While he was a young artist, David Park experimented with the predominant style of the day: abstract expressionism. However, he made a decisive turn toward representation and broke away from the fashion of the 1950s American art world. Park favored painting the figure either alone or in groups, using thick layers of paint and blocks of color to depict forms and convey emotions. He described this shift in his practice: “I have found that in accepting and immersing myself in subject matter I paint with more intensity and that the ‘hows’ of painting are more inevitably determined by the ‘whats.’” Come take a look at this painting on the first floor of the Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art.
—Sara Krajewski, The Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art
David Park (American, 1911–1960), The Cellist, 1959. Oil on canvas. Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Ronna and Eric Hoffman, 86.77
