FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MANUEL NERI

Recent Work:

Marble, Bronze, Plaster, and Paper

PETER VOULKOS

Major Work

December 1, 1998 - January 9, 1999

The Charles Cowles Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new sculptures and works on paper by MANUEL NERI from December 1, 1998 through January 9, 1999. Concurrently, there will be an exhibit of ceramic sculpture by PETER VOULKOS. The Gallery is located at 420 West Broadway and the hours are Tuesday through Saturday 10am until 6pm. There will be a reception for the artists on Thursday, December 3rd, from 6-8pm at the Gallery.

A member of the Bay Area Figurative School, which includes artists such as Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, NERI has continued to explore the human figure in diverse mediums such as marble, bronze, plaster, graphite and oil-stick. While the painted bronzes and plasters are created in his studio in Northern California, NERI spends roughly half of the year in Carrara, Italy, where he carves his marble sculptures. In his work, the figure undergoes a continuing metamorphosis, sometimes acquiring definition, at other times losing it; here assuming an uncanny sense of flesh-and-blood presence, there ruthlessly obliterated. NERI's art is a personal exploration, both in his depiction of the figure and in the expressive nature of his creativity; the marbles are sensuously smooth and serene, the bronzes daring and insistent with broad slaps of colorful paint partially covering their surface.

PETER VOULKOS has been a major force in contemporary ceramics since the mid-fifties, and at 74 he continues to turn out some of the best work of his celebrated career. Influenced by the New York Abstract Expressionist school, VOULKOS was perhaps the first ceramic artist to move his clay forms from a functional context into the world of deep personal expression. VOULKOS created an astounding body of ceramic sculpture that quickly gained him national and international recognition, and in 1959 he won the Rodin Museum Prize for sculpture at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; in 1960 VOULKOS had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Originating in 1995, there were two major retrospectives of his work, one organized by the Sezon Museum of Art in Tokyo and the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, the other organized by the Oakland Museum in Oakland, California. VOULKOS is featured in the current exhibition Clay into Art, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York through May 30, 1999.

For further information or photographs please call (212) 925-3500.