Jack Roth (1927–2004), also known as "Rodney Jack Roth", was an American painter who developed a style as an
Abstract Expressionist
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
, and as a
Color Field painter.
He was born in Brockway, Pennsylvania. After studying with
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...
,
Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately follow ...
and
Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he bega ...
at the
California School of Fine Arts
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximatel ...
(now the
San Francisco Art Institute), he received a
Master of Fine Arts from the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 col ...
in 1952, and a
doctoral degree
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...
in
mathematics from
Duke University in 1962. He taught math at
Ramapo College
Ramapo College of New Jersey (RCNJ) is a public liberal arts college in Mahwah, New Jersey. It is part of New Jersey's public system of higher education. As of the fall 2021 semester, there were a total of 5,732 students enrolled at the college ...
in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, and also taught for brief periods at the
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida (USF) is a public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, and other campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota. It is one of 12 members of the State University System of Florida. USF i ...
and the
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state ...
. His work includes several large abstract paintings created by staining raw, unprimed canvas with thinned paint, allowing the colors to soak directly into the weave of the canvas. He was represented by and exhibited at the Knoedler & Co. Gallery in New York City from 1979 to 1986 and was named ''New Talent Graphic artist of the year'' in 1963 by
Art in America on the recommendation of
MoMA curators
Dorothy Miller and William S. Lieberman. In 1979 he was awarded a
Guggenheim fellowship and in 1982 he received a New Jersey Council on the Arts Award.
He exhibited paintings in the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
"Younger American Painters" (May 12 to July 25, 1954) – alongside
Sonia Gechtoff
Sonia Gechtoff (September 25, 1926 – February 1, 2018) was an American abstract expressionist painter. Her primary medium was painting but she also created drawings and prints.
Early life and education
Sonia Gechtoff was born in Philadelphia t ...
,
William Baziotes
William Baziotes (June 11, 1912 – June 6, 1963) was an American painter influenced by Surrealism and was a contributor to Abstract Expressionism.
Life and career
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Greek parents Angelos and Stella, ...
,
Morris Louis
Morris Louis Bernstein (November 28, 1912 – September 7, 1962), known professionally as Morris Louis, was an American painter. During the 1950s he became one of the earliest exponents of Color Field painting. While living in Washington, D. ...
,
Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he bega ...
,
Adolph Gottlieb
Adolph Gottlieb (March 14, 1903 – March 4, 1974) was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and printmaker.
Early life and education
Adolph Gottlieb, one of the "first generation" of Abstract Expressionists, was born in New York ...
,
Philip Guston
Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...
,
Franz Kline
Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...
,
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
,
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of the New York School, which also inc ...
,
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
and others. This was one of the first major exhibitions of
Abstract Expressionism at an American art museum, and it traveled to the
Portland Museum of Art
The Portland Museum of Art, or PMA, is the largest and oldest public art institution in the U.S. state of Maine. Founded as the Portland Society of Art in 1882. It is located in the downtown area known as The Arts District in Portland, Maine.
...
, the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...
, the
Henry Art Gallery
The Henry Art Gallery ("The Henry") is a contemporary art museum located on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the University District, it wa ...
at the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
,
University of Arkansas
The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...
,
Fayetteville,
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum).
LACMA was founded in 19 ...
and the
New Orleans Museum of Art
The New Orleans Museum of Art (or NOMA) is the oldest fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans. It is situated within City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton Avenue and Esplanade Avenue, and near the terminus of the ...
.
[Art of This Century: The Guggenheim Museum and Its Collection (, 0892070730)] He also exhibited at
MoMA in 1963 and MoMA purchased several works by Roth for its permanent collections.
