Isabel Bishop Interlude (1952) Winner of the prestigious Walter Lippincott Prize for best figural work in oil at The Pennsylvania Academy in 1953. What I ask of a painting is that is speak back to me. If it doesn t, it s no good and I have to start over. Isabel Bishop
Interlude (Detail)
The Caldwell Gallery is pleased to present Interlude (1952) by Isabel Bishop Isabel Bishop worked so slowly it sometimes took her a year to complete a painting. She is estimated to have finished less than two hundred artworks during her long and distinguished career which spanned seven decades. New York City s prestigious Midtown Galleries, Bishop s longtime dealer, struggled to assemble one or two shows of her work per decade due to the limited number of paintings she produced. Interlude is a well-known and extensively exhibited example of Bishop s artistic output. This piece was included in three monographs on the artist. Her first retrospective exhibition held in 1974 traveled to the University of Arizona, Wichita State University, The Whitney Museum of Art, and Brooks Memorial Gallery. In 1985 a second retrospective exhibition on Bishop was held at Loyola Marymount Museum. Interlude was also featured in a 1988 Bishop exhibition at the Ogunquit Museum in Maine. Important works by Isabel Bishop rarely reach the marketplace. A large percentage of the paintings she produced already reside in significant institutional or private collections. We are delighted to offer this exceptional example of Isabel Bishop s creative skill, talent, energy, and vision. Joe Caldwell & Jay Caldwell The Caldwell Gallery Inquiries: Phone: (800) 331-1278 e-mail: jay@caldwellgallery.com Website: www.caldwellgallery.com
Isabel Bishop (American, 1902-1988) Interlude (1952) Oil and tempera on gesso masonite panel 32 x 20 inches Signed lower left: Isabel Bishop Original frame Excellent condition Interlude (Signature Detail) Provenance Midtown Galleries, New York, NY (label verso) Sold in 1957 by Midtown to private collection, Elmira, NY. (Original bill of sale available to purchaser) Exhibition history Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1953 Annual, 22, Illustrated in catalogue Isabel Bishop traveling retrospective, 1974, University of Arizona, Wichita State University, Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooks Memorial Gallery (Original loan paperwork available to purchaser) Loyola Marymount Museum, 1985, Bishop Retrospective Ogunquit Museum Loan - 1988 Bishop exhibition Bibliography Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1953 Annual, 22, Illustrated in catalogue Isabel Bishop by Sheldon Reich, University of Arizona, 1974, plate #29, cat. #42 Isabel Bishop by Karl Lunde, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1975, full-page color plate #124 Isabel Bishop by Helen Yglesias, Rizzoli International, 1988, page 105, illus. in color Awards Walter Lippincott Prize, 1953, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Exhibition flyer for Isabel Bishop s October 25 to November 16, 1957 one-person show at Midtown Galleries. Interlude is catalogue #3. The Walter Lippincott Prize at the 1953 Pennsylvania Academy is mentioned among her recent awards. Original December 16, 1957 Bill-of-Sale for Interlude from Midtown Galleries.
Midtown Galleries press release for Isabel Bishop s October 25 to November 19, 1955 one-person show in which Interlude was exhibited.
Images of original frame, overall verso with labels, and close-ups of various labels.
Isabel Bishop The University of Arizona Museum of Art (1974) Isabel Bishop s deep personal feelings for ordinary and often sad human beings has inspired her to create a modern vision of man s human condition. Her best work has a timeless fascination that will never be dated, it will always be fresh and beautiful. But Isabel Bishop has accomplished much more than this: she has overcome the difficulties a woman must surmount to succeed in an occupation long dominated by males, and she did it long before women s rights became a rallying cry. Martin H. Bush Cezanne once said his aim was to make Impressionism as solid and durable as the art of museums. In her own way, Isabel Bishop has sought and found a comparable solidity with a comparable independence of means. Her people have a moving, inward quality, although that may be a subjective response on my part. Beyond argument is their monumental existence in terms of both humanity and art. John I. H. Baur
Isabel Bishop Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (1975) In Isabel Bishop s paintings the ambiguity of space matches the ambiguity of content; the form and the content are one, mutually interdependent, with the form liberating the content, and the content determining the form. The prosaic figures are poetic; the deep space is mysteriously shallow; the solid forms are translucent; what moves is also stationary. She is a painter of paradox. Bishop s art transfigures the present into the permanent. Perpetually new, the cycle of human existence and desires is a revolving mirror connecting the past with the present. Of the moment and not of the moment. Isabel Bishop remains continually contemporary. The integrity and steadfastness of her vision have produced a personal, contemplative art that has profound meaning for an uncontemplative time. It remains for those who look at paintings to watch carefully as the truths this artist has to tell are slowly unfolded. Karl Lunde
Isabel Bishop Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. (1988) Bishop used a laborious process of preparation for a painting. First, the masonite panel was treated with as many as eight coats of gesso, front and back. She borrowed a technique used by Rubens and painted a ground of random horizontal gray stripes made up of gelatin, powdered charcoal, and white lead, thus creating the transparent, vibrating surface she needed for her concept of figures in a weblike, mobile environment. The drawing was then added in pencil or ink and black or umber tempera. Then varnish was applied over it. Tone upon tone was then overlaid on this tacky ground, the striped underpainting remaining visible through the layers of oil. In some cases, to further balance light and shadow, Bishop applied fine random horizontal and vertical lines, that look almost like stitching, on the surface of the finished paintings. Enlarged photostats of the etchings, tacked to the easel, held Bishop to her original metaphor, the visionary spark that had set the painting off in her mind. Helen Yglesias I do use a very complex technique I m sorry to say. Not because I wanted to be complex, but in an effort to make the painting speak back to me. I d do anything to get that result. My trouble isn t in the technique. The trouble is my imagination works slower. Isabel Bishop