The late pastels of Louis Finkelstein were exhibited at the Lori Bookstein Gallery in Manhattan from June 17 to July 25, 2003.
Louis Finkelstein (1923-2000) had an insatiable curiosity and an untiring eye. Like his mentors Bonnard, Cezanne, DeKooning, and Kokoschka, his work is splendidly grounded in sensory perception. These pastel landscapes are radical “painterly investigations” into the language, structure and meaning of Modernism. They touch the emotions through visual sensation, confirming Finkelstein’s insistence on feeling as the ultimate experience of a work of Art.
Finkelstein was also a much respected and loved educator as well as a spirited and articulate speaker and writer on Art. He taught at the Philadelphia College of Art, Yale School of Art, and was head of the Queens College of CUNY for more than 25 years. In 1979 he received the College Art Association’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in the Fine Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art in 1999. He received several Fulbright Grants, a NEA for Painting, and was a member of the National Academy of Design. Rosemarie Beck has called Louis Finkelstein “the aesthetic conscience of his generation”.
THE IDEA OF AN EXHIBITION of Louis’ pastels was conceived as several friends and I were cataloguing his work on paper in early spring 2001 following his death. Although it was late evening and we were all exhausted we found ourselves increasingly excited by these jewels which were by then spread all over the floor of the large studio on West Broadway. We could not stop looking at them. Each one brought more exclamations of delight and wonder from us. They were so full of life, light, and joy—expressive, articulate, compelling, formally complex yet surprising—everything that Louis was. I felt he was standing at the head of this huge floor table, in his pink dress shirt with the thalo green chefs apron over it, serving up a sumptuous meal while holding forth on one of his complicated theories, his arsenal of art books and reference materials surrounding us. We were determined to bring these pastels to public view.
Jane Culp