Kay Kurt
Kay Kurt (born 1944) is an American New Realist painter known for her large-scale candy paintings.
Biography
Kurt was born in Dubuque, Iowa. She attended Clark College in her home town, earning a BFA in 1966. In 1968 she completed an MFA in painting from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. As a graduate student she developed her signature style and subject matter: candy painted up-close and in meticulous detail, often on enormous canvases. Typical candies featured in her oeuvre include licorice, bon bons, jordan almonds, jujubes and gummi bears. Her choice of subject reflects her interest in mass production and consumer culture around the world.[1]
Through her friend and fellow artist Jack Beal, Kurt met Ivan C. Karp, then Assistant Director of the Leo Castelli Gallery. Karp showed her work to gallerist Jill Kornblee, who began showing Kurt's paintings at the Kornblee Gallery in New York City in 1968.[2] A year later her work was featured in London's Hayward Gallery Pop Art exhibition, curated by John Russell, then art critic of The Sunday Times, and artist and art critic Suzi Gablik.[3] Kurt was one of the youngest artists included in the exhibition and was also one of the only women. Her work was later featured in the 1973 Whitney Biennial and in numerous other group and solo exhibitions throughout the 1980s and 1990s.[4]
Aside from a brief tenure in Germany in 1968-69, Kurt has remained in the Midwest. She moved to Duluth, Minnesota when her husband, Medieval scholar Klaus Jankofsky, began teaching at the University of Minnesota, Duluth in 1969.[5] She continues to live and work in Duluth today.
Selected Exhibitions
- 1968 Kornblee Gallery, New York, [Group Show]
- 1968 Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, "The Big Detail"
- 1969 Finch College, New York, "The Dominant Woman"
- 1969 Hayward Gallery, London, England, "Pop Art"
- 1970 Kornblee Gallery, New York, [One-Woman Show]
- 1971 Neuberger Art Museum, SUNY Purchase, New York, "New Realism"
- 1972 Suffolk Museum, Virginia, "Unmanly Art"
- 1972 Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, "Contemporary Realists"
- 1973 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Whitney Biennial
- 1974 Land Art Gallery at Scripps College, Claremont, California, "The Fine Art of Food"
- 1978 Whitney Museum of American Art, Downtown Branch, New York, "Out of the House"
- 1978 Kornblee Gallery, New York, "Some Observations About Scale"
- 1979 Kornblee Gallery, New York, "Grand Paintings" [Ten Year One-Woman Retrospective]
- 1980 Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota "Kay Kurt: Paintings" [traveling exhibition]
- 1983 Kornblee Gallery, New York, [One-Woman Show]
- 1985 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California, "American Realism, 20th Century Drawings and Watercolors"
- 1991 Museum of Art, Dubuque, Iowa, "A Closer Look" [One-Woman Show]
- 1995 Artworks Gallery WARM/Duluth Chapter, Minneapolis, Minnesota, [Inaugural Group Show]
- 1997 Duluth Art Institute, Duluth, Minnesota, "Celebrate: Women in the Arts" [traveling exhibition]
- 2010 University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958-1968" [traveling exhibition]
Collections
- Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- Boise Art Museum, Glenn C. Janss Collection, Boise ID
- Neuberger Museum of Art, SUNY, Purchase NY
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York NY
- Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota, Duluth MN
- Walker Art Center, Minneapolis MN
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY
Bibliography
- "Kay Kurt: Resume," http://www.kaykurt.com/kaykurtresume.htm.
- Kay Kurt, "Artist Statement." http://www.kaykurt.com/kaykurtartiststatement.htm.
- "Kay Kurt in the Press," http://www.kaykurt.com/kaykurtpress.htm.
- John Russell, ""Kay Kurt and Others" [Review]", New York Times, December 9, 1983.
- John Russell, "2 Unsung Painters", New York Times, December 21, 1979.
- Hilton Kramer, "Art: 2 Interesting Talents Make Debut", New York Times', June 13, 1970, pg. 26.'
- Hilton Kramer, "Nowadays It's Terribly Hard to Be Scandalous," New York Times, July 27, 1969, pg. D19.
- "50 Years/50 Artworks. 49. Kay Kurt, Jordan Almonds (1975-79)." http://www.d.umn.edu/tma/collections/language/cat49.html
- Sid Sachs and Kalliopi Minioudaki, Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958-1968. Philadelphia, PA: University of the Arts, Philadelphia, 2010.
References
- ^ Kurt, "Artist's Statement"
- ^ Sachs and Minioudaki (2010)
- ^ Kramer (1969)
- ^ Sachs and Minioudaki (2010)
- ^ "50 Years/50 Artworks"
External links
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Kurt, Kay |
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1944 |
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