Ethel Schwabacher

Ethel Schwabacher, Woman: Red Sea, Dead Sea, 1951, oil on canvas, 31x37 in

Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction, 1940 - 1970
Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany
December 2, 2023 - March 3, 2024

Kunsthalle Bielefeld presents an extensive global show that for the first time in Europe focuses on the work of female artists and their role in the development of abstraction after 1945. The movement we now describe as “Abstract Expressionism” officially began in the mid-20th century in the United States. But around the world, artists* explored parallel approaches to abstraction through materiality, expressivity, and gesture, from Informel to Arte Povera, from calligraphic abstraction and Gutai in East Asia to experimental, deeply political practices in Central and South America, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Ethel Schwabacher, Untitled, c. 1950. Oil on linen

New York gallery Berry Campbell had a standout booth, a curated presentation of 12 postwar women artists. The gallery has a distinct focus on re-examining underrepresented women artists of the 20th-century. Gallery owner Christine Berry called it “an incredible day,” noting high demand for artists including Alice Baber, Bernice Bing, and Lynne Drexler.

Works by Drexler sold for $885,000 and $200,000; the artist, who has been drawing intense interest, will likely be the subject of a traveling institutional retrospective at some point in the near future. A work by Baber went for $200,000—Berry Campbell hopes to mount a solo show of the artist next year.

Later on in the day, the gallery let Artnet News know that a painting by Ethel Schwabacher had been sold for $195,000.  

Proving that no force is stronger than girl power, Frampton Co and Berry Campbell present Women Choose Women at Exhibition The Barn.

It’s been 30 years since Ethel Schwabacher had a proper solo show in New York City. But in the 1950s, she was at the forefront of the Abstract Expressionist movement, showing vibrant canvases with bold colors, fluid brushstrokes, and even snippets of poems at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York.

“Ethel was a poet as well, so she would put lines of her poetry in her paintings—which for the 1950s was way ahead of its time,” Christine Berry, cofounder of New York’s Berry Campbell Gallery, told Artnet News.