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ARTIST OVERVIEW
Judith Rothschild (1921 – 1993) was a postwar painter whose work is noted for its subtle blending of figuration and abstraction and its lyrical, nuanced colors.
A former student of Hans Hofmann’s, Rothschild joined the postwar artistic renaissance in New York, Rothschild was a member of the Jane Street co-op, whose associates included Larry Rivers, Jane Freilicher, and Robert De Niro, Sr. These practitioners of what is now known as figurative abstraction sought to synthesize direct observation of nature with abstraction taken from the European model. Rothschild’s paintings from the late 1940s through the 1960s show an ongoing exploration between the real and the abstract and a preoccupation with the natural world, specifically the sea. At this period, Rothschild spent a significant amount of time living on Northern California’s Monterey Peninsula, and in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Music also played an important role in Rothschild’s paintings. An accomplished pianist and music lover, Rothschild experimented with European color annotation systems in an effort to translate octaves into specific hues and tonal values. Her palette has been likened to the musically inspired canvases of Wassily Kandinsky’s Blaue Reiter period.1
In 1970, Rothschild’s work underwent a major transformation. Using acrylic and foamboard, and later aluminum, Rothschild returned to collage, a medium that she had experimented with on a limited basis previously. Greatly influenced by Matisse's cut-outs, she spent the last twenty years of her career working on several series of abstract relief paintings, most notably the Gothic series, for which she is most well-known today.
Judith Rothschild’s work is the subject of several monographs and is included in most major museum collections throughout the U.S. In 1998, The Metropolitan Museum organized the retrospective and artist’s monograph, "Judith Rothschild: An Artist's Search," which traveled to the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Prior to her death in 1993, Rothschild established The Judith Rothschild Foundation whose mission is to promote the work of recently deceased, under-recognized American artists.
1. Peter Frank, "Judith Rothschild Abstracting at Mid-Century," Judith Rothschild: Gesture and Geometry 1948–1960. (San Francisco: Hackett-Freedman Gallery, 2004).
