Word: pearlstein
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...most powerful exponents at the moment are Alfred Leslie and Philip Pearlstein (see color opposite). Both are former abstract expressionists. Pearlstein, 43, is a shy, bespectacled native of Pittsburgh who studied at Carnegie Tech, painted signs for the infantry in World War II and moved to New York in 1949. Not until a decade later, while sketching the ruins of Rome on a Fulbright in 1958-59, did he rediscover the joys of literally recording reality. Since 1962, his paintings of models, male and female, standing, sitting or lying in unglamorous poses round about his studio, have won well-nigh...
Some gallerygoers are disgruntled by the way Pearlstein details every sagging muscle and bulging abdomen, but the artist does it because he is fascinated with the way the folds and hollows flow into abstract compositions. "I'm not painting people," he maintains, and to emphasize this, lets the edge of his large-scale canvas lop off hands, heads or feet. "I'm dealing with what you see, how you see and how you depict what you see. The more you stare at something, the more it fills your whole field of vision...
...pockets and his shirt open, someone can stick a knife in his stomach." Thanks to Leslie's technical mas tery, the painting captures both his sullen antagonism toward the world and, at the same time, makes him look as innocent and as vulnerable as any of Pearlstein's coldly viewed nudes...
...PHILIP PEARLSTEIN-Frumkin, 41 East 57th. Nudes sprawled on blankets and pillows are more decadent than decorous, more pooped-out than reclining, in fact, more naked than nude. Pearlstein endows his not-so-fair ladies with formidably bulging muscles, paints their flesh tired grey...