Michael David

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Bio

Guggenheim Fellow, recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, Yaddo and Edward Albee Fellow, Michael David has been exhibiting internationally since 1981, first with the historical Sidney Janis and then with M. Knoedler & Co., Kasim Gallery in London and represented by Bill Lowe Gallery in Atlanta for  two decades  and widely throughout the United States for 40 years.

He has been the subject of much historical and curatorial acclaim, his exhibitions reviewed in Art Forum and Art in America among many other publications,

His work is included in many prominent private collections and the permanent public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Brooklyn Museum, The Jewish Museum In NY, The Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Margulies Collection in Miami and the Edward Albee Foundation in Montauk NY, and has been the subject of a one-person exhibition at Aspen Museum of Art.

Artist Statement

In Michael David's latest works, he continues to combine and extend the language of abstraction through his use of materiality and paint handling with his use of personal, political, and literary narrative and storytelling, aligning himself with some of today's greatest and most relevant practitioners of abstraction, Mark Bradford and Anselm Kiefer.

David's paintings actualize, through his materials and abstract handling, the virtues and complexity of what makes us most human; strength, vulnerability, fragility, compassion, loss. They embody the lessons learned from one's own mistakes and acceptance of self.

Top art critic Donald Kuspit has described David’s work in this manner:

Michael David may be the most innovative master of immediate surface since the Abstract Expressionists. He has acknowledged his debt to Abstract Expressionism, but he has transformed it. Where the Abstract Expressionist paintings of the forties and fifties seem like modern cave paintings, as their crude, unfocused, often meandering, turbulent painterliness suggests, David seeks to reinstate prehistory, turning the cave into a temple. His more concentrated, dense and contemplative paintings have the aura of post history. David’s abstract paintings renew immediacy; they reconstitute and strengthen, even apotheosize it. They raise it to a feverishly fresh intensity with their remarkable touch, indicating they are among the very best painterly abstractions made.

Through his masterful use of encaustic (developed over forty years), David is literally and metaphorically embedding his paintings with references to his own history; his love of music, cinema, popular culture, art and literature. Combining this with his use of color, his rich and simultaneously fearless improvisations, and a deliberate intimacy of handling, his works are the physical manifestations of his passion and refusal to compromise.

All great painters paint who they are and what they know. They communicate that resolution of self in the record of their passion. Intentionality left behind is the artist's experience and process through the making the of the painting. The insight or access into the artist's intention only adds another layer for the viewer in sharing that experience to explore and deepen the relationship to the work.

BORN | 1954, Reno, NV

 

EDUCATION | 1976 BFA, Parsons School of Design, New York, NY

AWARDS
1984
The Guggenheim Fellowship

1983
National Endowment for the Arts

1982
The Edward Albee Foundation, Montauk, NY
The American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Art Award, New York, NY
The Meet the Composer Grant, New York, NY
Guest Professor, Advanced Painting, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

1981
The Edward Albee Foundation, Montauk, NY

1980
The Edward Albee Foundation, Montauk, NY

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011
“New Paintings”, The Chmar Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

2010
“New Paintings”, Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
 “Michael David: New Encaustic Works”, The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA

2009
“Michael David: Chortens”, The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA
“The Greenhouse Project”, Studio Swan, Palmetto, GA
“The Greenhouse Project and New Landscapes”, Alan Avery Fine Art, Atlanta, GA

2008
“Michael David: Old School”, Mason Murer, Atlanta, GA

2007 “Michael David: Painting and Photography,” The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA

2006
“Compassion,” The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA
“Michael David: New Encaustic Painting,” Wooster Projects, New York, NY

2001
“Michael David,” The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA

2000
“New Encaustic Paintings,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY

1999
“Michael David,” The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA

1998
“Cruciforms,” Meredith Long and Company, Houston, TX

1988
“New Work,” Dorothy Blau, Bay Harbor, FL

1997
“Michael David,” Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
 “Michael David,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY

1995
“Michael David,” Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO
“The Poured Image,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY

1994
“Paintings and Works on Paper,” Meredith Long and Company, Houston, TX
“Paintings,” Margulies Taplin Gallery, Boca Raton, FL

1993
“The Wolfen Series,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY
“Michael David,” Irving Galleries, Palm Beach, FL

1992
“Michael David,” Margulies Taplin Gallery, Boca Raton, FL
“Painted Collage,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY

