The Naples Art Institute’s current exhibition includes a number of important works from its permanent collection. But none are more significant than the seven James Rosenquist serigraphs from his “High Technology and Mysticism: A Meeting Point” series.
James Rosenquist was a seminal figure in the Pop Art movement. He is best known for his colossal collage paintings of enigmatically juxtaposed fragmentary images borrowed largely from advertisements and mass media. He also pioneered silk screen printmaking.
Naples Art Institute has seven of these prints, which are also called serigraphs. Executive Director Frank Verpoorten recalls how Naples Art acquired them.
“Jim Rosenquist famously worked in New York City, but also had a big studio in Florida, and the inaugural director of our organization, Barbara Hill, knew Jim Rosenquist,” said Verpoorten.
“My friend, Jim Rosenquist, who had this studio in Aripeka, had indicated some interest in having his work as part of our Naples Art Association collection,” Hill recounted. “So … one of the board members and I drove to Aripeka and went to his studio and selected that series of those seven serigraphs.”
Hill and that board member, Jim Salke, even got to spend some time with Rosenquist and watch him work.
“And, in fact, he brought the pieces down personally to Naples … toured the von Liebig Art Center, talked to some of the students, talked to some of the staff – was completely lovely,” said Hill.
According to Hill, Rosenquist’s donation enabled Naples Art to attract contributions of works created by high caliber, internationally renowned artists from both collectors and the artists themselves.
However, not everyone liked Rosenquist’s serigraphs.
“That was a radical shift from some of the more conservative works that were in the collection, most of which were, say, landscapes or seascapes or lovely figurative works or even some still lifes,” Hill noted. “So to bring in Jim Rosenquist, whose work was essentially pop art and contemporary art was a bit of a shift, but that was part of our mission in general … to expand that notion of what art is.”
You can view Jim Rosenquist’s “High Technology and Mysticism: A Meeting Point” serigraphs in the Naples Art Institute’s main gallery through October 27. They are part of NAI’s current exhibition:“Intersections: The 25-Year Journey of Our Collection.”
MORE INFORMATION:
A serigraph, also known as a silkscreen print or screen print, is a type of printmaking technique that involves using a stencil-based process to create vibrant and detailed artworks. Each color in the image requires a separate stencil, resulting in a unique, layered print. Serigraphs are often used in fine art, commercial printing, and textile design.
James Rosenquist studied art at the Minnesota Institute of Arts as a teenager and at the University of Minnesota between 1952 and 1954. He moved to New York City in 1955 to study at the Art Students League, but he left the school after one year. In 1957, he returned to pursue a career in commercial art, painting billboards in Times Square and across the city.
Within a year, he quit painting billboards and rented a small studio in Manhattan, where his neighbors included artists Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly and Jack Youngerman.
In 1962, he had his first solo exhibition at Green Gallery in New York. After that, he was included in a number of groundbreaking group exhibitions that established Pop Art as a movement.
The seven serigraphs now included in Naples Art Institute’s permanent collection reference space exploration, physics and technology. Each of these works suggests the reconstruction or alteration of the human face, whether by natural or unnatural processes. By combining the concept of face with images of mechanical and scientific spheres, Rosenquist questions one’s identity in our ever-changing and rapidly-evolving world.
Listen on WGCU for more on “Intersections: The 25-Year Journey of Our Collection.”
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