New Exhibition Space at the Art Students League Hosts Bruce Dorfman’s Inclusive Moments: Selected Works

(New York, NY)—An exhibition by artist Bruce Dorfman will be the first solo show in the Art Students League’s new American Fine Arts Society Gallery in the lobby of the League’s Landmark home at 215 West 57th Street. The exhibition of works that. Dorfman describes as “composite” paintings opens October 5 and runs through November 15. 

Inclusive Moments: Selected Works features 23 works spanning the years 1952 through 2015. Dorfman has had more than 50 solo shows during his career spanning six decades. His recent work challenges traditional lines between painting and sculpture with circular shaped compositions and layers of fabric, metal, and wood that protrude beyond the conventional limits of the canvas. (Above: Flite VIII, 2015, Paper, metal, pencil, gouache, acrylic, 9 ½ x 6 inches)

Explaining the title of his show, Mr. Dorfman says, “There are those inclusive moments that present themselves as intensely beautiful and timeless. I am given to their expression.” The exhibition is curated by League Curator Jillian Russo, Ph.D.

Michael Rips, the League’s Executive Director, says, “The League is honored to have our longtime Instructor Bruce Dorfman present the inaugural, solo show in our new American Fine Arts Society Gallery. We look forward to showing the public the incredible range and depth of our Instructors’ work in this space in the months and years to come.”

Independent from passing artistic trends, Dorfman has steadfastly developed a personal direction in his work that integrates an expressive use of color with combinations of materials to create his composite paintings. His enduring inspiration has been a deep love of found and transformed everyday objects and the art of the Sung Dynasty, ukiyo-e, Constructivism, painted sculpture, Marino Marini, and, most profoundly, Piero della Francesca. A survey of his work illustrates a clear trajectory from an early interest in still life and landscape painting, to a decade of figuration, followed by combinations of figuration and construction.

Bruce Dorfman has had fifty-four solo exhibitions in New York, the United States and abroad. His most recent exhibitions include: June Kelly Gallery, NYC (2018); “Past / Present: A Retrospective,” Monmouth University, NJ, (September – December, 2016); “Ways and Means,” UBS Gallery, by Norte Maar, NYC (2016); June Kelly Gallery, NYC (2015); “The International School,” The Museum at Cloisters, Loule, Portugal (2015). University of Iowa Museum of Art at The Figge Museum, Iowa (2015); “Making / Breaking Traditions: The Teachers of Ai Weiwei” at the Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery, Art Students League (2014); Zane Bennett Gallery, Santa Fe, NM (2011); Kouros Gallery, NYC (2010).

The new American Fine Art Society Gallery in the Lobby of the Art Students League is open from 8:30 am until 9:00 pm on weekdays and from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm on the weekends. Admission is free and open to the public.

About the Art Students League of New York 

The Art Students League of New York is one of America’s premier art schools. It was founded in 1875 by artists, for artists, to provide affordable studio-based art education of the highest quality. Great artists have trained, taught, and exhibited at the League throughout its rich history. Classes, lectures, workshops, exhibitions, and professional development programs continue the League’s legacy of supporting students who intend to make art a profession and cultivating a spirit of community among artists. Among its prominent instructors and students, the League counts Thomas Eakins, Frederic Remington, Reginald Marsh, Georgia O’Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Jacob Lawrence, Louise Nevelson, and Ai Weiwei, among many others. Today, thousands of students each year study drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking and mixed media at the League. www.theartstudentsleague.org