Frank Wimberley

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

If you’re invited to spend the weekend in Sag Harbor, you’ve just won summer’s golden ticket. This Hamptons hamlet is what getaway dreams are made of. A two-square-mile village on the outstretched fringe of New York City, it was once an international whaling port, a remote place where writers like John Steinbeck could rent solitary bungalows on the cheap to pound out legendary novels on portable typewriters.

"Artists Choose Parrish: Part 1", featuring Nanette Carter and Frank Wimberley, is listed as one of 29 must-see museum exhibitions to see this Spring and Summer. 

"Artists Choose Parrish: Part 1" at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, NY, April 16-August 6, 2023 & April 30-July 23, 2023.

The history of Black artists on Long Island is rich, deep and still being written. Sometimes, with help, history repeats itself. This month offers chances to revisit pivotal exhibitions of previous decades and witness the cultural significance of Black artists in the area.

Parrish Celebrates 125 Years

The Parrish Art Museum will celebrate its anniversary with a program that includes artists, such as Nanette Carter, choosing works from the permanent collection to show alongside their own art, in this case, "Cantilevered #53 (Teetering)," an oil on Mylar piece from 2020.

The Church in Sag Harbor is celebrating the village’s legacy of Black artists with a new exhibition, Return to a Place by the Sea featuring Frank Wimberley, Nanette Carter, Gregory Coates and the late Al Loving — four abstract artists with local roots and a shared past.

The history of Black artists on Long Island is rich, deep and still being written. Sometimes, with help, history repeats itself. This month offers chances to revisit pivotal exhibitions of previous decades and witness the cultural significance of Black artists in the area.

WHAT "Return to A Place by the Sea"

WHEN | WHERE Through May 27, 12-5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday, The Church, 48 Madison St., Sag Harbor

INFO Free; 631-919-5342, thechurchsagharbor.org

A Return to a Place By the Sea

February 5 - May 27, 2023

Opening Reception February 4 | 6-7:30PM

Return to A Place By the Sea revisits and recontextualizes the 1999 exhibition A Place By the Sea that celebrated the work and friendship of four African American artists: Nanette Carter (b. 1954), Gregory Coates (b. 1961), Al Loving (1935-2005), and Frank Wimberley (b.1926). Initially organized in 1999 by Jim Richard Wilson at the Rathbone Gallery of the Russell Sage College in Albany, the show traveled to Christine Nienaber Contemporary Art in New York and the Arlene Bujese Gallery in East Hampton. This February, thanks to the combined curation of The Church's Co-Founder April Gornik and Chief Curator Sara Cochran, we will explore the type of art these artists were making in the 1990s and update this conversation by exploring their more recent work. Our goal is to deepen the understanding of these influential artists, who have only begun to receive international acclaim for their work. The show also delineates a more inclusive history of abstract painting in New York in the late 20th century and looks beyond the historical standard of race and gender. Uniting some works from the original show with recent paintings, works on paper, and sculpture, Return to A Place By the Sea highlights the relevancy of each artist of "The Eastville Four." Given that for a time, all four artists lived part of the year in the Eastville/ SANS neighborhood to the east of Sag Harbor, this exhibition further honors the tradition of Sag Harbor as a maker's place of diverse art, industry, and craft practices.

Carter, Coates, Loving, and Wimberley shared a deep kinship. They were committed to abstract painting and shared an appreciation of jazz music with its vitality and basis in spontaneity and experimentation. Their lives and work were intertwined by their associations with The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Cinque Gallery in New York where they showed their work, and the Eastville Community where they have summer homes and found space to work and relax. The exhibition will feature programming that spotlights each artist and new video interviews with Carter, Coates, and Wimberley.

Join us for the opening on Saturday, February 4th, from 6-7:30 PM.

Frank Wimberley Acquired by the Asheville Art Museum, North Carolina

Frank Wimberley (b.1926)
Sphere (Thelonius), 2012
Acrylic on canvas over shaped wood
45 x 45 inches

View Works by Frank Wimberley

Chelsea to Springs

Chelsea’s Berry Campbell Gallery takes over Ashawagh Hall in Springs from today through Sunday with a large group exhibition of artists, past and present, with strong East End connections.

The show includes works by Mary Abbott, Alice Baber, Nanette Carter, Dan Christensen, Eric Dever, Elaine de Kooning, Perle Fine, Grace Hartigan, Raymond Hendler, John Opper, Charlotte Park, Betty Parsons, Mike Solomon, Syd Solomon, Hedda Sterne, Susan Vecsey, Lucia Wilcox, Frank Wimberley, and Larry Zox.

