedy and comedy. Known primarily for her expressively-hued narrative canvases, Los Angeles art critic Michael Duncan has described her as an American artistic anomaly: "Rather than conform to the mid-20th century trend of abstraction, she embraced traditional drawing and worked steadily in the then 'lonely arena' of figurative painting. Her work reinvented the figurative milieu for an era of apathy and social change."
A figurative artist who loved art history, Treiman enjoyed
portraying herself and her family and friends cavorting with great painters
of the past such as Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas and Claude
Monet. She also is renowned for her series of incisive self-portraits executed
in a variety of styles and media. Treiman's subjects often served as her
alter egos and included 
wrestlers,
jokers, show girls and mythological figures, making for a peculiar mix in
her eccentric narratives.
The artist also was passionate about drawing and printmaking, producing thousands of works on paper during her career. On the legacy of her art she once exclaimed, "I don't know what will happen to my paintings; I think that they will be appreciated. But I know my drawings will last!" Her work is now featured in a number of important public collections in the United States, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York's Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Santa Barbara Art Museum. In 1965, The Los Angeles Times named Treiman "Woman of the Year." Born in Chicago in 1922, Treiman moved to Los Angeles in 1960. (right: Joyce Treiman, The Plumed Helmet: Study for "The Parting", 1982, pencil and pastel on paper, Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, NY)
The recent biography of the artist, Joyce Treiman, will be available for purchase at the exhibition. The book is co-authored by Michael Duncan, Los Angeles editor of Art in America, and Theodore F. Wolff, former art critic of the Christian Science Monitor. Drawing Attention: Joyce Treiman on Paper, a traveling exhibition, was organized by Penny Schmidt, Director of the former Schmidt-Bingham Gallery in New York City.
Read more articles and essays concerning this institutional source by visiting the sub-index page for the Laband Art Gallery at Loyola Marymount University in Resource Library Magazine.
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