\n BROWNE AND GREENE at HARMON-MEEK GALLERY
\n\n \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \ ; \; \; It may sound as if the Harmon-Meek Gallery is featuring tw o colors in its next show opening Monday\, January 14\, but the two artist s featured are actually Byron Browne and Balcomb Greene. Together\, they w ere leaders of an important abstract art movement in America during the 19 30s and 1940s. \; Harmon-Meek Gallery \;will have works from each artist&rsquo\;s estate from those two decades on display at 599 Ninth Str eet North\, suite 309\, in Naples until through the 25th. Regular gallery hours are Monday through Saturday\, 10 am to 5pm.
\n\n \; \ ; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; Both arti sts have been exhibited at the gallery for forty years but this is the fir st time they have been paired in a two-person show. Both were founding mem bers\, along with their artist wives (Rosalind Bengelsdof &ndash\; Browne& rsquo\;s wife and Gertrude Glass &ndash\; Greene&rsquo\;s wife) of the Ame rican Abstract Artists in 1937 which formed out of the Artist&rsquo\;s Uni on group a few years earlier. \;
\n\n \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \; In the early 1930s\, J ohn Welsey Green and George Byron Brown decided together to change their m undane names to Balcomb Greene and Byron Browne respectively. \; At th e time\, it was difficult to sell any art as the Great Depression presente d the two with obvious hurdles. \; If that were not enough to overcome \, most American collectors and museums were interested in the American Re gionalists (such as Grant Wood\, Thomas Hart Benton\, Reginald Marsh\, and Harmon-Meek Gallery artists: Aaron Bohrod\, Adolf Dehn\, and Clarence Car ter) and Art Deco artists like Maxfield Parrish. \; Any parties remote ly interested in abstraction were enthralled with the Europeans (such as B raque\, Kandinsky\, Miro\, and Picasso). \; America&rsquo\;s previous attempt at introducing abstraction came during WWI when Alfred Steiglitz f ounded a gallery devoted to a select group of America&rsquo\;s first abstr actionists: Geogria O&rsquo\;Keeffe\, John Marin\, and an artist this gall ery represented from 1968 until his death in 1972\, Stanton MacDonald-Wrig ht.
\n\n \; \; \; \; \; \; \; \;&nb sp\; \; \; The pair crashed the gate\, built acceptance for Americ an abstract art\, and paved the way for the New York School of Abstract Ex pressionism that was unleashed in 1951. \; The two artists are seen in the 1935 photograph leading a protest march down lower 5th Avenue and 8th Street to the original Whitney Museum of American Art location for the Ar tist&rsquo\;s Union. \;
\n\n\nPhone: 239-261-2637\n\n599 9th St. N Suite 309\nNaples\, FL\n34102\n\n DTSTART:20130114T100000 DTEND:20130126T170000 LOCATION:Harmon-Meek Gallery PRIORITY: SUMMARY:Browne and Greene URL:http://www.harmonmeek.com END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR