Eleanore Mikus

Eleanore Mikus (born July 25, 1927 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American artist and a person who crafted the Humanist Minimalism style of art and Neo-expressionism.

Family and childhood

Mikus was the third of four children. Her mother was a designer of surgical garments and her father a farmer and precision toolmaker. Mikus attended kindergarten, elementary, and high school in Detroit. She was drawn to art from an early age and she took her first prize in drawing while still in kindergarten. As a youngster, Mikus continued to draw and paint.

Education

Later, Mikus attended Michigan State University, but she left the school in her junior year and married Richard Burns, an army officer. Mikus then traveled to Germany and Austria, and while there she studied art and painted. She later returned to the states in 1953 and in 1956–1957 attended the University of Denver and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and art history.

Early career and works

Mikus then headed east to New York City in 1959 and had her first solo show of Geometric Merged Canvases at the Pietrantonia Gallery in 1960. She divorced at this time. Mikus began the wooden kinesthetic moving sectional paintings called tablets. These works were monochromatic and kinesthetic, with what seemed to be a moving surface. Each tablet painting was complex and contained blocks of wood that were densely painted over many times with white paint. The tablets had quasi-geometric shapes. They were unlike anything being done at the time.Fact|date=July 2008 Her work was seen as innovative.cite book
last = Hobbs
first = Robert
authorlink =
coauthors = Judith E. Bernstock
title = Eleanore Mikus: Shadows of the Real
publisher =Groton House in association with the University of Washington Press
date =1991
location =
pages =
url =
isbn =0295971169 ] Mikus then moved to 76 Jefferson Street, which was at the Lower East Side. John Chamberlain's studio was across the street and Isamu Noguchi's was in an adjacent building. She had her first solo show of all white paintings at the Pace Gallery in Boston in 1963. Mikus also created her first all-white, paperfold flyer and it was mailed out to promote the show.

Needing more space in which to work, Mikus moved to a larger studio in 1964, which was in Hell's Hundred Acres (now known as SoHo), 429 Broome Street, on the 4th floor. The artists Grosvenor and James Rosenquist were in the same building. She met other contemporary artists from that time, including Gotlieb, Mark Rothko, Louise Nevelson, Ad Reinhardt, and Stephen Greene. Mikus also met pop artists Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.

Mikus had her second show of White and Grey Tablets at the Pace Gallery in New York City on 7 West 57th Street, in 1964. The artist Donald Judd was showing at the Green Gallery, which was just down the street from the Pace Gallery.

Mikus' work was gaining in recognition and it was at this time that Dorothy Miller, the curator from the Museum of Modern Art, chose a white tablet painting for MoMA as a gift of Louise Nevelson.clarifyme In 1966, sponsored by fellow artists Ad Reinhardt and Louise Nevelson, Mikus was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a grant given for "exceptional creative ability". [cite web |url= http://www.gf.org/66fellow.html |title= John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation 1966 Fellows |publisher= Guggenheim Foundation ]

In 1966, Mikus began to work on a series of Black Tablet Paintings and Grey Tablet Paintings. She began to experiment with fiberglass, polyurethane, and epoxy paint, which added a new forceful feeling to her tablet paintings. Her art work had an Asian sensibility to it and it was at this time that Mikus began to look at and read about Asian art. She also left the Pace Gallery.

It was then Mikus made the decision to study at the University of Denver and in 1967, Mikus received her Master of Arts in Oriental Art History. Later on, in 1968, she received a Tamarind Grant in Lithography and went to Los Angeles. While there she executed 32 lithograph editions - the majority of the work was hand folded. In the summer of 1969, Mikus received a McDowell Fellowship in Painting and went to New Hampshire.

Later career

More artists were beginning to focus and create minimalist art and it was now becoming a movement. It was during the late 1960s and early 1970s, that Mikus changed direction and style to Neo-expressionism. Again, many saw her work as ahead of its time as she created figurative and cartoon like images. Ivan Karp from OK Harris Gallery featured her work and Mikus had four solo shows in 1971, 72, 73, and 74. Photo realist John Salt Ralph, Lawrence Gowing, and other artists such as Duane Hanson and Richard Petibone also showed at OK Harris. During the early 1970s, she taught art at Cooper Union in New York.

Mikus then left for London, England, in 1973, and taught at the Central School of Art and Design. During this four-year period she worked and showed in London. Mikus returned to the states in 1977, and then took a teaching position in art at Cornell University in 1979.

