I think we live in a paradise. This is the Garden of Eden, really it is. It might be the only paradise we ever know, and it's just so beautiful, with the trees and everything here, and you feel you want to paint it. Put it into a design. That's all I can say.
Albert York interviewed in The New Yorker in 1995 (Krol 2008).

York almost never comes into the city, makes no effort to keep up with contemporary art and hardly ever visits galleries and museums. He paints every day and finishes almost nothing. Mr Davis says York has made 11 paintings in the last 3 years.
The New York Times (Brenson 1988).

An old-fashioned painter, an eccentric recluse, America's most famous unknown artist. Albert York is all of these and more. Born in 1928 he came of age during the ascendancy of abstract expressionism, that Barbaric Yawp of modernism American style. Yet York, who began painting around 1959, preferred to make small personal statements in a minimalist, naturalistic style, one that harks back to late 19th century French painting - from Manet to Post-Impressionism. As he admitted in a rare interview, his work is decidedly "out of date" (Tomkins 1995).

Up to 1992 he produced a small number of paintings that gathered critical attention. Examples of his work can be found in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and collectors have included Jackie Onassis and Lauren Bacall (Hainley 1998). Now almost 80 years old, Albert York has lived on Long Island since the 60s, and though not widely known, it was recently said that "every serious painter in New York knows his work" (Mullarkey 2004).

York's pictures are all small - most no more than 12 by 14 inches - and on a simple support (plywood, masonite, tin or canvas board). Paint is applied broadly and with a certain looseness, but also sparingly and carefully; there is sensitivity to form and atmosphere here, along with a certain roughness that prevents the image from becoming too pretty. Usually the painted surface stops before the edge of the board, so the brushy paintwork is contrasted with the raw ground of the panel.

Bull Standing in a Landscape (1982)

The subject matter can be so simple it seems downright banal - a few trees, a cow, a vase of flowers, two women sunning themselves. At other times there is a curious tableau of figures with no obvious meaning - a woman and a stork, two red Indians, a group of dogs fighting. Sometimes there is a reference to an art historical motif, such as the three muses, death and the maiden, or Manet's Olympia.

However humble York's style appears at first glance, it is not at all naive. His approach is ultimately based on the innovations of Eduoard Manet (1832-83) - sketchy modeling and reduction of tonal gradation, bold use of silhouettes with large patches of colour, increased brightness and a minimal use of shadow (Novotny 1978: 331-41). In Manet's hands the result was an emphasis on the picture plane that was shocking to a 19th century audience, used to the detailed realism of academic painting. In Albert York's hands these qualities are no longer shocking, but instead help to create an intriguing duality between boldness of design and an uncertain, fragile atmosphere that is York's own.

The use of a horizon line in most of York's pictures creates a stage-like space devoid of perspective. In this imaginary picture space, objects are simply 'there'. They have an uncomplicated presence, emphasized by the stylistic simplification of form and the overall illumination of light. Yet these images also have a makeshift quality. They are clearly made of paint, and seem capable of dissolving back into paint at any moment. This feeling of transience gives the paintings a gentle mood of innocence or nostalgia.

Landscape with Two Trees and River (1962)

There are broadly three themes in York's work - landscapes, figures, and flowers. An early landscape such as Landscape with Two Trees and River (1962) has a more dramatic use of light than his later work. The sun glows on the horizon, and is reflected in the curving water of the river. Two trees stand tall against the sky. The romanticism in the quiet drama of this scene brings to mind the landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich.

As in Friedrich, the dignity of York's simplified forms is always informed by a relationship to the overall composition. In his landscapes, empty spaces structure the design into an unassuming lyrical arrangement with its own underlying rhythm. Take for instance The Sea, East Hampton (1964) and Grass Landscape (1970).

The Sea, East Hampton (1964)

Grass Landscape (1970)

In a rare interview York said he simply wanted to paint the beauty of nature and "put it into a design" (Krol 2008). The emphasis on design is revealing, since these paintings are clearly not aiming at 'naturalism' or 'realism' in terms of giving a detailed likeness or even an impressionistic view of reality. York's emphasis on design has more in common with the stylized version of nature seen in both symbolism and post-impressionism - artists such as Puvis de Chavannes and Paul Gauguin who simplify and organize their compositions to create a timeless and mythic atmosphere. The constructed nature of Albert York's paintings can be seen more clearly in his use of the human figure.

