Yares Art is pleased to present Jules Olitski: The Mitt Paintings 1988–1993, in collaboration with Templon gallery in Paris. Both exhibitions will run concurrently and will showcase a total of fifty paintings by the painter and sculptor Jules Olitski [1922–2007]—one of the foremost and innovative artists from the American Color Field movement. This will be the most comprehensive exhibition of the Mitt paintings to take place in over thirty years.

Begun in 1988, the Mitt series define a unique phase of Olitski’s artistic path—a period during which the artist’s relentless experimentation with paint, color and texture reached new heights. A testament to Olitski’s ongoing mastery of materials and innovative techniques, the Mitt paintings exemplify his groundbreaking approach to abstract painting. Employing what was essentially “house painter’s gloves,” the artist spread layers of the newly developed Golden Artist Colors “Interference” paints mixed with thick gels across large-scale canvases that were positioned horizontally across the floor. These new iridescent acrylics allowed Olitski to sculpt his paintings with sweeping gestures and undulating movements. The creation of these richly modulated textured surfaces—otherworldly topographies of fluctuating light and color— fantastically still challenge the traditional boundaries between painting and sculpture.

Born in 1922 in Snovsk, Olitski emigrates a year later to the United States and settles with his family in Brooklyn. He attends Pratt Institute, the National Academy of Design, l’Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, and New York University. Among other achievements, Olitski becomes a pivotal figure in the Color Field movement alongside artists including Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Frank Stella.

Jules Olitski’s work has been exhibited extensively in major museums worldwide, including the San Francisco Museum of Art; the Portland Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where, in 1969, he was the first living American artist to have been awarded a solo exhibition. His paintings are held in numerous prestigious public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and Tate Modern, London.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, released in a bilingual edition (English/French), with an essay by Jim Walsh and an illustrated chronology by Alex Grimley.