Frank Wimberley

A solo show of work by Frank Wimberley will open today at the Berry Campbell Gallery in Chelsea with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. and continue through July 3. Known since the 1960s for his dynamic, multilayered abstract paintings, Mr. Wimberley, who lives in Sag Harbor, takes the theme of each painting from the first stroke he lays down and follows it to its conclusion, not unlike improvisation in jazz.

We are preparing for our Frank Wimberley exhibition, opening on May 30, 2019. Please read our online catalogue to learn more about the artist and his career.

Frank Wimberley
May 30 - July 3, 2019

Opening Reception
May 30, 2019
6-8 PM

Sag Harbor has known 92-year-old artist Frank Wimberley since the 1960s — but in New York, it’s time for a re-introduction, according to Berry Campbell Gallery, who will open a survey of the artist’s dynamic, multi-layered abstract paintings with a reception on Thursday, May 30, from 6 to 8 p.m.

“Over the course of a career that has lasted more than 50 years, Frank Wimberley has felt abstract painting to be a continuous adventure,” a press release said. “The artist is a well-known presence in the art scene on the East End of Long Island and an important figure in African-American art since the 1960s.”

Growing up in the New Jersey suburbs, Wimberley was drawn to art and music — interests supported by his mother, a ceramicist and pianist who involved him in her work, and his father, who gifted him a trumpet.

In 1945, after serving in the Army, he attended Howard University, where he studied painting with three of the most influential African-American artists of the mid-20^th century — James Amos Porter, James Lesesne Wells and Loïs Mailou Jones. There, he also immersed himself in jazz, listening to it and playing it himself, leading to long friendships with the likes of Miles Davis, Ron Carter and Wayne Shorter.

But after two years — and with the basics under his belt — Wimberley left, ready to teach himself. At first, he practiced ceramics, following in his mother’s footsteps and influenced by the tactile and sculptural pottery of Peter Voulkos.

“However, on discovering that Voulkos was also a painter, Wimberley realized that he did not need to be committed to one medium, and instead ‘could do several,’” a press release said. “In the 1950s, while living in Queens with his wife, Juanita, and son, Walden, he worked the night shift at a local post office. This freed him to paint and take care of Walden during the day, while Juanita was at work. The post office provided him ‘with money—and time,’ which he felt was ‘the most important thing.’”

Acts of Art + Rebuttal in 1971
Leubsdorf Gallery
October 5, 2018–November 25, 2018

Acts of Art and Rebuttal revisits the 1971 exhibition Rebuttal to the Whitney Museum Exhibition: Black Artists in Rebuttal, which was organized by members of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition at Acts of Art, a small, artist-run gallery in Greenwich Village. The original exhibition was mounted in response to the Whitney Museum’s refusal to appoint a Black curator for their survey Contemporary Black Artists in America.

Inaugurated in 2010, the Long Island Biennial is a juried competition offering local artists an opportunity to show their work to a broad public in a professional Museum setting. Long Island has a rich artistic history and has long been an inspiration for artists. The Long Island Biennial receives hundreds of entries from gifted, professional, contemporary Long Island artists. The jurors will select outstanding works for inclusion in a Biennial exhibition at The Heckscher Museum, August 4 to November 11, 2018. All submissions will be shown in an online gallery on LongIslandBiennial.org

 “The Long Island Biennial is a perfect opportunity for artists to showcase their work to a wide audience, and for art lovers to discover the talent that is flourishing across Suffolk and Nassau Counties,” said Lisa Chalif, Curator, Heckscher Museum of Art.

We are thrilled to add this talented artist to our roster and look forward to presenting an exhibition of his work in 2019.

Over the course of a career that has spanned more than fifty years, Frank Wimberley has felt abstract painting to be a continuous adventure. Now 92, the artist is a well-known presence in the art scene on the East End of Long Island and an important figure in African American art since the 1960s. Acclaimed for his dynamic, multi-layered, and sophisticated paintings, Wimberley is among the leading contemporary artists to continue in the Abstract Expressionist tradition. What has always excited him is to take the theme or feeling from the very first stroke he lays down and follow it to its particular conclusion, "very much like creating the controlled accident." His improvisational method is akin to jazz, an important part of his life and a theme in his art. Despite the spontaneity of his process, Wimberley makes each decision deliberately, respectful of what emerges and where it is going; he enjoys the surprise of arriving at definitions that seem to come to life on their own. Similarly, his works engage the viewer in their strong physicality and unpredictability as well as in their insights into the ways that pictorial experiences are perceived and understood.