Franz Kline | Richard Hambleton: Portraits and Shadows

December 2024 – March 2025

Woodward Gallery at Down Town Association, 60 Pine Street, NYC

The culmination of Woodward Gallery’s 30th Anniversary year-long celebration is the much anticipated, two-person exhibition, featuring “Franz Kline | Richard Hambleton: Portraits and Shadows.” This comparison of work, though a generation apart, examines these artistic geniuses with so much in common. Curated by John Woodward, this exhibition pairs rare, intimate portraits by Abstract Expressionist Franz Kline (1910 – 1962) with never-before-seen shadow paintings by Conceptual Artist Richard Hambleton (1952 – 2017). The soul of the individual is strongly communicated in both styles.

Kline attended Boston University (1931 – 1935),  Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts/PAFA, (1935 – 1936), and the Leeds School of Art in England (1937 – 1938). Kline was a confirmed New Yorker, but had roots that he never forgot in the gritty Coal Country of Eastern Pennsylvania. He studied at the Boston Art Students League, which stressed figure drawing. His cartoon drawing was widely popular with faculty and students in High School, but it was at the League that he mastered his style in character studies.

Art and beer were compatible for Kline. Often in the 1940s, in the hopes of earning a few dollars, he sketched people who, like himself, frequented the Cedar Bar and Minetta Tavern in NYC. His character drawings, like “Nellie,” done at the Minetta Tavern, were not distorted as caricatures, but heightened with Kline’s ability to select the most descriptive features of the sitting subject.

Kline and Hambleton liked to paint at night, always keeping late hours and sleeping during the daytime. Hambleton worked in darkness from an abandoned gas station (Avenue B and 2nd Street) while Kline found life at the Cedar Bar (24 University Place) and Minetta Tavern (113 MacDougal Street) to form his subjects when these portraits were created.

Richard Hambleton attended The Vancouver School of Art (later renamed the Emily Carr University of Art and Design) in Vancouver, Canada (1971 – 1975), where he was exposed to a variety of art movements. He relocated to NYC in 1976, where he lived for the rest of his life. In the early 1980s, Richard traveled extensively to cities throughout the world, placing hundreds of shadow figures and engaging the public to observe and accept the fragility of being. While still in school, he learned an early folk art technique from an old woman in Vancouver, to quickly cut black paper into a person’s silhouette. This led to the spontaneous Shadow Head Portraits that Richard realized he could paint for barter, trade, or quick cash. 

Each artist gave life to the character subjects in their portraits. Hambleton extracted a person’s kinetic energy by splattering paint, capturing the personality of the real individual’s shadow. Richard trusted black paint to create the silhouettes that he became known for. Similarly, Kline was dedicated to revealing beauty through portraiture. Both Kline and Hambleton successfully recorded the personality of their portraits, but had different methods. Kline would draw his subject in the moment, whereas Hambleton painted from memory.

Both Franz and Richard began their successful art journeys with their first solo exhibitions in NYC— Kline at the Egan Gallery in 1950, and Hambleton at Alexander Milliken Gallery in 1982. Considered the most prestigious cultural event in the world, the Venice Biennale featured Kline in 1960, and Hambleton in 1984.

Kline and Hambleton were serious, committed artists who both lived under extreme conditions, sometimes even without food or water. Both artists generally isolated themselves to create, but were often surrounded by muses. Yes, Kline and Hambleton had magnetic personalities and were charismatic people, but used portraiture as a medium to connect— many times, in order to make money to survive.

They never gave up their studios or the harsh conditions of NYC. Each was evicted multiple times for being unable to pay the rent. They continually had to find new space in which to create. Franz rolled newspapers to burn to stay warm in the colder seasons. Richard would maintain heat with a small space heater and a self-customized, white lab coat.

In a fascinating parallel of fate, both artists within their respective periods, were each able to befriend the two most influential artists of their times; Kline found Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock in the 1940s, and Hambleton found Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring in the 1980s. Both artistic trios were successfully recognized in NYC and eventually, worldwide. The 20th-century art patrons, and founders of the Museum of Modern Art, the Rockefellers purchased art from both Kline and Hambleton. Blanchett Ferry Rockefeller bought “Chief,” named after a locomotive inspired by Kline’s childhood, in 1952. David Rockefeller bought “Julia,” named after the Woodward Gallery owners’ only daughter, who was a child at the time, in 2013.

In 1959, American photographer, Irving Penn, captured a group of invited artists, including Franz Kline, for “The New American Painting” exhibition at the MoMA, NY. Later, in 1984, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders staged a nearly-identical photograph of the then-current artists, “The New Irascibles,” including Richard Hambleton, for Arts Magazine and Art Forum.

After the end of their lives, each artist was honored with a featured obituary in the New York Times: Franz Kline on May 15, 1962, and Richard Hambleton on November 4th, 2017. Despite their differing eras, both artists are now considered iconic figures of 20th-century American art.

The presentation of works in “Franz Kline | Richard Hambleton: Portraits and Shadows” elucidates how each artist gave life to their portraits, successfully recording the character of their subjects, through observation and memory.

Woodward Gallery’s “Franz Kline | Richard Hambleton: Portraits and Shadows” exhibition is on view, by appointment, at 60 Pine Street, at WoodwardGallery.net, on Artsy.net, and as a virtual Artsy Viewing Room. A digital catalogue will be published to coincide with this exhibition. Additionally, this exhibition will travel to museums, with locations to be announced.