Woman and Skeleton (1964)

Seated Woman with a Stork by a Pond in a Landscape (1966)

In two early pictures York takes themes familiar from Renaissance art, and reworks them in gently humorous ways. Woman and Skeleton (1964) presents the vanitas image of death and the maiden. Death with his scythe watches (and waits for) the young woman looking at herself in a hand mirror. Like Manet in his Dejeuner sur l'Herbe (1862), York incongruously places his naked woman out of doors, crouching under a small tree or hedge, while the skeleton sits beside her in a relaxed, almost friendly posture as though also looking in the mirror. The next theme is the classical story of Leda and the Swan, famously portrayed by Leonardo da Vinci. Seated Woman with a Stork by a Pond in a Landscape (1966) alludes to the myth indirectly by using a stork instead (a symbol for new-born babies of course). The woman gazes affectionately at the bird, which is strutting, perhaps with typical male arrogance. The historical look of the woman's dress and hair adds to the allegorical feeling of this otherwise completely ordinary scene.

In later paintings York references other famous works of art by 19th century artists. Two Reclining Woman in a Landscape (1967) bears more than a passing resemblance to Gustave Courbet's The Young Ladies of the Banks of the Seine (1857). Updated into contemporary clothing the women lounge beneath a tree in similar postures to Courbet's ladies (said to be Parisian prostitutes). York gives us a new reading in which the women's relationship is made even more equivocal than in the original picture.

Two Reclining Woman in a Landscape (1967)

Reclining Female Nude with Cat (1978) is York's most self-conscious homage to another artist. A version of Manet's Olympia (1863), the famous portrait of a courtesan that kick-started modernism through its daring stylistic innovations and ironic reading of art history. York retains the model's slightly child-like frame and her haughty pose, her slipper and the red flower in her hair. However the black maid has disappeared, while the cat has grown to a disproportionate size. It stands guard over the naked woman like some totemic being, mirroring her direct gaze at the viewer.

Reclining Female Nude with Cat (1978)

Flower paintings are a genre that most people love or loathe. According to Schopenhauer, charming objects in painting appeal too directly to the senses, and defeat the pure contemplation of aesthetic form that is the aim of art (Schopenhauer 1969: 207-8). Clement Greenberg maintained a similar view in his defense of high Modernism against kitsch and popular imagery. Pots of flowers are potentially the most kitsch subject in art, but York's flowers have a formal clarity of design that avoids sentimental excess. For example, Wildflowers in a Terracotta Pot (1980) and Geranium in Blue Pot with Fallen Leaf and Bird (1982) both have a decidedly modest beauty, using a muted but rich palette of harmonizing colours. These plants are not showy, but have the natural dignity of everyday objects.

Wildflowers in a Terracotta Pot (1980)

Geranium in Blue Pot with Fallen Leaf and Bird (1982)

Albert York's artistic 'paradise' is clearly based on a sensitive observation of natural forms, along with an in depth knowledge of the visual language of art. It is also informed by a consciousness of painting as a self-reflexive act. Somehow, his paintings are as much about painting itself as anything else. It is perhaps this that makes his work so intriguing, and so contemporary despite itself.

Jason Beale 2008

Bibliography

Brenson, Michael (1988) 'Gallery View: Albert York abides in his world with grand aloofness', The New York Times, 20 March 2008. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE7DE163AF933A15750C0A96E948260

Davis & Langdale Company (2008) 'Albert York', Davisandlangdale.com http://www.davisandlangdale.com/Pages/AlbertYork.html

Hainley, Bruce (1998) 'Albert York. (Davis & Langdale Company, New York, New York)', Artforum International, Vol. 36, Summer, June 1998 http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-20912945.html

Krol, Christine (2008) 'Painting. Snow Weather', Christinekrol.com http://www.christinekrol.com/painting/snowweather.php

Mullarkey, Maureen (2004) 'Albert York: Paintings; A Loan Exhibition', Artcritical.com, October 2004. http://www.artcritical.com/mullarkey/MMyork-morandi.htm

Naves, M (2001) 'The Indelible Albert York, And His Genteel Cult Following', The New York Observer, April 29, 2001, http://www.observer.com/node/44362

Novotny, Fritz (1978) The Pelican History of Art: Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1780-1880, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, England.

Schopenhauer, Arthur (1969) The World as Will and Representation, Volume 1 (first published 1819), Dover Publications, New York.

Tomkins, Calvin (1995) 'Profile: Artist Unknown', The New Yorker, June 19, 1995, p. 76 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1995/06/
19/1995_06_19_076_TNY_CARDS_000373553