MINIATURIZING MODERNISM: RICHARD PETTIBONE

Two shows in one, Miniaturizing Modernism includes Richard Pettibone’s appropriations, or what sculptor George Rickey and his wife Edith referred to as “mementos” of key abstract paintings, prints and drawings that the Rickeys donated to the Neuberger Museum of Art beginning in the early 1970s.

Exhibited alongside the Pettibone works, all of which are under five inches high, are their corresponding original works by artists such as Joseph Albers, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Vassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Bridget Riley, and Charmion von Weigand.

One might assume the Pettibones are tiny replicas, but they are not. The artist based these works on photographic reproductions, carefully and deliberately matching the size of each “copy” to the size of the reproduction. The Neuberger is the only collection, public or private, in which commissioned works by Richard Pettibone and their corresponding originals have been preserved together.

Miniaturizing Modernism: Richard Pettibone Paints the Neuberger's Rickey Collection is on view September 2, 2007-January 6, 2008.

Curated by Tracy Fitzpatrick, Neuberger Curator and Purchase College Assistant Professor of Art History and the Spring 2007 Introduction to Museum Studies Seminar Class.

Miniaturizing Modernism:
Richard Pettibone Paints the Neuberger's Rickey Collection
Kurator: Tracy Fitzpatrick