Irene Monat Stern

Hollis Taggart Galleries is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings by Irene Monat Stern, whose liquid flows of color coalesce into luminous and elegant compositions. Slow, powerful visual rhythms imbue Stern’s rich forms with the weighty feel of geologic time, like the movement of glaciers in exotic hues. Her pure abstract paintings call to mind the stained canvases of the Color Field artists, but her work embodies a unique elegance that differentiates it from that of her contemporaries. Stern’s colors grow and blossom organically across her large canvases, and these chromatic blooms manage to be simultaneously serene and dramatic as they radiate vibrant, earthy tones.

Born in 1932 in Poland, Stern survived the Holocaust at a young age, eventually setting in Southern California by way of Paris and New York. Irene Stern’s work has been exhibited and collected widely, and can currently be found in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.