PDF - Current Image & Data

Wedding (Primary Title)

Ron Gorchov, American, 1930 - 2020 (Artist)

1979
American
Paintings
oil on linen
Modern and Contemporary Art
Overall: 80 × 108 in. (203.2 × 274.32 cm)
85.541
G260D - Lewis Contemporary Galleries

“I began to have problems with the rectangle and flat painting, as well as with the tendency to regard sculpture as more palpable than painting. I’ve always looked at painting as an object.” —Ron Gorchov

Like many abstract painters of the 1970s and 1980s, Gorchov merged literalness—the idea that a work of art is an object—with painterliness—a work’s expressive qualities intrinsic to painting. In Wedding, the specially designed stretchers bow out at the top and bottom of the canvas, pushing the painting away from the wall and into the viewer’s space. By leaving the wooden edges of the stretcher unwrapped, Gorchov reinforces the painting’s thingness.

At the same time, Gorchov activated the canvas’s interior space. He places the “planaria”—what he named the pair of oval shaped for their resemblance to flatworms—off the central vertical axis, creating a sense of movement. The ovals, which also resemble eyes, suggest a diverted gaze.

Gift of the Sydney and Frances Lewis Foundation
"The Sydney and Frances Lewis Foundation", Edna Carlsten Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Stephens Point, Stephens Point, Wisconsin, 27 January - 15 March 1981; Gibbes Art Gallery, Charleston, South Carolina, 15 October 1981 - 10 January 1982; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Mississippi, January 31 – March 14, 1982; University Memorial Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, January 30 – March 13, 1983; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, March 25 – May 29, 1983; Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg, VA, November 6 – December 17, 1983; Huntington Galleries, Huntington, WV, June 2 – August 18, 1984

Ron Gorchov, Hamilton Gallery, New York, NY, October 20 – November 10, 1979
(Hamilton Gallery, New York) by 1979; Purchased in 1979 by The Sydney and Frances Lewis Foundation, Virginia; Gift to Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), Richmond, Virginia in October of 1985.
© Ron Gorchov

Some object records are not complete and do not reflect VMFA's full and current knowledge. VMFA makes routine updates as records are reviewed and enhanced.