Thomas Dane Gallery will present an exhibition of American artist Paul Thek (b. 1933, Brooklyn, New York, d. 1988, Manhattan, New York) curated by Kenny Schachter and Jonathan Anderson, featuring paintings, works on paper and previously unseen sketches and writings. Spanning three decades of the artist’s career, this will be the first exhibition of Thek’s work in the UK for over a decade, and the first in the UK to focus on the artist’s painting practice. Paul Thek sketched and painted throughout his life, portraying friends and loved ones, documenting his surroundings and giving form to conscious and unconscious thoughts...
Thomas Dane Gallery will present an exhibition of American artist Paul Thek (b. 1933, Brooklyn, New York, d. 1988, Manhattan, New York) curated by Kenny Schachter and Jonathan Anderson, featuring paintings, works on paper and previously unseen sketches and writings. Spanning three decades of the artist’s career, this will be the first exhibition of Thek’s work in the UK for over a decade, and the first in the UK to focus on the artist’s painting practice.
Paul Thek sketched and painted throughout his life, portraying friends and loved ones, documenting his surroundings and giving form to conscious and unconscious thoughts and desires. Painting and drawing seized the artist with joy, and beyond, provided a form of idiomatic religious fervour. Unlike his sculptural works, which often confront the viewer with their visceral physicality, Thek’s paintings offer a quieter, more delicate meditation on life and experience. Using watercolour, gouache and ink, Thek created dreamlike compositions, often featuring poetic sentences or brief texts infused with spiritual and existential undertones. Transient by nature, the sheets of newsprint on which Thek frequently painted become themselves a profound metaphor, reflecting the fleeting moments of thought and emotion that the artist sought to capture. From Thek’s early technical drawings to his sublime landscapes of Ponza and the Mediterranean coastline, and finally his iconic New York cityscapes and abstract compositions combining text and symbols, the exhibition will offer a window onto the more intimate and personal realms of Thek’s visual universe.
