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Natalie Edgar

{{Short description|American painter (born 1932)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Natalie Edgar

| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1932}}

| birth_place = New York City

| nationality = American

| education = Brooklyn College, Columbia University

| occupation = Painter, Art Critic, Art Historian

| known_for = Painting, Expertise in Abstract Expressionism

| style = Abstract Expressionism

| spouse = Philip Pavia

| children = Luigi (b. 1968; d. 2012), Paul (b. 1971)

}}

Natalie Edgar (born 1932) is an American abstract expressionist painter,{{Cite web|url=http://www.artnet.com/galleries/mark-borghi-fine-art-inc/natalie-edgar-paintings-from-the-last-decade/|title=Natalie Edgar Paintings from the Last Decade|website=Art net.com|access-date=Feb 6, 2019}} a former critic for ARTnews,{{Cite news|url=http://www.artnews.com/tag/natalie-edgar/|title=Natalie Edgar Archives|last=Edgar|first=Natalie|date=Oct 28, 2015|work=ARTnews|access-date=Feb 6, 2019}} and a key writer and historian on the birth and development of abstract expressionism.{{Cite web|url=https://www.widewalls.ch/artist/natalie-edgar/|title=Natalie Edgar|website=Wide Walls|access-date=Jan 25, 2019}}

Career

As a painter, Edgar has been classified as a "wom[a]n artist who broke the rules,"{{Cite news|url=https://news.artnet.com/market/mark-borghi-celebrates-women-artists-breaking-the-rules-at-art-miami-1171250|title=At Art Miami, Mark Borghi Celebrates Women Artists Who Broke the Rules|last=Cascone|first=Sarah|date=Dec 8, 2017|work=Artnet News|access-date=Jan 25, 2019}} and her lively, and often large, abstractions typically include a "mass of layered colors—with multiple glazes, opacities, broad areas laid down in washes"{{Cite news|url=https://brooklynrail.org/2014/04/artseen/abstract-journey-natalie-edgar|title=Natalie Edgar: Abstract Journey|last=Benton|first=William|date=Apr 2, 2012|work=The Brooklyn Rail|access-date=Nov 13, 2018}} while "using dynamic strokes and contrasting tones [that] ... juxtapose[s] color with areas of vacant canvas."{{Cite web|url=https://www.mutualart.com/Exhibition/Between-Picture-and-Viewer--The-Image-in/4590E969F513FC76|title=Between Picture and Viewer: The Image in Contemporary Painting|website=MutualArt.com|access-date=Feb 3, 2019}} Her skill and interests built on early art training at Brooklyn College with Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, Burgoyne Diller, Alfred Russell, Harry Holzman, Martin James, and a degree in art history from Columbia University.{{Cite web|url=http://www.askart.com/artist/Natalie_Edgar/113874/Natalie_Edgar.aspx|title=Natalie Edgar|website=Ask Art|access-date=Feb 3, 2019}} That background laid the groundwork for a life-long appreciation for abstraction, which spanned reviews for Isamu Noguchi, Norman Bluhm, Esteban Vicente and Franz Kline as well as a 1965 review on "The Satisfactions of Robert Motherwell" for ARTnews, in which she explained her thinking about abstraction this way:

The almost-star could be a starfish, two ovals suggest anatomy, an egg-shape might be an egg, a blot a cocoon, a rumpled paper bag evokes the many lives it passed through, an almost-arch strains to bend more or straighten out, almost-triangle yearns to be perfect. They assume the capability needed to reach their ideals at one extreme, or, at the other extreme, their freedom in abstract invention. From familiar shapes they are transfigured into dramatic images.{{Cite journal|last=Edgar|first=Natalie|date=Oct 1965|title=Retrospective: The Satisfactions of Robert Motherwell|url=http://www.artnews.com/2015/10/28/retrospective-the-satisfactions-of-robert-motherwell/|journal=ARTnews}}
Edgar has written and collaborated on many long-form projects on the early history of Abstract Expressionism. Her book Club Without Walls documents the movement's birth and development at the 8th Street Club.{{Cite book|title=Club Without Walls|last=Edgar|first=Natalie|publisher=Midmarch Arts Press|year=2007|isbn=978-1877675645}} Collaborative work with husband and sculptor Phillip Pavia, also on The Club, is now archived at Emory University's research libraries.{{Cite web|url=https://findingaids.library.emory.edu/documents/pavia981/|title=Philip Pavia and Natalie Edgar archive of abstract expressionist art, 1913–2005|website=Emory Libraries and Information Technology|date=13 October 2009 |access-date=Jan 25, 2019}}{{Cite web|url=https://burnaway.org/feature/on-not-becoming-loners-and-fading-away-an-overview-of-the-philip-pavia-and-natalie-edgar-archive-of-abstract-expressionist-art/|title=On Not Becoming Loners and Fading Away: An Overview of the Philip Pavia and Natalie Edgar Archive of Abstract Expressionist Art|last=Brown|first=Devin|date=Aug 15, 2013|website=Burnaway: The Voice of Art in the South|access-date=Jan 25, 2019}} Edgar has also served as a source for scholarly research on the movement's origins at MOMA{{Cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/calendar/Hellstein2.25.11MoMApaper.pdf|title=Abstract Expressionism's Counterculture: The Club, the Cold War, and the New Sensibility|last=Hellstein|first=Valerie|website=MOMA|access-date=Nov 13, 2018}} and in interviews with author Mary Gabriel for Ninth Street Women, a book about five women painters who changed modern art.{{Cite book|title=Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art|last=Gabriel|first=Mary|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|year=2017|isbn=978-0316226189|location=New York}}

