Tif Sigfrids is especially happy to announce a solo exhibition by Art Rosenbaum in our New York location entitled A Brand New Painting and A Few Others. The show will open with a reception on Friday, July 29 from 5 to 7 PM and remain on view through August 26. Comprising paintings and works on paper, this is the artist’s first solo show in New York since 1974.

Art Rosenbaum (born 1938) has spent the last sixty years painting, teaching painting, and recording and performing traditional folk music. The interweaving of the different strands of Rosenbaum’s practice is evidenced by the figures that populate his paintings. Rosenbaum’s most recent painting, created this summer in Athens, GA, is a portrait of the artist and musician Michael Stipe who first sat for Rosenbaum as a student at the University of Georgia in the 1970’s. Also included in the show is a portrait of Rosenbaum’s wife, the painter and photographer Margo Newmark Rosenbaum and a self-portrait.

Drawing on the traditions of twentieth-century American muralism and narrative painting, Rosenbaum’s portraits are graphic while also being highly painterly; bringing to mind key moments in the history of modernist abstraction. Rosenbaum brings the latter dimension of his work to the fore in a series of recent pastels from 2020 and 2021. In To Irontown, Stringtown, and Enclosures, the exploration of pure color and form takes precedence as references to concrete bodies and spaces appear, if not entirely eradicated, then at least heavily subdued.

With Art Rosenbaum: A Brand New Painting and A Few Others Tif Sigfrids is honored to celebrate an extraordinarily rich life lived in art, music, art education, intellectual exchange and companionship. For Art!

Art Rosenbaum (b. 1938, Ogdensburg, NY) is a painter, muralist, documentarian and performer of traditional American folk music. Since the 1960s, Rosenbaum has published numerous books about the American folk tradition and released 14 albums of documentary recordings. In 2008, he was awarded a Grammy for Best Historical Album for his collection Art of Field Recording Volume I: Fifty Years of Traditional American Music. Over the course of his career, Rosenbaum’s visual artwork was included in notable group exhibitions including Art in the South: Art Rosenbaum and Friends, Tif Sigfrids, Athens, GA (2018); Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK (2004); 41st Biennial of Contemporary American Painting, Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA, and other venues (1989); New Orleans Triennial, New Orleans, LA (1983); and More Than Land or Sky: Art from Appalachia, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, and ten venues across the United States (1981). In 2006, a publication accompanied his first major retrospective, Weaving His Art on Golden Looms: Paintings and Drawings by Art Rosenbaum, 1956–2006, at the Georgia Museum of Art, Athens. Recently, his work has been the subject of solo and two-person presentations at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA (2021); Linda Matney Gallery, Williamsburg, VA (2021); Mason Fine Art, Atlanta, GA (2019); and Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA (2011). His work has been acquired by institutions including the Columbus Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.