Exhibits explore artist’s blend of Eastern and Western aesthetics
The Yale Center for British Art will premiere an exhibition of approximately one hundred and fifty works by British abstract artist Rebecca Salter (b. 1955), who spent several years studying and working in Japan.
The exhibition — titled “ ‘into the light of things’: Rebecca Salter, Works 1981-2010 — will be on view Feb. 3-May 1. This is the first solo museum exhibition for the artist, whose work has been showcased extensively in international group shows and at commercial galleries. A companion exhibit, “Rebecca Salter and Japan,” is on view at the Yale University Art Gallery.
“into the light of things” will go beyond a conventional retrospective of an artist’s oeuvre into a sustained investigation of the centrality of drawing to art making, as well as a penetrating investigation of a dialogue between Eastern and Western aesthetics, artistic practice and architecture, according to Gillian Forrester, curator of prints and drawings at the Yale Center for British Art.
The show will include paintings, drawings, prints, sketchbooks, sculptures, and documentary material by Salter, as well as working drawings and photographs related to her 2008 redesign of the main entrance area of St. George’s Hospital in London.
“Rebecca Salter and Japan” at the Yale Art Gallery will take Salter’s work as a starting point for exploring the complex relationship between Japanese and Western practice. Two of her key works will be shown alongside 15 paintings, drawings and ceramics by Japanese and American artists drawn from the gallery’s holdings and private collections. This companion exhibit has been organized by has been curated by Sadako Ohki, The Japan Foundation Associate Curator of Japanese Art.
In 1977, Salter won a scholarship to the Kyoto City University of the Arts and immediately developed a deep engagement with Japanese art, architecture and aesthetics, remaining in Kyoto for six years. Despite enjoying a successful career as a ceramicist, Salter decided to abandon the medium; she began to make drawings and woodblock prints using Japanese papers, and after her return to England took up painting.
A fully illustrated book edited by Forrester, featuring essays by herself and Ohki, Achim Borchardt-Hume and Richard Cork will be published by the Yale Center for British Art in association with Yale University Press and will be on sale at the center’s Museum Shop, 203 432 2828; ycbashop@yale.edu.
The Yale Center for British Art is located at 1080 Chapel St.; admission is free. For museum hours and directions, visit the museum’s website at ycba.yale.edu or call 203-432-2800.
The Yale University Art Gallery is located at 1111 Chapel St. For museum hours and directions, visit its website at http://artgallery.yale.edu or call 203-432-0600.
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