Solo exhibitions

  • Natalie Edgar: From Above, Woodward Gallery, New York, NY, 2010.
  • Watercolor Paper Edgar, Woodward Gallery, New York, NY, 2001.
  • Natalie Edgar: New Works, Woodward Gallery, New York, NY, 1999.
  • Disclosure, Woodward Gallery, New York, NY, 1997.
  • Natalie Edgar, Abstract Paintings, [http://www.museodeibozzetti.it Museo dei Bozzetti], Pietrasanta, Italy, 1993.

Awards

Bibliography of Edgar's writings

  • Philip Pavia, overview of career with 50 plates, introduction by Gerald Nordland, John Isaacs Books, 2009.
  • Club Without Walls, Edited book of Selections from the Journal of Philip Pavia ({{ISBN|978-1-877675-64-5}}, Published by MidMarch Arts Press), 2007.
  • Archives of the Club and It is Magazine, organized by Natalie Edgar, Woodruff Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 2005.
  • ARTnews, 1959–1973, staff writer. Articles on Isamu Noguchi, Norman Bluhm, Esteban Vicente, Robert Motherwell, the Spanish School, Peter Agostini, Louise Bourgois, Frederick Kiesler.
  • Art/World, 1979-1980, contributor, articles on George Spaventa, Joseph Beuys, Robert Motherwell, Piero Dorazio, Milton Resnick, Franz Kline, Michael Heizer, Robert Ryman, Mary Miss.
  • Fritz Glarner, 1966–1967, exhibition originated in San Francisco Museum of Art and traveled to Philadelphia Museum of Contemporary Art. Curated show and wrote catalogue.

Personal life

Edgar was married to the abstract expressionist sculptor Philip Pavia.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/arts/design/philip-pavia-94-an-avantgarde-sculptor-is-dead.html|title=Philip Pavia, 94, an Avant-Garde Sculptor, Is Dead|last=Sisario|first=Ben|date=Apr 15, 2005|work=The New York Times|access-date=Feb 6, 2019}} The couple had two sons: Their elder son Luigi died in 2012.{{Cite news|url=https://www.easthamptonstar.com/Obituaries/2012920/Luigi-Pavia-44-%E2%80%98-Talent-Friendship%E2%80%99|title=Luigi Pavia, 44, 'a Talent for Friendship'|date=Sep 20, 2012|work=The East Hampton Star|access-date=Jan 25, 2019}} Their younger son Paul is a sculptor.{{Cite news|url=https://www.easthamptonstar.com/Arts/2017119/Paul-Pavias-Small-Sculptures-Recall-Great-Monoliths|title=Paul Pavia's Small Sculptures Recall Great Monoliths|last=Segal|first=Mark|date=Jan 19, 2017|work=The East Hampton Star|access-date=Jan 25, 2019}}

References

External links

  • [https://woodwardgallery.net/artists/natalie-edgar/ Woodward Gallery]
  • [http://borghi.org/artists/natalie-edgar/ Mark Borghi Fine Art]
  • [https://www.artsy.net/artist/natalie-edgar Artsy]
  • [https://rose.library.emory.edu/ Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library], Emory University: [http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/8zrgd Philip Pavia and Natalie Edgar archive of abstract expressionist art, 1913-2005]

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Category:1932 births

Category:Living people

Category:21st-century American women painters

Category:21st-century American painters

Category:American art critics

Category:American art historians

Category:American women art historians

Category:Abstract expressionist artists

Category:American modern artists

Category:Painters from New York City

Category:Brooklyn College alumni

Category:Historians from New York (state)