Ralph Coburn, American 1923 - 2018
Ralph Coburn: Big Ideas, Small Pictures will be on view at David Hall Gallery, 555 Washington Street, Wellesley, MA from December 8, 2022 - January 12, 2023.
The artwork in this exhibition represents the artist's groundbreaking approach of recording and distilling observed forms in the world around him. These works are primarily drawn from Ralph Coburn's early years in France (1949 - 1956) but also introduces three later grid based compositions, again presenting views of the observed world via a systematic process of color and form.
Coburn's architectural training at MIT in Cambridge Massachusetts in the 1940's had a profound impact upon the process and originality of the artist's image making. MIT is first and foremost an institution that strives to graduate inventors and original thinkers from its various programs. This pedagogy stressed creating work of an original concept. Coburn's architectural projects were graded not on how well he could recreate his professor's ideas but rather on the originality of his response to that assignment. This concept of "original concept" permeated the work he created in France starting in early June of 1949 when he joined his good friend Ellsworth Kelly in Paris.
Coburn and Kelly would spend their days investigating neighborhoods in and around Paris making small, intimate, highly distilled ink drawings or collaged images. These early works are the primarly focus of this exhibition.
Please click on each image to see size and medium.
Thank you!
David Hall
Boston Globe Review - December 27, 2022
