-exhibition extended-

October 15 - Dec. 18th

Gallery Hours:
Saturday - 1 PM to 5 PM
Sunday - 1 PM to 5 PM

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ONE SUPPOSES THAT WRITING an appreciation about the remarkable Sari Dienes would be a simple task. Alas, it is more than that-in fact, a good deal more than a mere listing of accomplishments and honors, perhaps garnished by an anecdote or two. For a summing up of Sari finds one seeking meanings and explanations, for which there may be only elusive answers. How else does one assess statements—seemingly direct and guileless—made to a newspaper reporter earlier in this, her 87th year of productive life, in which she is quoted as saying: "I'm a Zen Buddhist, and believe that you should bend with the wind." And "Nothing is more certain in life than change . . . (and) art always changes. I never look back at what I've done, but only ahead ... You can't go back. Never." There, you have it—simple, direct, innocent, feisty. Sari Dienes. . Now, perhaps, one can understand her own self-assessment, "My life and my work are the same thing." She was once described by People magazine as "the doyenne of the American avant-garde movement ." Which may very well be. But Sari Dienes, whose halo of white hair and creative costuming have become something of a trademark, is above all the stuff of which legends are made. Yes, a one-of-a-kind. Though she has never achieved the great fame of a Georgia O'Keeffe or a Louise Nevelson. Sari does not begrudge the fact. Nor does it escape her that fame takes strange bounces, during one's lifetime ... and beyond. During an interview with this reporter at her mountainside home in Stony Point some years ago, she said, "Critics don't know what the hell to do with me. I don't work in any kind of tradition, so they find it hard to categorize me. I can't explain why I've not become better known. Maybe it will all come later." Sari's long career as an artist has been like a touch of yeast in the cauldron of the avant-garde movement in America, and most particularly, that which is encountered in New York. Her experimentation with new ideas and techniques—some of it, quite frankly, bizarre—has provided the art would with an effervescence that has been a force in shaping the direction of art in this century. One eminent critic has written: "She is one of the consistently inventive artists of recent decades ... and the wealth of her new ideas is still in the process of exploration." And this goes on to this day. If life is said to imitate art, then we have in Sari Dienes a strange mix, almost an anomaly. As vibrant, exciting and inscrutable as are her artworks, she, herself, is perceived as serene and, yes, almost grandmotherly. But don't be fooled. Closer scrutiny reveals that here is a person in absolute control of her creative vision. Nothing escapes her appraising eye. Sari once also described herself to this reporter as being " ... a painter, collagist, earthworker and troublemaker." Now, that's no mean assessment. Her artworks have been executed on scales ranging from the easily manageable to the grand. They have involved the discovery of a method of preserving Indian carvings and New England gravestone designs, to the creation of extraordinarily sensitive "pictures" lifted from city streets, to complex assemblages utilizing sound and light and articles found in garbage dumps. To Sari, there is nothing so humble it cannot be turned into an art form. Her ability to stretch the imagination to encompass every bit of the world around her has not gone unnoticed. LIFE magazine during its heyday in the 1950s documented her discoveries in both picture and story and turned her into a national celebrity. In 1980, People magazine devoted a two-page article to her over a headline that read: "Like Any Other Masterpiece, Sari Dienes Seems to improve With Age—She's 81 Going on 60." Awards also have come Sari's way. In 1972, the State of New York commissioned two large silk-screens depicting the state's tree (Sugar Maple), flower (Rose), bird (Bluebird), animal (Beaver) and gemstone (Garnet) to hang in a hearing room of the Legislative Building in Albany. She's also received a gold medal in art from the Academy of Parma (Italy) and funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1976, Sari was presented with the International Women's Year Award for her contributions to the world of art. She also visits New York regularly where she appears in exhibitions at the A.I.R. Gallery, the first woman's art cooperative in SoHo. Needless to say, she has also appeared in numerous shows in the most prestigious of galleries, including the Whitney and Museum of Modern Art, both here and abroad. She's had important shows in Japan and India. Born Sari Chylinska in Debrocen, Hungary, in 1899, she studied dance and philosphy in Vienna and Paris. While in Paris, she studied with Fernand Leger and Andre Lhote. She later married Paul Dienes, a poet and mathematician, and moved with him to London, where she began her studies with sculptor Henry Moore. While on a visit alone to the U.S. in 1939—her husband remained in London—World War II broke out, preventing her from returning. Dienes died in London in 1952. As Sari Dienes moves into her ninth decade, her creative energies remain undiminished. She delights in welcoming young artists to her Stony Point studio to share with them her own vitality and vision of art. Sari claims that the source of her inventiveness comes in part from the special communion with nature and the environment, both of which she feeds into her work. "All the forces of nature are alive," Sari Dienes says as she assembles and paints glass bottles, clay fragments, old bones, broken mirrors, dried beans and other "found" objects into works of art, charging them all with renewed mystery and beauty. MICHAEL HITZIG

Sari Dienes - Selected Exhibitions 1950-1962

-1950 Betty Parsons Gallery, NYC
- Brooklyn College, NYC
- Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL
- 1952 Whitney Museum, NYC
- Milwaukee Museum, Milwaukee, WI
- Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors and Drawings
- 1953 Brooklyn Museum, NY, Seventh Annual Print Show
- Dallas, TX, First Annual Dallas National Print Exhibition
- The American Federation of Arts, Traveling Print Exhibition
- 1954 Betty Parsons Gallery, NYC, Sidewalks of New York
- 1955 Betty Parsons Gallery, NYC
- 1959 Betty Parsons Gallery, NYC
- Andrew Crispo Gallery
- The Contemporary, NYC, Sidewalk Rubbings
- 1962 Museum of Modern Art, NYC, Art of Assemblage

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