Betty Cuningham Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Jake Berthot including both paintings and drawings. This will be the artist’s fifth exhibition at the Gallery.

Since the late 1960’s Jake Berthot has been known for his distinctive brushwork (an admirer of Milton Resnick), his characteristic softly-drawn line, his sensitive touch, his rich color, and his incorporation of the frame into his painting. These elements are found in his earlier, more formal, abstract work as well as in his recent subtle landscape paintings.

The current exhibition includes approximately 14 paintings and 6 drawings, all completed in the last two years. Each painting or drawing, whether a broad landscape, a single tree or a still life, seem to coalesce into a single, deeply felt image. For example, in Night Sea and the Rock, 2012 the elements in the landscape come into view slowly in the dark, night space. Similarly, in Tree, 2013 the tree which dominates the canvas emerges from Berthot’s quiet brushwork. Finally, in a still life titled, Table and Skull, 2012 the objects take form creating a poetic dialogue between object and paint.

Jake Berthot was born in Niagara Falls, NY in 1939. He attended the New School for Social Research and Pratt Institute in the early 1960’s and has been exhibiting in New York since the early 1970’s. The artist has held teaching positions at Cooper Union, Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, and currently is teaching at The School of Visual Arts. He has received a number of awards and grants, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1981, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1983 and an Academy Institute Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1992. Berthot’s work can be seen in a host of notable museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, all in New York City. Nationally, his work can be found in the collections of The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, the Museum of Art, University of California, Berkeley, CA, among numerous others. The artist currently lives and works in upstate New York.