'Geometric Ii' by Renee Harwin, Bay Area Abstraction, San Francisco Art Institute, Woman Artist

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Signed, verso, on stretcher bar, 'Renee Harwin' (Austrian-American, born 1924) and painted circa 1975.

A dramatically balanced abstract comprising adjacent … Read more Signed, verso, on stretcher bar, 'Renee Harwin' (Austrian-American, born 1924) and painted circa 1975.

A dramatically balanced abstract comprising adjacent and overlapping geometric forms in muted shades of saffron, brick red and ultramarine.

Renee Harwin's figures are gestural, reflective of human design and set within an environment of patterns suggestive of clouds and sky. She comes to the figure through years of hard-edge painting. Her work combines the influence of Midwest painters such as Clyfford Still and her San Francisco Art Institute instructor Jack Jefferson with the early influences of Viennese culture and art. Harwin attributes much of her visual language to her architect father and to modern architecture.

As a young Viennese woman, Harwin found her artistic development interrupted by Hitler's arrival to her city. Soon after, Renee and her family left and moved to the United States. Harwin says that while "one can drawn his or her own conclusions from my work, I believe that the tremendous impact of change from Nazism to free America has left deep impressions on me that are played out on these canvases."

ARTWEEK critic Mark Van Proyen recently reviewed Harwin's figurative work and said, "Frontal figures of a generalized type confront the viewer in Renee Harwin's series of large acrylic paintings, some of which feature groups in social ritual positions (i.e., "The Party" or "The Audience") while others are solitary faces that loom from the picture plane. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the work is the way in which the artist portrays skin as a composite of many colors and shapes, creating a rich and visually rewarding topography that encases the self."

Renee Harwin lives in Marin County and was recently featured in Claudia Chaplin Gallery's "Introductions '93." Harwin graduated from San Francisco State University in 1970 and went on to receive her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1973. Harwin has exhibited with success in the California Bay Area, including at University of California at Davis C.N. Gorman Museum (1993) and the De Young Museum.

Artist photo:
Renee Harwin, 1977.
University of California, Santa Cruz. McHenry Library, Special Collections.
With thanks to Regents of the University of California See less