Tag: extinction

Thomas Woodruff at Vito Schnabel Gallery

As the magnolia start to bloom in New York this week, Thomas Woodruff’s painting of dinosaurs as the Three Graces from Botticelli’s Primavera seems perfectly timed for the season.  One of several paintings in Woodruff’s solo show at Vito Schnabel Gallery that feature dinosaurs, the creatures enjoy their Edenic surroundings apparently unaware of their impending destruction.  Exploding volcanos and incoming meteorites appear in most of the show’s works, announcing an extinction event designed to excite fears about our own fate as the climate changes.  Coming a few years after Woodruff’s retirement from his long-term teaching career at the School of the Visual Arts, the artist explains that his subject matter also alludes to his own aging and suggests that he intends to go out with a bang.  (On view through March 30th).

Thomas Woodruff, The Three Graces, acrylic on canvas, 96 x 78 inches, 2022.

Clive Smith at Marc Straus Gallery

Once so abundant in the U.S. that their flocks sounded like thunder as they darkened the sky, passenger pigeons were hunted to extinction by the early 20th century. The final survivor, Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo over one hundred years ago, but inspired New York-based British realist painter Clive Smith’s painting of a commemorative plate, now on view at Marc Straus Gallery on the Lower East Side. Titled ‘Beak, Claw, Hand, Brush,’ this and other works in Smith’s series equate the labor of beak and hand, soberly suggesting that our own future may go the way of the passenger pigeon. (On view through Feb 9th).

Clive Smith, Beak, Claw, Hand, Brush, (1.9.1914), oil on linen, 54 x 71 inches, 2017.

Alexander Tovborg at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

Young Danish artist Alexander Tovborg painted one abstracted image of a dinosaur, turned it to the wall and from memory painted the next, creating this row of images that rely on memory and depict now extinct – yet gorgeously colored – creatures. (At Nicelle Beauchene Gallery on the Lower East Side through Dec 21st).

Alexander Tovborg, Eternal Feminine (I), felt, pastel crayon, acrylic and imitated gold leaf on wood panel, 48 x 36 inches, 2014.