[both at 2 cols]

Jane Frielicher, “Some Trees,” 2007, oil on paper mounted on board, 14 by 17 inches.

Gerson Leiber, “View from Greenhouse,” 1997, oil on canvas, 30 by 40 inches.

MUST RUN 5/2

SPANIERMAN GALLERY ‘LIGHT OF SPRING II’ w/2 cuts

ak/gs set 4/23 #736916

EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. — Spanierman Gallery, LLC announces the opening of its Spring season with the exhibition, “Light of Spring II.” Works by prominent artists long associated with Long Island, Elaine de Kooning and Jane Freilicher, are represented in the exhibition along with examples by ten artists. The show continues through May 19.

“Rock on Hill,” 1965, reflects de Kooning’s reactions to the combined luminosity and vivacity of nature on the East End, while the large “Foliage (Indoor and Outdoor)” brings together the still life and garden subject matter that were recurrent themes throughout her career.

Freilicher’s contributions similarly reflect continuing strands within her art, with “Jonquils and Nasturtiums,” 2006, showing flowers both in and adrift from their vessels and a ground that seems floating, with the sea glimpsed at the horizon, and “Some Trees,” 2007, presenting an iconic image in which wispy and buoyant tree forms are set against a distant watery vista of pale sea and sky.

For several artists, the lush, floral aspects of the East End serve as a generative impulse and stimulus. In her oils, Deborah Abbott uses nature as a “jumping off point” from which to take risks. Her sweeping and swirling organic shapes are informed by gesture, light and color. Painting in oil on linen, Gerson Leiber uses his own garden in East Hampton as the basis for his art, as his Cubist-inspired designs are drawn from the natural forms.

In oils and acrylics, Priscilla Bowden continues the dedication she has had for more than 40 years to preserving on canvas aspects of the East End landscape now radically altered development. Cornelia Foss, who was born in Berlin, is represented in the exhibition by spare landscapes in which the sky is dominant. Among her works is a view of Wainscott Pond, a favorite subject for her for many years.

Deborah Black uses an expressionist approach, in which strong brushwork conveys movement and the passage of light and air through the East End’s bluffs and glades. Robert Dash’s two acrylics from his “Sagg Main” series are variations within his thematic study of a street in his hometown of Sagaponack, N.Y. While painting seemingly representational works, Clifford Smith brings to his art a personal idiom, using impressionist, sometimes abstracted strokes to otherwise well-defined forms.

Surface and feeling are the emphasis in the works of Cynthia Knott and Shari Abramson. In two large paintings in the show, “Circe,” 2006, and “Evermore,” 2006, Knott combines oil, metallic paint, and encaustic to convey the luminous effect of a fleeting light that is always in transition. Abramson’s oils are informed by nature and light. Also mystical in attitude are the oils of Maria Schon.

Spanierman Gallery at East Hampton is at 68 Newtown Lane. For information, 631-329-9530 or www.spanierman-at-easthampton.com.