Avigdor Arikha at Marlborough - New York

Avigdor Arikha, who survived the concentration camps and fought in Israel's War of Independence, is steadily, scrupulously attentive to the things of this world and has depicted them memorably over the decades. Now 73 and still prodigiously productive, the gifted Romanian-born artist had his first painting show in New York since 1996 this fall. It consisted of almost two dozen oils--some small, some grand--rounded out by approximately three dozen drawings in pencil, ink, chalk, crayon or pastels. Many of the subjects that appeared in the works on paper were also depicted in the paintings.

As usual, Arikha's pictures, most in this show dating from 1999-2002, were done from life in one uninterrupted session--a practice he stubbornly, eloquently insists upon. They feature still lifes of everything from vividly colored flowers and fruits to richly patterned towels and a red necktie. There are numerous portraits of family and friends, self-portraits, nudes and interiors of his studios and homes in Paris and Jerusalem. Afternoon (2002) presents a glimpse of a tranquil, sunlit divan strewn with cushions caught through an open door in a mix of subtle, complex colors. His work often depicts scenes that are cropped or framed--for instance, observed through a doorway or from the artist's windows--classic devices that interrogate where reality ends and art begins. The painting Clouds (1997) floats white cirrus plumes across a patch of heavenly blue sky seen through the upper curve of a glass-paned lunette, while Rain (2001), a modest but winsome pastel of raindrops pearled on water-soaked panes, presents two kinds of transparency to filter our view, eliciting both rainy-day reveries and thoughts on perception. Other frequent images are of the artist's studio and the tools of his metier. Studio Cupboard (2001) offers a detailed look at orderly, well-stocked shelves filled with bottles of turpentine, brushes of all kinds, string, tape, inks and other painter's paraphernalia; Homage to Bada Shanren (2001) is a beautifully minimalist arrangement of brush, ink and sponge against an off-white cloth.

The portraits, including his own, are engagingly eccentric. The subjects of Sir John Shaw and Sir Bob Reid (2002), an almost life-size double portrait, appear suspended in air. The upward tilt of the floor plane makes their feet seem to dangle downward. It's an odd homage to two bankers whose feet, one presumes, should be more firmly planted on the ground. Arikha's own unsparing self-portraits, often nude, show a fiercely alert, intelligent, sometimes astonished, sometimes grimacing face. The blue eyes are penetrating, challenging; the hair stands on end, as if electrified. All of this is rendered impressionistically, alla prima, with soft, sure strokes that seem plucked out of the atmosphere and transferred magically, efficaciously, onto canvas.

Arikha sets up a series of oppositions between the elastic, image-hugging line, the plush, painterly stroke--which he keeps within bounds--and the geometric rigor of his compositions, which are almost all based on the semblance of a grid, his antecedents being Matisse, Bonnard, Mondrian and others. Ultimately, the allure of his paintings--and they are alluring--lies in the range and radiance of their colors, their layered sheen, their transparencies and opacities, textures and tones. Arikha's touch is still perfectly placed, his brushwork as fluent as ever. He dissolves ordinary reality into a dazzled world of color and light, and then reconstitutes it, reconciling the fugitive and the less so in the miraculous truths of paint.

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COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group