Gurvich Abstract Works (1946-1973) 2013 Winter
With this exhibition, Cecilia de Torres, Ltd. highlights the abstract artworks of José Gurvich (1927-1974). Dating throughout his career, from his early days at the Taller Torres-Garcia in the 1940s to less than a year before his untimely death in 1974, the selection of drawings and paintings on view illustrate Gurvich's consistent engagement with abstraction.
Although the artist is today best recognized for his expressive and figurative artworks that display a unique world of symbolic autobiographical images, he also developed an abstract language of geometric structures and non-representational forms.
In the confining canons of modern art history, artists like Gurvich who straddled figuration and abstraction are still misunderstood. By blending physical reality and mental abstraction, Gurvich gave life to a new and rich category of non-objective painting.
We invite you to view Gurvich's abstractions first hand.
An exhibition catalogue with essay by Cecilia de Torres is available.
José Gurvich
b. 1927, Lithuania – d. 1974 New York City
Populated with figures and images that reflect his Jewish upbringing, Gurvich’s participation with the Taller Torres-García and his profound admiration for the European art masters Breughel and Bosch, his artworks combine a unique personal style with technical mastery.
Gurvich was born in Lithuania and moved to Uruguay with his family in 1932. There, he excelled at both music and the visual arts, and it was while studying the violin alongside Horacio Torres that the young artist was introduced to Joaquín Torres-García.
Soon after, Gurvich joined the Taller Torres-García, participating in the workshop's exhibitions, writing for its publications, executing mural projects, and teaching.
In 1954 and again in 1964, the artist travelled to Europe and Israel, where he lived as a shepherd on the Ramot Menasche kibbutz. These experiences profoundly influenced the iconography of his paintings and sculptures. Moving to the United States in 1970, Gurvich joined his fellow Taller artists, Julio Alpuy, Horacio Torres, and Gonzalo Fonseca in New York City, where he continued to produce art until his premature death in 1974. The Gurvich Foundation was created in Montevideo in 2001, and is now known as the Museo Gurvich.
Please click for Chronology and CV
The South was Their North: Artists of the Torres-García Workshop
2015-2016 Autumn-Winter
Art Basel Miami Beach 2014
December 4-7, 2014
Line - Plane - Volume / Sculpture: 1944-2006
2006 Winter
Works ON & OF Paper - Modern and Contemporary
2005 Autumn
José Gurvich - Americas Society exhibition
2005 Autumn
Modernism: Montevideo & Buenos Aires 1930-1960
2001 - 2002 Winter
José Gurvich - Paintings and Drawings
2000 Summer