Review: “Patrick Graham: Notes from Ireland”
Although Ireland has produced some of the world’s best late-19th and 20th century writers and poets, its roster of well-known visual artists during this same period is sparse in comparison. Both the father and the brother of William Butler Yeats, the country’s best-known poet, were successful professional painters, but remain obscure next to their famed […]
The Fanatic Heart of Patrick Graham: A vulnerable Irish artist exposes interior landscapes
Located at the corner of California and Lake, this bite-sized bonbonniere of an intimate art space houses only a handful of Graham’s large-scale paintings and mixed-media work on paper, which span decades. These dense, layered transfigurations of spirit to material form generate such seismic force that loading any more of them into Rutberg’s sleek, compact […]
The Birth of Modern Irish Art: Patrick Graham’s Journey from Darkness to Recognition
In the midlands of 1950s Ireland, art was not considered a vehicle for personal expression. It was decorative, utilitarian—meant for book illustration, theater sets, business signage. At best, it emulated English landscape painting with polite, conventional brushwork. Into this stifling atmosphere came a boy whose drawing ability seemed almost otherworldly. Patrick Graham was entering competitions […]
Attendees Celebrated Ireland’s Foremost Contemporary Painter “Patrick Graham: Notes from Ireland”
Thank you to the enthusiastic crowd that attended our opening reception of Patrick Graham: Notes from Ireland this past Sunday. We were delighted to welcome new and familiar collectors, artists, scholars, community members, and Consul General of Ireland, Caitlín Higgins Ní Chinnéide as well as Ella Taylor, Cultural Attaché for the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs & Culture Ireland. Virtually all attendees […]
A Life in Sculpture: How 50 Years of Collecting Became One Gallerist’s Most Personal Exhibition
When Jack Rutberg stepped back to view his current exhibition after installation, the art dealer experienced something he hadn’t anticipated in over five decades of working with art: surprise at his own life’s work. “No one was more surprised to see the caliber of this work coming together the way it did than me,” Rutberg admits, […]
Sculpture Up Close: Pasadena exhibition makes museum-grade art personal
At first glance masters will share the space with a sweeping range of 19th- to 21st-Century artists including Max Klinger, Alison Saar and Ed Ruscha. Patrons can get an up-close look at the sculptures of more than 30 artists created over a 125-year period and collected by Jack Rutberg, the gallery founder and owner. After […]
The Intimate Power Of Sculpture: A Pasadena Gallery’s Extraordinary Journey Through 120 Years Of Art
Installation detail with Francisco Zúñiga’s Coloquio As most of our attention these days is dominated by digital screens and virtual experiences, Jack Rutberg has assembled something increasingly rare: a collection that compels physical presence. His current exhibition, “SCULPTORS: From Degas to Ruscha,” spanning 120 years of sculptural history, offers visitors what he calls “intimate engagement” […]
Sculpture Up Close: Pasadena exhibition makes museum-grade art personal
At first glance masters will share the space with a sweeping range of 19th- to 21st-Century artists including Max Klinger, Alison Saar and Ed Ruscha. Patrons can get an up-close look at the sculptures of more than 30 artists created over a 125-year period and collected by Jack Rutberg, the gallery founder and owner. After […]
The Two Georges
As freshmen at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), aspiring artists George Nama and George Romero became friends, often going to movies together and talking about perhaps one day collaborating. They remained close for years after graduating. Nama became a renowned artist with work featured at museums that include the Smithsonian American […]
From Abstract Expressionism to Intimate Scale: Six Decades of George Nama’s Artistic Journey
In a world where bigger often seems better, artist George Nama has spent 60 years pursuing a different path. His early painted collages from the late 1950s—a period when abstract expressionists were exploding onto massive canvases—are deliberately small, achieving what gallery director Jack Rutberg calls “monumental scale in an intimate format.” “What you see here […]
In Retrospective Exhibition, George Nama’s Works Defy Categorization, Showcase Extraordinary Depth
In an important retrospective exhibition that spans sixty years of artistic evolution, George Nama’s distinctive visual language is displayed in Pasadena’s Jack Rutberg Fine Arts gallery. Opening March 16, “George Nama: 60 Years of Selected Works” presents a comprehensive collection that includes bronze sculptures, painted collages, gouaches, and etchings. The New York-based artist’s work exists […]
George Nama: A Journey of Form and Rebirth at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts
At first, upon entering the gallery, I drifted until I saw monochromatic etchings, which, at the time, lacked this optimistic association. Instead, they appeared as fusing, interlocking shapes, poking upward like inverted roots or clasped together with barnacled adhesion, rising from flat, lined surfaces like twisted paladins in a mad hatter’s chess game. Upon revisiting […]
Art as Sanctuary: A Gallery’s Mission of Hope after California Fires
In Pasadena, a fine arts dealer extends his exhibition as a haven for a community grappling with loss, proving once again that art can be a powerful healer in times of crisis In the aftermath of devastating wildfires that swept through Southern California this January, Jack Rutberg is doing what he knows best: keeping the […]
Rare Käthe Kollwitz Color Work Illuminates Her Unflinching Social Commentary
Gallery owner/curator Rutberg lingers over the piece’s rarity. “Virtually all [of Kollwitz’s works] are monochromatic with the exception of a only a few exceedingly rare color prints including Work-Woman, with Blue Shawl, now on offer in our current exhibition, ‘ART A to Z’.” Rutberg’s decision to feature this piece follows the Museum of Modern Art’s […]
‘Art A to Z’: Jack Rutberg Fine Arts celebrates second year in Pasadena with revolving exhibition – By Luke Netzley, Pasadena Weekly Deputy Editor
“The joy is in the sharing, and what’s particularly gratifying is to expand people’s understanding of the range of what we do,” he said. “There are works of different aesthetics, from non-objective and abstract works to highly representational works. The one connecting element is that every artist and every work in this exhibition is reflective […]
Pasadena Gallery Offers a Revolving Exhibition of Masterpieces, in ART A to Z – By Pasadena Now
Artists such as Edgar Degas, Henri Fantin-Latour, Georges Rouault, Marc Chagall, Diego Rivera, Pablo Picasso (shown above left), Francisco Zuniga (shown above right), Hans Burkhardt, Hannelore Baron, Arman, George Herms, Patrick Graham, Llyn Foulkes, and so many other formidable names of modern and contemporary art make up just some of the gallery’s holdings, so presenting […]