Gallery hours are today through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and noon to 6 on Sunday.

Berry Campbell: Community
August 11 - 14, 2022
Berry Campbell at Ashawagh hall
780 Springs Fireplace Road
 East Hampton, New York 11937

Preview Exhibiton

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Encountering the Parrish
“Encounters: Recent Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection,” an exhibition of work by nine contemporary artists with deep connections to the East End, is on view at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill through Feb. 27.

New works by Barthelemy Toguo and Tomashi Jackson were created for their solo shows at the Parrish. Mr. Toguo’s “Homo Planta A” reflects his interest in nature and sustainability, while Ms. Jackson’s “The Three Sisters” was inspired by interviews with members of local indigenous, Black, and Latinx communities.

Darlene Charneco, Esly E. Escobar, Laurie Lambrecht, and Candace Hill Montgomery developed their works for Parrish Road Show exhibitions. Ms. Charneco’s work considered the symbiotic co-evolution of insects and plants, while Mr. Escobar dripped paint on a canvas until a character was revealed.

Ms. Lambrecht’s piece is one of a series of print and fiber works inspired by the Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack. Ms. Montgomery’s weaving, first shown at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum, examines the #MeToo movement.

Rachel Feinstein’s interest in the Rococo inspired her plaster sculpture “See You Soon,” while Sara VanDerBeek’s abstract photographs were motivated in part by members of the Bauhaus weaving workshop, quilts, and Pre-Colombian textiles and ceramics.

Frank Wimberley’s “Wrinkles” (1994) is one of his tactile, multilayered abstract paintings, which he has described as “absolutely personal and universal.”

Frank Wimberley
Tourquoise, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
62 x 48 inches

View works by Frank Wimberley

The show explores the gallery's ties to the Art Students League of New York.

In 1969, tired of the lack of exhibition opportunities for Black artists, Romare Bearden, Ernest Crichlow, and Norman Lewis took matters into their own hands and opened Cinque Gallery, a nonprofit exhibition space on Astor Place in New York’s East Village.

Cinque—named for Joseph Cinque, who led the 1839 revolt on the Amistad slave ship after being kidnapped in Sierra Leone—quickly became a thriving community of young and mid-career artists.

Over its 35-year existence at various spaces across the city, the organization showcased the work of some 450 artists of color, including Emma Amos, Dawoud Bey, Sam Gilliam, and Whitfield Lovell—all of whom are featured in the first-ever exhibition celebrating the legacy of Cinque Gallery at the Art Students League of New York.

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Frank Wimberley: Collage
March 18 - April 17, 2021

More Information

Frank Wimberley at Berry Campbell, New York


Frank Wimberley, Untitled (Collage) (1977). Courtesy of Berry Campbell.

At 94 years old, Frank Wimberley has been working, mostly under the radar, since the 1960s, creating dynamic, layered, abstract paintings. Over the decades, the artist has attracted a devoted set of followers on the East End of Long Island, where he has a home, while his importance as a Black artist working in the tradition of Abstract Expressionism has increasingly been recognized (his art was included in Hunter College’s important 2018 exhibition revisiting the 1971 exhibition “Rebuttal to the Whitney Museum Exhibition: Black Artists in Rebuttal”). Wimberly likens his process to a controlled accident, and creates his paintings with equal parts intention and improvisation, citing the traditions of jazz.

New York -- In 2005, on the eve of a solo show of his work in Southampton, N.Y., the abstract artist Frank Wimberley explained that he often viewed his artwork as living things. Giving a painting “time to breathe,” was an important part of the creative process, he said, adding that it wasn’t uncommon for him to step away from a work in progress. “Then you can return to it, just like with any living, breathing thing, and find a few surprises.”

At 94 years old, Wimberley is still uncovering surprises in an expanding body of work infused with bold colors and dramatic, gestural strokes. In a career that has spanned more than 50 years, and that includes paintings, sculptures, and ceramics, he’s managed to embrace the creative process as a continuous adventure.

This month Berry Campbell Gallery in New York’s Chelsea district is hosting a survey exhibition of collage works by Wimberley that will feature both paintings with collage elements as well as traditional collage works on paper.

(Take a gallery tour of the artwork with Frank Wimberley here.)

The show, to be held March 18 to April 17, will also highlight some of the artist’s most important collages to date, including several examples going back to the early 1970s, says gallery co-owner, Christine Berry. She opened the 2,000 square-foot ground floor gallery and exhibition space with Martha Campbell in 2013 with a focus on Postwar Modern and Contemporary Art.