1991
“Paintings on Paper,” Meredith Long Gallery, Houston, TX
“The Georgia Series,” Solo Gallery, New York, NY
“New Paintings: The Georgia Series,” Knoedler and Company, NY

1990
“Six Paintings,” Meredith Long Gallery, Houston, TX
“Works on Paper,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY

1989
“New Work,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY

1988
“New Work,” Meredith Long and Company, Houston, TX
“Golem and Other Prints,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
“New Paintings: Invisible Cities,” Compass Rose Gallery, Chicago, IL

1987
“New Paintings,” The Greensberg Gallery, St. Louis, MO
“Paintings and Drawings,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY
“Recent Works,” Knoedler Gallery, London, England

1986
“Recent Painting,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY

1984
“New Paintings,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY
“Paintings,” Dart Gallery, Chicago, IL

1983
“Michael David,” Hamilton Gallery, New York, NY

1982
“Michael David,” Hamilton Gallery, New York, NY

1981
“New Paintings: Evolutions of the Symbol,” Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, NY

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2010-2011
“Post Mammalian Tension, Michale David & Scott Browning”, Bill Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA

2006
“Unspoken Connections,” The Lowe Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

2004
The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA

2002
“Unexpected Selections from the Martin Z. Margulies Collection: Art from 1985 to the present,” The Art Museum at Florida International University, Miami, FL

1999
“Waxing Poetic: Encaustic Art in America,” Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ
“Forty Years of American Drawings,” Raab Galerie, Berlin, Germany

1997
“Michael David and James Hyde,” Margulies Taplin Gallery, Coral Gables, FL

1996
“Different Sides: Drawings/Photographs/Prints/Paintings/Sculpture,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY

1994
“Summer Group Exhibition 1994,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY
“Michael David: Paintings / Nicholas Pearson: Sculpture,” Margulies Taplin Gallery, Boca Raton, FL

1992
“Group Exhibition,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY

1991
“Group Exhibition,” Knoedler and Company, New York, NY
“Working with Wax: Ten Contemporary Artists,” Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, NY

1990
“Heland Wetterling Gallery Shows Knoedler Gallery Artists,” Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
“Works on Paper,” The Harcus Gallery, Boston, MA

1989
“Projects and Portfolios: the 25th Print National,” The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
“Important Works on Paper,” Meredith Long and Company, Houston, TX
“New Editions,” Pace Prints, New York, NY

1988
“Golem! Danger, Deliverance, and Art,” The Jewish Museum, New York, NY
“1988 Invitational,” New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT
“Seventeen Years at the Barn: Highlights of the Edward F. Albee Foundation,” Rosa Esman Gallery, New York, NY

1987
“Monotypes,” Pace Editions, New York, NY
“Working in Brooklyn / Painting,” The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
“Art Against AIDS,” benefit exhibition and art sale held throughout New York, participating
gallery Knoedler and Company, New York, NY
“Jewish Themes: Contemporary American Artists,” Spertus, Chicago, IL

1986
“First Impressions: Recent Monotypes by 15 Artists,” Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York, NY
“Saints and Sinners: Contemporary Responses to Religion,” De Cordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
“Jewish Themes: Contemporary American Artists,” The Jewish Museum, New York, NY
“Public and Private American Prints Today,” Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY


1985
“A Decade of Visual Arts at Princeton: 1975-1985,” The Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
“With an Eye to Nature,” Jeffrey Hoffeld and Company, New York, NY


1984
“Off the Landscape,” Grand Central Galleries, New York, NY
“Cunningham Dance Foundation Benefit,” Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, NY
“Invitational Painting Exhibition, Part I: Twelve Abstract Painters,” Seigel Contemporary, New York, NY
“Small Paintings,” Jeffrey Hoffeld Gallery, New York, NY

1983
“Calaway, David, Nelson,” Hamilton Gallery, New York, NY
1982
“Sounds and Visions,” Rockland Center for the Arts, West Nyack, NY
“Group Show,” Hamilton Gallery, New York, NY
“The Crucifix Show,” Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, NY
“Elaine de Kooning’s Inadvertent Collection,” Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, NY
“Work by Newly Elected Members and Recipients of Honors and Awards,” American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
“Paintings and Sculptures by Candidates for Art Awards,” American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, NY

1981
“New Visions,” The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT
“New Directions – Contemporary American Art from the Commodities Corporate Collection,” Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, NY

1980
“Bobsand New York City Volunteers,” Municipal Parking Garage, New York, NY
“Seven Young Americans,” Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, NY

