Edward Koren: The Capricious Line
The Bellarmine Museum
February 5, 2016 - April 8, 2016
Edward Koren: The Capricious Line is a major survey of the work of the artist best known for his cartoons and cover illustrations for The New Yorker magazine.This exhibition explores the full range of art that Edward Koren has produced during the past five decades: original drawings for cartoons and illustrated books as well as prints and independent drawings, many of which have never been displayed before. The artist's "capricious line" consists primarily of short strokes that create remarkably descriptive and expressive images. Koren's work brings us into the realm of fantasy based firmly in reality, such contradiction being one source of its humor.
Subjects include the artist's fascination with the natural world and its inhabitants, creatures generated more by the momentum of his graphic imagination than by the laws of Darwinian evolution, and imagined architectural spaces populated with his own fantastic creatures, furry beings scuttling along on two or more legs, their movement suggesting an indeterminate sociability. A primary focus of the exhibition is, inevitably, Koren's drawings for cartoons, which highlight his role as observer of contemporary society and as a gently acerbic critic of a cultural scene that seems to demand his graphic commentary.
Edward Koren: The Capricious Line is curated by Diana Fane and the late David Rosand, developed by the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Gallery, New York, and organized for tour by International Arts & Artists, Washington, DC.
This exhibition is made possible, in part, by the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional support from the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation.
The audio guide for this exhibition can be found on our mobile app at soundcloud.com/fairfielduartmuseum.