THE TRANSPORT BUSINESS

Frank Wimberley’s military engagement began as a private assigned to the 3384th Quartermaster Truck Company. Said Wimberly, "I never did any fighting. I did a lot of transporting troops and shipping supplies to areas where there was fighting." Because Black men could only serve in segregated units of the military, many were assigned to labor and service units.

Wimberley was happy with his assignment, however. "I liked that job; I liked being in a foreign country," he said. "We were very much liked by the Germans because we were Black; they liked the fact that they were meeting a different kind of American."

He said he suffered some of the hostility directed at Blacks by some whites, "even in the U.S. military," Wimberley remarked.

"The Black soldiers in my unit were always segregated from the whites. White soldiers would show animosity to us."

"You’re always going to find some problem makers, especially in the service," he said, "but I enjoyed my stay over there."

Encounters between Blacks and Germans were mostly social, Wimberley said. "A lot of the guys had German girlfriends," he said. "Everybody was poor because of the war; they would fix dinners for us. They had to go on the farms and steal food."

He described how a shared love of music fostered camaraderie among the Black soldiers. "We would form little groups," said Wimberley, who played the trumpet. "There were others who played other instruments; we would get together and play; it was always jazz."

Learning that Wimberley had an interest in art, German soldiers who were artists themselves "made portraits of us," Wimberley said. "We gave them cigarettes; they’d rather have that than money. We didn’t like the Germans because of Hitler, but some of them became my very good friends," he said.

After 18 months in the service, Wimberley was discharged. "I was so glad to get back home," he said. "I wanted to come home and see my mother in the kitchen."

His latent bent toward art spurred Wimberley to pursue studies in painting, sculpture and pottery at Howard University. From a family of musicians and artists, "I’ve always been some kind of an artist, but I got better," said Wimberley, who is represented by the prestigious Berry Campbell Gallery in Manhattan. Christine Berry, a co-owner of the gallery with Martha Campbell, said his abstract paintings are highly sought-after around the nation.

Some of Wimberley’s works are included in "Color and Absence," a show at the Southampton Arts Center through Dec. 27. He is usually busy, dividing his time between his home in Sag Harbor, his studio in Corona, Queens, and Berry Campbell. Wimberley is married. He and his wife, Juanita, have a son, Walden, a musician.

In the 1930s, a group of trailblazing African-Americans bought plots for themselves in Sag Harbor, establishing a close-knit community that’s spanned multiple generations.

By: Sandra E. Garcia

Continuum
ERIC DEVER | MIKE SOLOMON | SUSAN VECSEY | FRANK WIMBERLEY
October 9 - 12, 2020

Artist's Choice: Interconnected
May 7 - June 7, 2020
View Exhibition

Berry Campbell is pleased to announce Artist’s Choice: Interconnected, an exclusive online exhibition of works from gallery’s inventory chosen by Berry Campbell’s represented contemporary artists. Eric Dever, Judith Godwin, Ken Greenleaf, Jill Nathanson, Ann Purcell, Mike Solomon, Susan Vecsey, James Walsh, Joyce Weinstein, and Frank Wimberley have thoughtfully selected one work from our gallery inventory that they associate with their own creative process and artistic journey. This artist-curated exhibition is an inquiry into the lines of influence and connections within our Berry Campbell artist community. Artist’s Choice: Interconnected launches digitally May 7, 2020.

The choices are sometimes expected, and at other times, surprising.  Some artists were inspired by a painting from an artist they had never met, and others paid tribute to old friends or mentors.  Judith Godwin recalls good times with her old friend and art dealer, Betty Parsons.  James Walsh remembers a painting by Walter Darby Bannard from a 1981 show at Knoedler Gallery.  Mike Solomon pays homage to the perseverance of abstract painter and dear friend, Frank Wimberley saying: “The quiet intermingling of his experience, with the purity of painting, gives his abstractions an authenticity and delicacy that is profound to witness.”  Ken Greenleaf favorite is Cloistered #5 (1968) by Ida Kohlmeyer, delighting in the pure abstraction.  Jill Nathanson picked a color-field forerunner, Dan Christensen.  Ann Purcell admitted to being picky but found true inspiration after visiting our Yvonne Thomas show repeatedly.  Eric Dever ruminates about Charlotte Park: “Like a favorite poem, novel or even film, a painting can be a touchstone, something one returns to with certain regularity; perhaps a gauge of some kind, beginning with personal happiness on the occasion of discovery and new revelation as our lives unfold.”  Joyce Weinstein finds parallels with John Opper.  Susan Vecsey loves the “stillness and movement” of Elaine de Kooning’s Six Horses, Blue Wall (1987).  No coincidence that Vecsey lives down the road from the Elaine de Kooning house in the Hamptons. Frank Wimberley recalls of Herman Cherry: “He was one of the East End artists who wished to me to succeed.”

