On Jesse Reichek
 

Dore Ashton, Art Critic*

“I call Reichek's oeuvre elliptical because in all of his intense thinking with a brush, he is always running to an origin, whether in the I Ching or the Kaballah.  I cannot know for sure, but I suspect that when all his work—or at least a representative part of it—is set out it will be seen that there is a single and singular voice throughout, intoning and inditing a cryptic but sensible call to recognition. He has truly created an oeuvre.”

*Dore Ashton
Art Critic -formally with  the New York Times,  author, and teacher. She is the author of many books: Noguchi East and West, About Rothko, American Art Since 1945, Rosa Bonheur in Her Time (with Denise Browne Hare), A Fable of Modern Art, Yes, But: A Critical Biography of Philip Guston, A Joseph Cornell Album, The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning, Picasso on Art, The Sculpture of Pol Bury, Richard Lindner, A Reading of Modern Art, Modern American Sculpture, Rauschenberg’s Dante, The Unknown Shore, Redon, Moreau, Bresdin, Philip Guston, Poets and the Past, Abstract Art Before Columbus, Teshigahara, The Walls of the Heart, The Black Rainbow: The Work of Fernando de Szyzslo.

_______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________

Alberto Giacometti, Sculptor*

Stated to Jesse Reichek at his first exhibit in Paris, 1951:

“Tu es fou, mon vieux. You are crazy, my friend.”

Response from Jesse Reichek:

“Coming from a man who is truly crazy, that is a high compliment.”

         *Alberto Giacometti
Internationally renowned Swiss sculptor.

_______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________

Betty Parsons, Pioneering Gallery Owner*

“You're the most difficult man I have ever met. But you are the undiscovered treasure of America.”
 

*BETTY PARSONS
Described by ARTnews as the "den mother of Abstract Expressionism," Betty Parsons became famous for identifying, promoting, and nurturing a new generation of American artists in the years after World War II. From her gallery on Fifty-Seventh Street, she spent more than three decades championing the work of numerous young artists, including most notably the painters of the New York School—Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Hans Hofmann, and Ad Reinhardt. An artist herself, she was as famous for encouraging young talent to grow and experiment as she was in recruiting them to her gallery.  A portrait of Parsons at age seventy-nine by Austrian-born photographer Lisl Steiner was featured on the cover of ARTnews with the simple yet fitting caption, "The Remarkable Betty Parsons."

 

 


JESSE REICHEK RETROSPECTIVE  --- PARTNERS IN CREATION

Works from 1947 to 2005

Creators Equity Foundation
2324 Blake street • Berkeley, ca • 94704
PHONE:  (510) 514-8188  •  FAX: (510) 665-4893
email:  reichek@dslextreme.com

website address:   www.reichek.org