1½ col. Will float

Steve Wheeler, “Woman Eating a Hot Dog,” circa 1950–75, oil on canvas, 30 by 33 inches.

2 cols.

Steve Wheeler, “Swinging Acrobats,” 1941, tempera on paperboard, 7½ by 18½ inches.

MUST RUN 2/29

‘STEVE WHEELER IN CONTEXT ‘AT DAVID FINDLAY W/2 CUTS requested

SET 2/21 ak /CD; #729844

NEW YORK CITY — “Steve Wheeler In Context,” a survey exhibition of 30 paintings, drawings and original serigraphs by Steve Wheeler, will be on view March 1–22 at David Findlay Jr Fine Art.

During the 1940s and 50s, Steve Wheeler (1912–1992) created a highly original body of work that constitutes a relatively new chapter in the history of American Modern art. He was the leading artist associated with the Indian Space Painters, an informal group active in New York during the late 1940s. Although he did not exhibit with the group, Wheeler is commonly considered to be a progenitor of the Indian Space movement, the Native American-inspired integration of organic and geometric pictographic forms within a flat, seamless space.

Believing that art must emerge from its own time, Wheeler conveyed the dynamic nature of urban America in his complex, nonillusionistic, multidimensional paintings and works on paper. The primary element of Wheeler’s art is the line, which serves multiple, simultaneous functions of contour, path and passage, taking the viewer on a journey beyond physical space into the mysterious, boundless world of both the artist’s creative mind and the universal mind.

The exhibition will additionally include works by artists whose work also dealt with or was influenced by Surrealism, Futurism and Cubism, as well as Native American influences. These artists include Byron Browne, Stuart Davis, Richard Pousette-Dart Howard Daum, Dorothy Dehner, Hananiah Harari, Alfonso Ossorio and Matta. They were among many artists of the time who were attempting to work out an indigenous American aesthetic prior to and then concomitant with Abstract Expressionism. They served to bridge the gap between pure abstraction and the later, more emotional, style of Abstract Expressionism.

A 24-page color catalog accompanies the exhibition.

David Findlay Jr Fine Art is at 41 East 57th Street, 11th floor. For information, www.davidfindlayjr.com or 212-486-7660.