ABOUT BERRY CAMPBELL
Christine Berry and Martha Campbell have many parallels in their backgrounds and interests. Both studied art history in college, began their careers in the museum world, and later worked together at a major gallery in midtown Manhattan. Most importantly, however, Berry and Campbell share a curatorial vision.

Both art dealers developed a strong emphasis on research and networking with artists and scholars during their art world years. They decided to work together, opening Berry Campbell Gallery in 2013 in the heart of New York's Chelsea art district, at 530 West 24th Street on the ground floor. In 2015, the gallery expanded, doubling its size with an additional 2,000 square feet of exhibition space.

Highlighting a selection of postwar and contemporary artists, the gallery fulfills an important gap in the art world, revealing a depth within American modernism that is just beginning to be understood, encompassing the many artists who were left behind due to race, gender, or geography-beyond such legendary figures as Pollock and de Kooning. Since its inception, the gallery has been especially instrumental in giving women artists long overdue consideration, an effort that museums have only just begun to take up, such as in the 2016 traveling exhibition, Women of Abstract Expressionism, curated by University of Denver professor Gwen F. Chanzit. This show featured work by Perle Fine and Judith Godwin, both represented by Berry Campbell, along with that of Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, and Joan Mitchell. In 2019, Berry Campbell's exhibition, Yvonne Thomas: Windows and Variations (Paintings 1963 - 1965) was reviewed by Roberta Smith for the New York Times, in which Smith wrote that Thomas, "... kept her hand in, adding a fresh directness of touch, and the results give her a place in the still-emerging saga of postwar American abstraction.”

In addition to Perle Fine and Judith Godwin, artists whose work is represented by the gallery include Edward Avedisian, Walter Darby Bannard, Stanley Boxer, Dan Christensen, Eric Dever, John Goodyear, Ken Greenleaf, Raymond Hendler, Ida Kohlmeyer, Jill Nathanson, John Opper, Stephen Pace, Charlotte Park, William Perehudoff, Ann Purcell, Mike Solomon, Syd Solomon, Albert Stadler, Yvonne Thomas, Susan Vecsey, James Walsh, Joyce Weinstein, Frank Wimberley, Larry Zox, and Edward Zutrau. The gallery has helped promote many of these artists' careers in museum shows including that of Bannard at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (2018-19); Syd Solomon, in a traveling museum show which culminates at the John and Mable Ringling Museum in Sarasota and has been extended through 2021; Stephen Pace at The McCutchan Art Center/Pace Galleries at the University of Southern Indiana (2018) and at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (2019); and Vecsey and Mike Solomon at the Greenville County Museum of Art, South Carolina (2017 and 2019, respectively); and Eric Dever at the Suffolk Community College, Riverhead, New York (2020). In an April 3, 2020 New York Times review of Berry Campbell's exhibition of Ida Kohlmeyer's Cloistered paintings, Roberta Smith stated: “These paintings stunningly sum up a moment when Minimalism was giving way to or being complicated by something more emotionally challenging and implicitly feminine and feminist. They could hang in any museum.”

Collaboration is an important aspect of the gallery. With the widened inquiries and understandings that have resulted from their ongoing discussions about the art world canon, the dealers feel a continual sense of excitement in the discoveries of artists and research still to be made.

Berry Campbell is located in the heart of the Chelsea Arts District at 530 West 24th Street, Ground Floor, New York, NY 10011.  For further information, contact us at 212.924.2178, info@berrycampbell.com or www.berrycampbell.com.

“The Shape of Abstraction: Selections From the Ollie Collection” at the Saint Louis Art Museum
September 17, 2019–March 8, 2020

In 2017, arts patron and Saint Louis native Ronald Ollie and his wife Monique gifted 81 works by black abstract artists to the St. Louis Art Museum, including examples by Norman Lewis, Sam Gilliam, Chakaia Booker, James Little, and others. The works, while focused on contemporary art, date back to the 1940s, when a generational shift in abstraction was afoot.

The Saint Louis Art Museum is located at One Fine Arts Drive, Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri; general admission is free.

Frank Wimberley is not one for procrastination.

Historically, the Sag Harbor-based painter has conceptualized and executed his annual creation for the East End Hospice “Box Art Auction” months ahead of schedule.

