SCHNABEL, DAY (1905-1991)

"Untitled" (c.1955) 
mixed media
cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Paris
 
Day Schnabel was a pioneering Austrian-American Sculptor, Abstract Expressionist & Irascible!! Schnabel was born in Vienna, Austria, & studied at the Academy Of Fine Arts. She continued her studies in Paris with Malfray, Maillol & Zadkine. She lived in the Netherlands for about three years before 1932, & then relocated to New York City during World War II & after, when she became an Irascible.
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The Irascibles have a significant place in the annals of Modern Art in the 20th century. They were a collective of painters & sculptors who in 1950 wrote an open letter to the President of the Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Roland L. Redmond, protesting their "American Painters 1900-1950" exhibition, as it was not to include any "advanced art,"; Those organizing the exhibition were not fond of Modern Art (image 3). All artists listed agreed to not submit any artwork to the jury for the exhibition. Artists included trailblazing Abstract Expressionists such as Pollock, Rothko, Kline, De Kooning, Still, Newman & Reinhardt (to name a few). Out of the 28 artists included in the letter, Schnabel was one of only 4 females, alongside Louise Bourgeois. The subsequent media coverage of the protest & a now iconic group photograph, that appeared in Life magazine (image 4), gave them notoriety, popularised the term Abstract Expressionist & established them as the so-called first generation of the putative movement. Meanwhile, Schnabel partnered with important artist & gallerist, Betty Parsons; at the forefront of exhibiting Abstract Expressionist artists in America, & exhibited at "The 9th St. Show" in 1951, a pivotal moment for the emergence of Women Abstract Expressionists. She exhibited regularly with other important Abstract Expressionists, including Franz Kline, Grace Hartigan, Helen Frankenthaler & Lee Krasner. Her sculptures have classical & Cubist elements, that look primordial yet modern, accessible while also gnomic. Her works are represented in the Whitney Museum of Modern Art & Carnegie Institute!!