1979
“Story Mann’s Possum Head – In a Pictorial Framework,” The New Museum, New York, NY

1978
“Black and White on Paper,” The Nobe Gallery, New York, NY

1977
“Six New Painters,” The SoHo Center for the Visual Arts, New York, NY
“Sixth Annual Contemporary Reflections,” The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT

PUBLIC/PERMANANT COLLECTIONS
Best & Co, Richmond, VA
Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, NY
Commodities Corporation, Princeton, NJ
Dannheiser Foundation, New York, NY
De Cordova and Dana Museum and Park, Lincoln, MA
The Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
The Edward Albee Foundation, New York, NY
Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
The Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
The ITT Collection, New York, NY
The Jewish Museum, New York, NY
List Art Center, Brown University, Providence, RI
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA The
Neuberger Museum, State University at Purchase, NY
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA

PUBLICATIONS
1980 Larson, Kay and Rickey, Carrie, “Art: Seven Young Americans,” The Village Voice
1980 Kramer, Hilton, “Seven Young Americans,” The New York Times
1980 J, H., “Sieben Amerikaner der Gegenwart,” Kunst
1980 Jessup, Sally, “Seven Young Americans,” Art/World
1980 Zimmer, William, “Seven Young Americans,” The SoHo News
1981 “Michael David,” The SoHo News
1981 Gongard, Willi, “David at Janis,” Art Aktuell
1982 Harris, Susan, “Michael David,” Arts Magazine
1983 Boyce, David B, “Michael David: New Abstraction and the Transcendent Metaphor,” Arts Magazine
1984 Silverthorne, Jeanne, “Michael David,” ArtForum
1984 Henry, Garrit, “Michael David at Hamilton,” Art in America
1985 Brenson, Michael, “Critics’ Choices, Art,” The Guide, The New York Times.
1985 Fraile, Stephen, “…” The Print Collector’s Newsletter XVI, no. 3
1986 “Bringing Fresh Approaches To Age-Old Jewish Themes,” The New York Times
1986 Bottino, Carroll Ann, “DeCordova takes a look at the ‘Saints and Sinners,’” Lincoln
1986 Stapen, Nancy, “DeCordova show has mass appeal,” The Boston Herald
1987 Schwartzman, Allan, “Corporate Culture: The Yippie-Yuppie Artist (Jeff Koons),” Manhattan, Inc.
1987 Ackley, Clifford S, “Michael David,” The Print Collector’s Newletter Journal
1987 Derrickson, Howard, “Abstract show at Greenberg Triumph of Metaphor and Mystery,” West End Word
1987 Koch, Liz, “Not Just a Bunch of Brooklyn Painters,” The Phoenix
1987 Moorman, Margaret, “An Eclectic Brooklyn Show,” New York Newsday
1988 Damsker, Matt, “1988 Invitational show at New Britain Museum,” The Hartford Courant
1988 Hanson, Bernard, “New Britain Museum’s 1988 Invitational Exhibit,” The Middletown Press
1988 Potter, Thomas F., “Contemporary Art Show will Appeal to All Art Lovers,” Meriden Record
1988 Sherman, Mary, “David’s abstract art entices, grips the viewer,” Chicago Sunday Times
1989 Wallach, Amei, “The Golem Legend in Many Guises,” (review: The Jewish Museum), Newsday
1991 Haggerty, Gerard, “Michael David’s New Paintings: The Georgia Series,” Cover Arts Magazine
1991 Tallman, Susan, “Michael David at Knoedler,” Art in America
1993 Mahoney, Robert, “Sacred Iconoclasm: Exercising Painting’s Ancient Demons,” Cover Arts Magazine
1993 Ruzicka, Joseph, “Michael and the Wolfen,” Upper Eastside Resident
1993 Sjostrom, Jan, “David’s Intense Art Examines the Inner Man,” Palm Beach Daily News 1993 Southworth, Linda, “Michael and the Wolfen,” Upper Eastside
1995 David, Michael, “Art of Hot Wax and Dogs,” The Aspen
1995 Nicholson, Stuart, “The Poured Image,” Cover Arts Magazine
1997 Upshaw, Reagan, “Michael David at Knoedler,” Art in America
1999 Gomez, Edward M., “Improvised Images in Molten Wax, as Fluid as Jazz,” The New York Times
2000 Kuspit, Donald, “Michael David: Knoedler and Company,” ArtForum