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Larry Day, “Antechamber,” 1964–65, oil on canvas, 64¼ by 763/8 inches.

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LARRY DAY AT MEREDITH WARD w/1 cut

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NEW YORK CITY — “Larry Day: Paintings and Works on Paper” will be on view at Meredith Ward Fine Art March 22–May 12. The show will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York since 1972. It will feature seven oils and four works on paper from the early 1960s to the early 1990s drawn from the artist’s estate, which is represented exclusively by Meredith Ward Fine Art.

Day (1921–1998) was one of a small group of artists who broke with the prevailing artistic trend of abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s to work in representational mode. Although he began his career as an abstractionist in the 1950s, an experiment of copying an Old Master painting led Day to forgo the painterly abstraction he had been practicing up to that point and to devote himself exclusively to realism.

Day drew inspiration equally from art history to contemporary life, from Old Master paintings to magazine advertisements and from classical subjects to family photographs.

A highlight of the exhibition is “Antechamber,” 1864–65, which pays homage to Arshile Gorky’s iconic self-portrait with his mother. Neff describes Day’s monumental work as “a heightened and extended version” of Gorky’s painting and reflects the “poetic sense of loss often found in Day’s paintings.”

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog with an essay by Eileen Neff.

Meredith Ward Fine Art is at 60 East 66th Street. For information, 212-744-7306.