The Critic’s Notebook
by The Editors
Art:
“Robert De Niro Sr.: Intensity in Paint” at DC Moore Gallery (through December 21) & Robert De Niro, Sr.: Paintings, Drawings, and Writings: 1942–1993 (Rizzoli Electa): Having trained under Hans Hofmann and Josef Albers, the painter and poet Robert De Niro, Sr., set a course similar to that of other New York School realists who borrowed stylistic mannerisms and an extemporaneous approach to composition from Abstract Expressionism without ever (aside from a few canvases in his student years) cutting completely away from their perceived experiences of the world. His light-filled, evocative paintings—with their gestural expanses of color bounded by expressive arabesques of structuring line—place De Niro alongside other artists who studied under Hofmann such as Nell Blaine, Jane Freilicher, Louisa Matthíasdóttir, Paul Resika, and Wolf Kahn. But as much as De Niro was responding to artistic goings-on in downtown Manhattan, he was also paying deep attention to French predecessors such as Matisse, Bonnard, Rouault, and Denis, as well as artists of the greater Western tradition stretching back to the Early Renaissance. His art is now the subject of a book published by Rizzoli—the first comprehensive monograph on the artist— with an introduction by his son (the actor) and essays by Robert Storr, Charles Stuckey, Susan Davidson, and the painter Robert Kushner. Examples of De Niro’s work can also be found this month at DC Moore Gallery in Chelsea, where six of his paintings are on view through December 21. —AS
Robert De Niro, Sr. Landscape with White Houses, 1968, Oil on canvas, courtesy of DC Moore Gallery