MATTHEW
DAUB
In the Shadow of Industry, watercolors and
drawings of Eastern Pennsylvania
January
20, 2001 - April 1, 2001
On
January 20, 2001, the Reading Public Museum
will open the provoking exhibit Matthew
Daub: In the Shadow of Industry, Watercolors
and Drawings of Eastern Pennsylvania.
The exhibit, which celebrates the great
urban American road, will run through April
1, 2001. An Artist's Talk with Matthew Daub
will open the exhibition at 5 p.m. on January
20th prior to a reception sponsored by the
Friends of the Reading Museum from 6 to
8 p.m. An exhibition catalog will be available
for sale while supplies last.
When
you view this exhibit and its breadth of
composition and virtuosity of technique
you will discover Matthew Daub, one of the
finest watercolor painters working in America
today. Daub has an uncanny ability to isolate
fragments of the urban scene in order to
draw attention to both the stunning detail
and the timeless subtleties inherent in
the ordinary. In Daub's own words, "As
a landscape painter I am part of a continuum
that transcends style, trends and art politics.
There always have been, and will continue
to be artists who paint what they see and
experience in their surroundings. For me,
it is a simple, yet imposing mission - to
paint what I admire and often puzzle over
in the world that I encounter daily."
In
an excerpt from the catalog, Dr. Robert
Metzger writes, "The ninety striking
watercolors and conte crayon drawings in
the exhibition take their subjects from
several Berks County locations: Reading,
Fleetwood and Kutztown and also from the
neighboring Lehigh and Lancaster counties.
By concentrating his major efforts on favored
sites in and around Reading, Daub ironically
presents a compelling vernacular portrait
of urban American life as a whole in the
second half of the twentieth century. These
scenes represent "everywhere USA"
in the same way that, Rembrandt's portraits
represent "every man." Specific
locales seem less important than the subtle
handling and mastery of transparent, faceted
washes on the houses, factories, storefronts,
warehouses, bridges, office buildings, churches,
garages, streets and rail tracks of urban
America." "I paint what I like
and also what I do not like," says
Daub. "I 'get it right' not by accurately
taking an inventory of windows or bricks,
but by exposing subtle emotions as they
are stirred, possible by a long shadow as
it hops a curb and ascends a red-orange
wall."
Daub's
capacity to endow a genuine sense of place
to the most common place and non-descript
subjects is a tribute not only to his enormous
technical skill but also to his unfailing
aesthetic sensibility. In lesser hands these
town and city subjects would appear banal
and plebian. Daub's goal has been to say
things with paint and crayon in his own
way so that his work appears authentic,
as opposed to being a display of rote technique.
He has sought to reflect a point of view
that is uniquely his own. Daub feels that
his greatest strength as an artist is his
persistence. He continues to work for better
or worse because he still enjoys the act
of painting and because he has confidence
that, when the smoke clears, something of
value will remain.
Another
nuance of Daub's work is the fact that his
paintings are marked by an absence of all
human existence. His scenes are ones where
you would expect to see crowds of people
where instead they are depopulated. A curious
irony pervades these lonely empty locations.
Close observation of Daub's world reveals
a strong yet reserved humanistic content
that is always implied rather than perceived.
It is as if the artist does not want to
know too intimately the lives of people
who live and work on these grim, gritty
streets. Yet, however obliquely, Daub makes
meaningful connections to shared human experiences.
Missed psychological connections were small
details of people's lives. Lives are submerged
and have lost their meaning in the haunting
message of Daub's American roads.
Although
born in New York, Daub has spent the last
third of his life living and painting in
eastern Pennsylvania, more specifically
in Berks County. Daub's watercolor paintings
and drawings have been widely exhibited
throughout the United States for over twenty
years. Venues included the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, the American Academy of Arts
and Letters, and the Bronx Museum of the
Arts. He has been a Professor of Fine Art
at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania since
1987.
Robert
Metzger, Ph.D
Director, CEO, Chief Curator Reading
Public Museum
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