Later, Mikus returned to the Humanist Minimalism style of art in the early 1980s. She started to work on canvas instead of wood and she persisted in working and developing paperfolds on a larger scale. After she renovated in an old 1823 church outside of Ithaca, New York, Mikus continued to work quietly. In 1989 she spent six months in Italy and traveled to Turkey and Greece.

Retrospectives

In the early 1990s, Mikus had many group shows in Connecticut and Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Kentucky, Florida, New York City, Buffalo, and Ithaca, New York. In 1994 she traveled to the Middle East, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, and Hong Kong.

Later on, in 1998 and 2000, she had two solo shows with the Mitchell Algus Gallery. She also had her first paperfold show with the Claudia Carr Gallery in 1998. In 2000, Mikus traveled to China and Tibet. Also in the same year at the Claudia Carr Gallery, she had a solo show of her drawings, which consisted of faces. [ cite web |url= http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_5_87/ai_54574755 |first= Eleanor |last= Heartney |title= Eleanore Mikus at Claudia Carr and Mitchell Algus |publisher= "Art in America |date = May 1999 ]

In 2001, Mikus had an Armory Show in New York City. During this same year, Mikus was awarded a grant from Yaddo in Drawing and Painting. It was with this grant that she created new drawings, paintings, and paperfolds. In Tucson, Arizona, her work was shown again in 2004 (called Small Giants) and 2006 (the show was called Fresh Eyes.)

Mikus' work was then featured in a special showing at The Drawing Center in New York City during 2006 and 2007. cite web |url= http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/24120/eleanore-mikus-at-the-drawing-center |title= Eleanore Mikus at The Drawing Center |first= Robert |last=Ayers |publisher= "Artinfo" |date= 2007-05-07 ] A grand total of 150 works were chosen from over 1000 works, which spanned the years from 1959 to 2006. This show featured her paintings, reliefs, drawings, and paperfolds. The artwork that she had created in the late 1950s and early 1960s had come full circle. It was her first solo exhibition of work in a major institution and spanned nearly 50 years of art. [ Camnitzer, Luis. Eleanore Mikus: The Drawing Paper #65: From Shell to Skin, The Drawing Center, November 11, 2006 – February 10, 2007. #65 Edward Hallam Tuck Publication Program 2007, New York City.] [ cite web |first= Daniel |last= Belasco |url= http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_4_95/ai_n25438976/ |title= Eleanore Mikus at the Drawing Center |publisher= "Art in America" |date = April 2007 ]

Mikus continues to work in her New York City and Upstate New York studios.

References

More References

* Bell, Bower J. Paintings 1960's - 1990's, Mitchell Algus Gallery, and Works on Paper, Claudia Carr Gallery, Oct 14 - Nov 14, 1998, Review Magazine.

* Bloch, Maurice E. Tamarind. A Renaissance of Lithography. 1971 Los Angeles' Tamarind Lithography Workshop.

* Camnitzer, Luis. Eleanore Mikus: The Drawing Paper #65: From Shell to Skin, Luis Camnitzer, The Drawing Center, November 11, 2006 – February 10, 2007. #65 Edward Hallam Tuck Publication Program 2007-2007, New York City.

* Cohen, Mark Daniel. The Critical State of Visual Art in New York, Paintings 1960's–1990's, Mitchell Algus Gallery and Works on Paper 1960 - 1998, Claudia Carr Gallery Oct 14 - Nov 14, 1998, Review Magazine.
* Goldsmith, Benedict. Women in Art, Potsdam, N.Y.: Art Gallery, 1972, Brainerd Hall, State University of New York College at Potsdam.

* Leavitt, Thomas W. Women Artists: Selected Works from the Collection. Ithaca, N.Y.: 1983, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University.

* Leavitt, Thomas W. 1981 Handbook of the Collections, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University,

* Spector, Buzz. Eleanore Mikus at the Drawing Center, New York. Art on Paper, March - April, Vol. 11, No. 4., 2007

* Thurion, Fearn C. American Art in the Newark Museum, 1981 The Newark Museum, Newark, N.J.

* Weinhardt, Carl J. 1970 Painting and Sculpture Today. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art.

* Wesley, Laura. Eleanore Mikus. Q, A Journal of Art, July, pp. 28-31, 1988, Cornell University.

External links

* [http://www.eleanoremikus.com/ Eleanore Mikus Website]
* [http://www.aap.cornell.edu/news/newsitem.cfm?customel_datapageid_2892=26007 Eleanore Mikus Retrospective at the Drawing Center] , Cornell University
* [http://artistsunite-ny.org/blog//?p=848/ Artists Unite review by Sky Pape]
* [http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid:618760 "Folded, Torn, Cut, Woven, and Pulled"] , "Austin Chronicle" review