Selected collections
* Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi
* Duke University Art Museum
* Museum of Modern Art, New York
* National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
* North Carolina Museum of Art
* University of Kentucky Art Museum
* Boise Art Museum
Exhibitions
Group exhibitions
* Exhibition Momentum Midcontinental, Chicago, Illinois (1952)
* 5th Annual Iowa Artists Exhibition, Des Moines Art Center, Iowa (1953)
* Younger American Painters, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1954) (traveled to Portland Art Museum; San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts; Los Angeles County Museum; Isaac Delgado Museum, New Orleans, Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville)
* 15th Southeastern Annual, Atlanta, Georgia (1958)
* 1st Hunter Gallery Annual, Chattanooga, Tennessee (1958)
* Knoxville Art Center National Exhibition, Knoxville, Tennessee (1958)
* South Coast Art Show, Sarasota, Florida (1958) (traveled to High Museum, Atlanta; North Carolina Museum of Fine Arts, Raleigh; Mint Museum, Charlotte; Birmingham Museum, Alabama)
* New Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art, New York (1963)
* Graphics 63, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky (1963) (circulated by the Smithsonian Institution)
* Group Show, Knoedler & Co., New York (1980)
* Summer Group Show, Knoedler & Co., New York (June 21 – September 23, 1982)
* Fall Show, Rosenberg Fine Arts, Ltd., Toronto, Canada (September 11 – October 16, 1982)
* Being and Becoming: First and Second Generation Abstract Expressionist Compositions, Peyton Wright, Santa Fe, New Mexico (2015)
* Mid-Century Abstraction: The American Vanguard, Sager , Braudis Gallery, Columbia, Missouri (2018)
One-man exhibitions
* 1949-50 Jack Roth, Contemporary Gallery, Sausalito, California
* 1963 Jack Roth, Grand Central Moderns, New York
* 1963 Jack Roth, Cinema I and II, New York
* 1965 Jack Roth, Kornman Gallery, Tampa, Florida
* 1967 Jack Roth, University of Florida, Jacksonville, Florida
* 1978 Jack Roth, Ramapo College Art Gallery, Mahwah, New Jersey
* 1980 Jack Roth: Recent Paintings, Knoedler & Co., New York
* 1980 Jack Roth: Ramapo Paintings, Clocktower, New York
* 1980 Gallery 99 Presents the Paintings of Jack Roth, Gallery 99, Bay Harbor Island, Florida
* 1981 Jack Roth, Knoedler & Co., New York
* 1982 Jack Roth: Drawings, Ramapo College Art Gallery, Mahwah, New Jersey
* 1982 Jack Roth, Rosenberg Fine Arts, Ltd., Toronto, Canada
* 1982 Jack Roth: Recent Paintings. Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey
* 1982-83 Jack Roth: Drawings and Watercolors. Ramapo College Art Gallery, Mahwah, New Jersey (traveled to Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio; Sweet Briar College, Sweet Briar, Virginia; Junior College of Albany, Albany, New York; Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey)
* 1983 Jack Roth, Millhouse-Bundy Museum, Vermont
* 1983 Jack Roth, Ochi Gallery, Boise, Idaho
* 1983 Jack Roth Paintings, Knoedler & Co., New York
* 1983 Jack Roth, Acrylics on Paper, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton
* 1985 Jack Roth Paintings, Princeton Gallery of Art, New Jersey
* 1985 Jack Roth, Wyckoff Gallery, New Jersey
* 1986 Jack Roth, Ramapo College Art Gallery, Mahwah, New Jersey
* 1997 Colonnades Gallery, Montclair, New Jersey
* 2011 When I grow up, I want to be just like Jasper Johns, Jack Roth Drawings
from the 1960s, McCormick Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
See also
Another Jack Roth was a drummer with
Jimmy Durante and appeared as a guest on ''
The Jimmy Durante Show
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
.''
And yet another Jack Roth is an English actor, the son of
Tim Roth
Timothy Simon Roth (born 14 May 1961) is an English actor and producer. He began acting on films and television series in the 1980s. He was among a group of prominent British actors of the era, the " Brit Pack".
He made his television debut ...
.
References
External links
Review of Roth exhibit in New JerseyVincent Vallarino Fine Art LtdFeatured Artists - Jack Roth
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roth, Jack
1927 births
2004 deaths
Artists from Pennsylvania
San Francisco Art Institute alumni
University of Iowa alumni
Duke University alumni
Ramapo College faculty
University of South Florida faculty
University of Kentucky faculty