Until this year, that is.

For the first time in nearly two decades, the artist was feeling the pressure, considering people are still talking about last summer’s auction — an event he has never missed in its 18 years, and a night he will never forget.

“You know what happened last year, right?” Mr. Wimberley asked with a goodhearted laugh. “I got a bid of the highest it has ever been — a bid of $10,000! I thought it was absolutely amazing. Everybody cheered and jumped up and down. We still can’t get over it. I was at the Parrish Art Museum the other day and they say, ‘You’re the guy!’ It’s nice when somebody remembers you! Everybody likes to be remembered.”

The 92-year-old artist was feeling optimistic ahead of this year’s 19th annual auction on Saturday, August 24, at St. Luke’s Church in East Hampton, where bidders flock to see the collection of small, unadorned boxes transformed into one-of-a-kind creations by some 90 East End artists.

Mise en Scene Design

Summer may be halfway over, womp womp, but there is still time to brighten up and refresh your space with artwork. Whether you want to add pops of color to your living room or do a full-blown redo of your house, we’ve got five solid tips on how to incorporate artwork into your home to give it that new look. 

1. Add Pops of Color

To bring your home to life, swap in some light color abstract paintings for wall décor. Any pop of color will brighten the room, giving it a new, cozy and inviting feel. Colorful artwork is perfect for any neutral color walls in the home, and a simple painting can do the trick!

2. Showcase High-End Pieces

If you are an avid art collector or have wiggle room in your budget, try adding a vintage art piece to your walls in your home. Syd Solomon, who was a notable American abstract artist, shares work such as the one below which adds an extra touch to any room.

3. Travel Shots

Incorporating one’s vacation pictures on the wall is the perfect way to decorate a home while giving a more personal and natural feel. Saving your vacation photos then throwing it into a beautiful frame can look fantastic in any room, and also shows off your adventures.

4. Art Sculptures

For a livelier feel, homeowners can accessorize their homes with art sculptures that are sure to make any room pop. Art sculptures are terrific because they serve as a unique decoration, but can also be used to fill up a room.



5. Determine a Theme

From florals to bold colors to fun prints, make your home feel like a tropical getaway or a calming cottage to escape to. Landing on a theme in your summer home can help determine the type of art décor you plan to showcase. It’s crucial to incorporate bright, flashy colors to portray warmth and light.

From the moment I walked into the solo show “Frank Wimberley” at Berry Campbell in Chelsea, I became thoroughly engaged with Wimberley’s textural paintings. The works convey an exhilarating sense of freedom as well as a consistent vision: one major painting after another, evidencing some of the most original and varied paint handling I’ve seen.

On view through July 3, 2019, “Frank Wimberley” is a near survey and presents 20 paintings that roam across the decades (including recent works). Now 92 years old, Wimberley proves that he is still vibrant and active as an artist. He evolved as a pure painter, largely eschewing overt sociopolitical themes in his work and became exemplary of American abstraction’s mainstream; an expressionist responding to free association and guided solely by his own taste and intuition.

More than a century ago, Wassily Kandinsky asked whether purely abstract art could ever achieve the same emotional effect as music. Since the 1950s, Frank Wimberley has been proving that it can, by simply doing it—composing images that pull the human mind and heart along on a journey of feeling, same as a symphony might. One year ago, Berry Campbell gallery in New York announced it had signed Wimberley to the roster of artists the gallery represents. Their highly anticipated first solo exhibition of his work just opened on 30 May. Featuring more than 30 paintings spanning from the early days of his career to works created just this year, the museum quality exhibition breathes fresh life into the landscape of contemporary American abstraction. In fact, the emotional content of these paintings is so condensed it is frankly difficult to experience the whole exhibition in one visit. Wimberley starts each painting with what he calls an “attack”—an instinctive incursion into the blankness. That first, intuitive confrontation with the unknown territory of the surface leaves behind a known quantity: a mark. Like a mystical boat carrying the rider across a spiritual river into the netherworld, that first mark guides Wimberley along through the composition, collaborating with him on a series of choices that lead the picture to its unimaginable, yet inescapable aesthetic conclusions. Imagine a jazz trio: the drummer strikes the snare drum; the keyboard player riffs on that sound; the horn player follows suit; a tempo emerges; finally, the improvisation takes on a life of its own and pulls the players along till it plays itself out. This is how Wimberley paints. Like a listener at a jazz concert, a viewer at this Wimberley exhibition may be best served by an attitude of openness verging on surrender. Pick a starting point and let your eye establish its own tempo. The composition will carry you along.

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.