George Tooker, Divers, 1952. Egg tempera on gesso panel. 12 x 18 in.
The Art Show Sparkles with the Old and the New Once Again
By Paul Laster
Ricco/Maresca Gallery, which is the newest ADAA member, exhibited a strong selection of imaginary landscapes by the schizophrenic Mexican artist Martin Ramirez to highlight the crossover between self-taught and outsider art with contemporary and modern art, which could also be seen in Venus Over Manhattan’s tribute to Phyllis Kind, the pioneering Chicago and New York gallerist who was famous for showing the Chicago Imagists alongside self-taught artists. A highlight in Ricco/Maresca’s booth was a scrolling drawing of railroad trains and tunnels from the early 1960s, while Venus’s presentation of a group of small-scale rolling landscape drawings by Joseph Yoakum held their own with bigger, figurative works by William Copley and Jim Nutt.
