Anne Ryan

Infobox Person
name = Anne Ryan
birth_date = 1889
birth_place = Hoboken, NJ
death_date = 1954
death_place = Morristown, NJ
occupation = Poet, Printmaker, Abstract Expressionist Collage Painter
reference = http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=all#focus

Anne Ryan (1889 – 1954) belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists. [Hilton Kramer, "Ryan's Art at Washburn: Pure, Delicate, Austere Compositions," The New York Observer, October 23, 1989.] Her first contact with the New York Avant-garde came in 1941 when she joined the Atelier 17, a famous printmaking workshop that the British artist Stanley William Hayter had established in Paris in the 1930's and then brought to New York when France fell to the Nazis. The great turning point in Anne Ryan's development occurred after the war, in 1948. She was 57 years old when she saw the collages of Kurt Schwitters at the Rose Fried Gallery, in New York City. She right away dedicated herself to this newly discovered medium. Since Anne Ryan was a poet, according to Deborah Solomon, [Deborah Solomon, "The Hidden Legacy of Anne Ryan," The New York Criterion, January 1989, pp. 53-58] in Kurt Schwitters’s collages “she recognized the visual equivalent of her sonnets – discrete images packed together in an extremely compressed space.” When six years later Anne Ryan died, her work in this medium numbered over 400 pieces.

Biography

Studied at Columbia University, NYC and Printmaking with Stanley W. Hayter.

Selected Solo Exhibitions:
* 1941: The Pinacotheca, NY (paintings); Marquie Gallery, NY (prints)
* 1942: New York School for Social Research, NY (prints)
* 1946: The Philadelphia Art Alliance, PA (prints)
* 1947: Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield, MI (prints)
* 1948: Gallery Denise Severin, Paris (first European exhibition of prints)
* 1950, 1954, 1970: Betty Parsons Gallery, NYC (collages)
* 1955: Betty Parsons Gallery, NYC (Memorial exhibition, paintings and collages)
* 1957: Kraushaar Gallery, NYC (Memorial exhibition, prints)
* 1974: Marlborough Gallery, NYC
* 1991: "Anne Ryan. Collages from Three Museums," Washburn Gallery, NYC
* 1962-1963: New England preparatory schools and the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) - Boston, MA (circulating exhibition)
* 1974: circ. exhibition Brooklyn Museum, NY and Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. (collages)
* 1974, 1977: Marlborough Gallery, NY (collages)
* 1979 Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota (collages)
* 1979, 1981: Andre Emmerich Gallery, NY (collages)
* 1979-1080: Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (collages)
* 1980: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX (collages)
* 1985, 1989, 1991: Washburn Gallery, NY

Selected Group Exhibitions:
* 1944: "Hayter & Atelier XVII," Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NY
* 1945: "National Exhibition of Prints, 1945," Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
* 1947-1953: Brooklyn Museum of Art Print Annuals, NY
* 1947: "45th Annual Watercolor and Print Exhibition," Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, PA
* 1950: "John Stephan/Anne Ryan (collages)," Betty Parsons Gallery, NYC
* 1951: "Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America," Museum of Modern Art, NYC; "Some American Prints, 1945-1959," Museum of Modern Art, NYC and The Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
* 1951, Ninth Street Show
* 1951, 1953, 1954: The Whitney Museum of American Art, Annuals and Biennials, NYC
* 1954: "New York Painting and Sculpture Annual," Stable Gallery, NYC
* 1954-1955: "International Color Woodcuts," Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England
* 1961-1962: "The Art of Assemblage," The Museum of Modern Art, NYC circ.
* 1965-1967: "American Collages," The Museum of Modern Art, NYC circ.
* 1974: Brooklyn Museum, NY
* 1975: "Group Show: Collage," Betty Parsons Gallery, NYC
* 1976: "30th Anniversary Show," Betty Parsons Gallery, NYC

Public Collections

* Wadsworth Atheneum - Hartford, CT
* Yale University Art Gallery - New Haven, CT
* Addison Gallery of American Art - Andover, MA
* Williams College Museum of Art - Williamstown, MA
* Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota,
* Cyba-Geigy Art Collection, Ardsley, NJ
* Montclair Art Museum, Montclair
* Newark Museum - Newark
* New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey
* Lamont Gallery, Exeter, NH
* Brooklyn Museum, NY
* College Art Gallery, State University College, New Paltz, NY
* Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) New York, NY
* Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
* Rhode Island School of Design Museum (RISD Museum), [Providence, RI
* Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
* Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
* Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

References

* [http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=119457RU21O05.2533&menu=search&aspect=Keyword&npp=50&ipp=20&spp=20&profile=all&ri=&term=&index=.GW&aspect=Keyword&term=Anne+Ryan&index=.AW&term=&index=.SW&term=&index=.TW&term=&index=.FW&x=15&y=14#focus "Smithsonian Institution Research Information System; Archival, Manuscript and Photographic Collections, Anne Ryan"]

Bibliography

* Stuart Preston, "Artists of Personal Vision," New York Times, April 10 1955 Section 2, p.11
* Fairfield Porter, "Reviews and Previews," Art News, vol. 56, Dec. 1957, p.11 - Anne Ryan, "Darkest Leaf," Boteghe Oscure, vol. 22, 1958 (story published posthumously).
* Donald Windham, "A note on Anne Ryan," Boteghe Oscure, vol. 22, 1958, pp. 267-271.
* Hilton Kramer, "Anne Ryan: Bigness on a Small Scale," New York Times, February 3, 1968, p.25, ills.
* John Ashberry, "A Place for Everything," Art News, vol.69, March 1970, p.32
* Carter Ratcliff, "New York," Art International, vol.14, Summer 1970, p.141
* Piri Halasz, "Trenton Exhibit Celebrates the Wonders of Collage," New York Times, Nov 17, 1974, p.33, B&W of Ryan

Books

* Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50666793&tab=holdings "New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,"] (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6

ee also

*Art movement
*Abstract expressionism
*New York School
*Action painting

External Links for image reproduction

* [http://americanart.si.edu/search/search_artworks1.cfm?StartRow=1&ConID=4198&format=short&db=onlyart&LastName=&FirstName=&Title=&Accession=&Keyword= Anne Ryan at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.]
* [http://collections.walkerart.org/item/agent/787 Anne Ryan at the Collection of Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN]