Bernard Childs

• Name — Bernard Childs

He first found his vocation in high school, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where his Russian immigrant parents had moved the family from his birthplace, Brooklyn. During her last days, his mother told him he was the seventh generation of artists in the family, his forebears having been painters of icons in the churches of Yaroslav. In 1928, a scholarship took him to the University of Pennsylvania. He left two years later for New York where he worked by day and studied at night with Kimon Nicolaїdes at The Art Students League in New York. He also had the luck to meet the great Danish silversmith Peer Smed, from whom he learned his love of metal. The economic and social problems of the 1930s took Childs away from his work as an artist, until he began drawing again in the South Pacific while serving as a quartermaster aboard the destroyer escort Wesson, during World War II. Childs survived a Kamikaze attack and, at war's end, two years of intermittent hospitalization after returning to New York. His recovery was complete by 1947, the year he studied with Amédée Ozenfant, who became a good friend. In 1951, thanks to the G.I. Bill, he sailed for Italy where he began his full-time life as an artist. It was there that he met and became friends with Alberto Burri and Enrico Baj. Following a year in Perugia and in Rome and his first solo exhibition, at the venerable Galleria dell'Obellisco, Childs settled in Paris, realizing his first mature painting at age 42 and quickly becoming part of the European vanguard. He was included in many exhibitions of the Paris salons, various galleries such as Ariel and Iris Clert, Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal and the free floating group Phases along with Alechinsky, Baj, Cousins, Ernst, Fahlström, Fontana, Lam, Jaffe, Pederson, Soulages, Yasse Tabuchi, and Tajiri. He was championed by the French art critics Pierre Restany and Édouard Jaguer, and the Swedish art historian and curator Ragnar von Holten. • Illustration — Bernard Childs, The Critic (Portrait of Pierre Restany), 1959, Oil on canvas. By 1959 he was in Documenta II and had his first solo museum exhibition, of paintings and prints, at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. It was in early 1955, after a month in December 1954 at Atelier 17, that he had signed his first editions of prints and begun pioneering the direct engraving of metal plates with power tools for which he is well recognized. Childs was also one of the first post World War II Western artists invited to show in Japan where he had two exhibitions, of paintings and of prints in 1960 and 1961 respectively at the Tokyo Gallery, and received the Museum of Western Art Award at the 1961 Tokyo International Print Biennial. From 1966 to 1977, Childs commuted between his Paris studio and his New York studio at the Hotel Chelsea. In 1969, a retrospective of his 1960's paintings, prints and engraved acrylic light sculptures was held at the Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY. This exhibition was the occasion for the first public view of his light sculptures – laminates of engraved sheets of acrylic lit from below – an experiment with light and color that he began the same year and continued through part of the 1970s. Although a stroke in 1978 interrupted his career, Childs never stopped drawing and soon resumed painting, remaining in New York until his death at age 74 in March 1985. Although he exhibited extensively in group shows, Childs was a loner. A renowned curator once called him a "rogue artist", one who cannot be defined by a category, a group, or a decade. Often a fusion of abstraction and figuration, at times paralleled by portraiture, his is a body of work rooted in the second half of the 20th century and whose ongoing appeal defies time. • Illustration — Bernard Childs, How Green Is My Belly, 1965, Oil and graphite on linen, 24 x 19 inches

Themes of survival, including war and environmental disaster were recurrent in Childs' work. Ancient insect species became a recurring motif, symbolizing survival. He drew their movements and strength up close and in his 1970's paintings depicted them exploring outer space for a new home, should planet Earth no longer support life. His work reflected his interest in the survival of the planet and life, as well as, in creation myths, world mytholoogy, and literary myths. Childs' formal concerns were line and space, light and color, and the dialogue of contrasting elements related in time but often projecting different spatial environments. Portraiture and figuration of one kind or another are ever present, overtly or woven into abstractions. Childs took a sensual pleasure in his materials and a sensual, witty approach to many of the visual stories he told. His erotic stories of love are tender and sometimes funny. Danger is reflected in both his memories of war and his warnings of future dangers such as nuclear holocaust.

• South Pacific and Hawaii in WWII • Italy, 1951–1952 • France, 1952–1977 • Spain, several visits beginning in 1957 • Hawaii, Japan, Far East, Asia, Egypt 1960–1961 • Germany, 1957–1966 • Sweden, 1952 and 1970 • Puerto Rico, 1966–1984

2019 – Jason McCoy Gallery (Online Exhibition) • Illustration — Bernard Childs, Flowers of the Sun, 1977, Oil on canvas, 21 5/8 x 18 1/4 inches 2017 – Anders Wahlstedt Fine Art, New York, 2013 – Jason McCoy Gallery, New York 2012 – Jason McCoy Gallery, New York 1994 – Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York 1994 – Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York 1988 – Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York 1986 – Galerie Alfred Kren, Cologne 1985 – Palazzo Soriani, Biblioteche Pubbliche Comunali, Milan 1982 – Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu 1973 – New Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York 1971 – Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 1969 – Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY 1968 – Boston Public Library, Boston 1967 – Galerie Aronowitsch, Stockholm 1966 – Weyhe Gallery, New York 1964 – New York University, New York 1964 – Galerie der Editions Rothe, Heidenberg 1963 – Transair, Malmo 1962 – Galerie St Germain, Paris 1961 – Roopa Gallery, Bombay 1961 – National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi 1961 – Académie des Beaux Arts, Djogjakarta 1961 – Academy of Fine Arts, Bangkok 1961 – University of Hawaii, Honolulu 1961 – Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo 1960 – Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo 1959 – Galerie Ariel, Paris 1959 – Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1958 – Galerie Parnass, Wuppertal 1958 – Print Club, Philadelphia 1958 – Galerie Inge Ahlers, Mannheim 1957 – George M. Wittenborn, New York 1956 – Nordisk Kunsthandel – Galerie d'Art Moderne, Copenhagen 1956 – Galerie Kléber, Paris 1955 – Zimmergalerie Franck, Frankfurt-am-Main 1953 – Galerie Breteau, Paris 1952 – Galeria Obelisco, Rome • Illustration — Bernard Childs, The Oracle, 1957, Oil, 43 x 59 inches

2025 - Americans in Paris: Artist's Working in Post-War France, 1946-1962, Addison Gallery, Andover, MA, Sept 3-Jan 5, 2025 Americans in Paris: Artist's Working in Post-War France, 1946-1962, The NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, Ab Dhabi, Feb 11-Jun 1,2025 2024 – Americans in Paris: Artist's Working in Post-War France, 1946-1962, Grey Art Museum, New York, Feb 26-Jul 5, 2024 2023 - Hotel Chelsea Tribute Exhibition, "I Remember You Well at The Chelsea Hotel", Fleiss-Valois, New York, Dec 1-23, 2023 2021 – ARMOR, Jason McCoy Gallery, New York 2018 – Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints: Hidden and Displayed, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 1, 2018 – January 27, 2019 ("Barcarolle", 1958, printing plate and two variant impressions) 2016 – BLACK & WHITE: Modern and Contemporary Positions, Jason McCoy Gallery, New York 2013 – American Gestures: Abstract Expressionism, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 2013 – Atelier 17: Women Artists and Avant-Garde Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 2012 – Paper Bend, Jason McCoy Gallery, New York 2010 – Galaxy Cosmos, Jason McCoy Gallery, New York 2009 – The Pull of Experiment: Postwar American Printmaking, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. 2007 – Options within Realism, Jason McCoy Gallery, New York 2006 – Abstract Expressionist Prints from the Charles Randall Dean Collection, Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, East Hampton, New York. 2005 – Sets, Series, and Suites: Contemporary Prints, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 2003 – Expressive Impressions, Three Decades of Abstract American Prints, Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL 2003 – Mid-Century Graphics, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts. 2001–2003 – The Stamp of Impulse Abstract Expressionist Prints, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester; Traveled to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY; Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston 1999 – Omens of Millenium, Pacifico Fine Art, New York 1990 – A Spectrum of Innovation, Color in American Printmaking 1890–1960. Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA 1985 – The Spontaneous Gesture, Australian National Gallery, Canberra 1982 – Treffpunkt Parnass, International Avant-Garde at Galerie Parnass, Wuppertal, 1949–65: Goethe Institut, Paris; Musées de la Ville de Bourges, Bourges; Goethe House, London and Edinburgh. 1976 – New York '76, Riksutstalliningar, Stockholm and elsewhere in Sweden 1976 – Tokyo International Print Biennial, Tokyo 1967 – Premio International Biella per l'incisione, Biella 1966 – Whitney Annual, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 1963–1964 - Salon des Nouvelles Réalités, Paris 1962/1960 – International Prints, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio 1960/59/58 Galérie Ariel, Paris 1959 – Documenta II, Kassel 1958 – Americans in Europe, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Beloit, Racine 1958/1957 – Galérie du Dragon, Paris 1956–1964 – Salon des Comparaisons, Paris 1955 – 1959 – "Phases" (Multiple venues) 1955 – Peintres américains en France 1955 oeuvres récentes, American Legion Paris Post No. 1, Paris 1955 – Exposizione Il Gesto, Rassegna Internazionale delle forme libere, Galeria Schettini, Milan 1953–1959 – Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Paris

• Estate of Bernard Childs: c/o Judith Childs | Hotel Chelsea | 222 West 23rd Street | New York, NY | 10011