B. PATERSON, NEW JERSEY, 1914
D.MANHATTAN, NEW YORK, 2005
Born in Paterson, New Jersey, Geist was a sculptor whose work defied easy characterization. He took inspiration from a broad range of sources including the art of northwest coastal Indians to folk art to American and European modernists. The body of work Geist developed over six decades was unique for its joie de vivre as well as his consistent use of hand-hewn organic material. In 1992 the artist said, “I work in everything on the other side of the Bronze Age: wood, stone and clay…there’s nothing in my work a Neolithic artist couldn’t reproduce.” The estate of Sidney Geist is represented solely by Eric Firestone Gallery.
Sidney Geist studied at St. Stephen’s College in Annandale on Hudson, (now Bard College). From 1931 to 1937 he was apprenticed to Paul Fiene in Woodstock and then worked with William Zorach at the Art Students League. After the war he participated in the New Jersey Federal Arts Project before travelling to Paris to study at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere with sculptor Ossip Zadkine. Geist established a studio in Manhattan in 1951 after an extended stay in Mexico.
He frequented the artists’ sessions at the Eighth Street Club in Greenwich Village, widely considered a gateway to New York’s then burgeoning avant-garde. The Artists’ Club was home to panel discussions and lively artists’ talks – a place to rub shoulders with New York’s first tier artists, among them Willem de Kooning and Philip Pavia.
Geist’s sculpture moved between abstract and figural totems to robust female forms. The artist also worked in 2-dimensions, creating graphic works on paper, paintings and collages. The art on view at Eric Firestone Gallery, dating from 1948-1990, includes the artist’s self-described “tall paintings” as well as modest scale bronze, wood and terra cotta sculptures and selected works on paper and canvas. The art historian and critic Hilton Kramer said of Geist’s sculpture, “…some are abstract variations on Brancusi’s Endless Column, though painted color – which Brancusi eschewed – remains a defining interest for Mr. Geist.”
From 1960 to 1962, Geist produced an alternative arts newsletter, Scrap, with Anita Ventura Mozley, a curator and Eadweard Muybridge scholar. Scrap grew out of a shared dissatisfaction with conventional art criticism and, Geist later wrote, expressed “both a combativeness and an irreverence toward criticism itself.” Archival layouts from Scrap will be on view during the exhibition. He became an accomplished writer whose critically acclaimed works on the artist Constantin Brancusi (also Cezanne, and others) are still considered seminal works in the field. In addition to his numerous published writings, Geist taught at various institutions, among them the University of California, Berkeley, Pratt Institute and Vassar College.
Sidney Geist
Out There, 1962
oil on plaster
35.0h x 27.0w x 11.0d in
88.9h x 67.31w x 27.94d cm
(SG463)
Sidney Geist
Untitled, 1962
Oil on Plaster
35h x 13w x 11d in
88.90h x 33.02w x 27.94d cm
SG074
Sidney Geist
Untitled, 1960
oil on plaster
32h x 21w x 9d in
81.28h x 53.34w x 22.86d cm
SG213
Sidney Geist
Darjeeling, 1962
Plaster And Pigment
41h x 44w x 19d in
104.14h x 111.76w x 48.26d cm
SG174
Sidney Geist
Dryad, 1973
Wood
55 1/2h in
140.97h cm
Sidney Geist
Assembled Forms, 1951
Painted Wood
28h x 70w x 2d in
71.12h x 177.80w x 5.08d cm
Sidney Geist
Untitled, c. 1950
Wood
25h x 25w x 7 1/4d in
63.50h x 63.50w x 18.42d cm
SG167
Sidney Geist
Sentinel, 1964
Painted Wood
80 3/8h x 24w x 6d in
204.15h x 60.96w x 15.24d cm
SG194
Sidney Geist
Untitled, c. 1959
Painted Wood
112h x 31w x 31d in
284.48h x 78.74w x 78.74d cm
SG119
Sidney Geist
Totem, c. 1985
Wood
88h x 11 1/2w x 10d in
223.52h x 29.21w x 25.40d cm
SG391
Sidney Geist
Hommage Sans Fin, 1997
Wood
86h in
218.44h cm
SG143
Between the apex of Abstract Expressionism and the rise of Pop Art and Minimalism, the New York art scene was transformed by artist-run galleries. Inventing Downtown presents works from fourteen of these crucibles of experimentation, highlighting artists’ efforts to create new exhibition venues for innovative works of art—ranging from abstract and figurative painting, assemblage, sculpture, and works on paper to groundbreaking installations and performances.
The immediate, unguarded response of first-time visitors to Sidney Geist: Phases of Sculpture, the exhibition currently on view at Jason McCoy Inc., is likely to be a mix of surprise, curiosity and delight. We don’t expect to see so much color in an exhibition of modern sculpture, or such captivating invention. We certainly don’t expect a party atmosphere. Yet a festive sprit is what we encounter in this survey of Mr. Geist’s sculpture from the years 1930 to 1997. Many of the sculptures are slender vertical figures of carved and painted wood, some more explicitly figural than others. Some are abstract variations on Brancusi’s Endless Column, though painted color-which Brancusi eschewed-remains a defining interest for Mr. Geist.
Sidney Geist, a sculptor, teacher and art writer who became a leading authority on the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, died Tuesday at the Jewish Home and Hospital in Manhattan. He was 91.
