Painting
Since the 1970s and early '80s, Lurie has painted. The majority of his early works are in watercolor and pencil, but in the late 2000s he began to work in oil. Lurie has been exhibiting his paintings since July 2003, when two works were shown at the Nolan/Eckman Gallery in New York City.
In May–June 2004, he had his first solo gallery exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery, New York. He subsequently exhibited at Galerie Daniel Blau in Munich, Galerie Lelong in Zürich and Galerie Gabriel Rolt in Amsterdam. Lurie was represented at the Basel International Art Fair in June 2005 and 2006. In January 2005, Lurie exhibited his second show in New York at Roebling Hall's new Chelsea location. On April 30, 2006, Lurie opened his first solo museum show at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York. In 2007, his work was showcased at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Lurie continued to exhibit in domestic and international venues in 2008. A collection of work was displayed at the NEXT Art Fair Chicago and Lurie's work was exhibited at the Mudam Luxembourg from October through December in 2008. In addition, The Museum of Modern Art has acquired his work for their permanent collection.
Lurie has published two art books. In June 2006, Lurie released his first book, Learn To Draw, a compilation of black and white drawings published by Walther Konig. In May 2008, Lurie released A Fine Example of Art, a hard cover, full color book of over 80 reproductions of his work, published by powerHouse Books. John Lurie's show The Skeleton in my closet has moved back out to the garden, was on view at Fredericks & Freiser in late 2009.
Lurie's watercolor painting Bear Surprise achieved enormous popularity on numerous Russian websites, in an Internet phenomenon known as Preved.
John Lurie exhibited at Watari Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo beginning January 30, 2010, showing hundreds of his works. From late June to early August, he showed 45 prints at Gallery Brown in Los Angeles. In January 2011, John Lurie participated in a group exhibition called "Angels Without Wings" at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. Lurie said of his childlike style: "My paintings are a logical development from the ones that were taped to the refrigerator 50 years ago."
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Famous quotes containing the word painting:
“I don’t know but a book in a man’s brain is better off than a book bound in calf—at any rate it is safer from criticism. And taking a book off the brain, is akin to the ticklish & dangerous business of taking an old painting off a panel—you have to scrape off the whole brain in order to get at it with due safety—& even then, the painting may not be worth the trouble.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“This is the essential distinction—even opposition—between the painting and the film: the painting is composed subjectively, the film objectively. However highly we rate the function of the scenario writer—in actual practice it is rated very low—we must recognize that the film is not transposed directly and freely from the mind by means of a docile medium like paint, but must be cut piece-meal out of the lumbering material of the actual visible world.”
—Sir Herbert Read (1893–1968)