Biography from AskART:
| Contemporary artist Philip Taaffe, specializing in post-modern decorative abstraction, was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1955. He lives and works in New York City. His paintings are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art.
Rene Ricard writes the following paragraphs about Philip Taaffe, placing Taaffe's work in the context of Pompeiian painting: "Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis is the principal source for what we know about Greek and Roman art. I'd been reading Pliny this winter. Coincidentally, Philip Taaffe also read Pliny's "Natural History" this year, and hearing about my research wanted me to see his new paintings that derive considerable inspiration from the book. What caught my attention about Philip's paintings, however, was not their ostensible subject matter-the starfish, dragonflies and fantastic birds but more to the point, their structure reminded me immediately of Roman wall painting, the beginning of a tradition that runs parallel and yet distinct from European easel painting. In fact, one of Philip Taaffe's new paintings, 'Aviary,' is composed of birds and feathers: there is a room in the Domus Aurea painted entirely with birds."
"I asked Philip Taaffe how he thought of the surface that he worked on and he said, 'Campo.' In Italian the word campo means field. But when you hear it its often with other words in a phrase - like Campo dei Fiori or Camposanto (cemetery). These campi usually have a wall around them or are bordered by houses: framed that is. But by thinking of the painting area as a field (rather then a window, which implies space), one precludes formal limits. One can simply place things as one wills. Consider the paintings inside the Golden House of Nero: they are severely gridded. They relate to modern art and to Philip in particular because if there is no grid, if there isn't this kind of structure relating to the outside perimeter of the wall or canvas, it doesn't work in the dialectic that has been historically imposed on modern painting. Phillip's paintings 'Diadem' and 'Glyphic Field' have gridded compositions in two distinct senses. The architectural construction of 'Diadem' relates to the internal pattern of the silica casing of the diatoms, and in his treatment of them the scale remains consistent. In 'Glyphic Field,' the layers of printed petroglyphs seem to move and spiral, yet maintain the integrity of an ordered grid. Once I was pointing to 'Bal Asterie' to illustrate Philip's use of grid upon grid, and he replied, 'I have a negative approach to handling the grid I'm suspicious of the grid, I try to avoid those constraints, but at the same time, as an ordering device, its second nature to me.'"
"Philip Taaffe's new paintings are very large, like walls, and impose the same demands as a wall. The problems he faces are the same as any painter's. He has simply chosen to address his canvas the way Famulus would have in the construction of elaborate detail within the architecturally determined subdivisions of pictorial space. Philip said something telling about this connection: 'I believe in the concept of art coming out of some historical precedent. I like to examine and investigate the issue of historical precedence and either to rupture it, or to find a method of continuity. To find the thread -- break it, or continue it, but to respond somehow.' This is the perfect statement of the modern painter; it's what distinguishes the painter from someone who paints, this response to prior art. I know that Philip lived for quite a while in Naples, and that Pompeii is in his blood I've been able to study his paintings while they were fresh and to experience the consonance of his work with a spiritual brother of his who lived two thousand years ago. Pliny doesn't tell us how Famulus died. Or maybe Philip Taaffe is Famulus, determined this time to do it right and not get thrown out of art history."
http://www.renericard.org/essay-taaffe.html
http://artscenecal.com/Listings/WestHwd/GagosianFile/PTaaffeFile/PTaaffeBio.html
exhibitions
Philip Taaffe's exhibitions and articles include:
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1982
New York, Roger Litz Gallery
1984
Hamburg, Galerie Ascan Crone
New York, Pat Hearn Gallery
1986
New York, Pat Hearn Gallery, January
Hamburg, Galerie Ascan Crone
Cologne, Galerie Paul Maenz, November 13 - December 6.
1987
Boston, Mario Diacono Gallery, October 16- November 14.
New York, Pat Hearn Gallery, March 21 - April 12.
1988
Chicago, Donald Young Gallery
Naples, Galerie Lucio Amelio, December 12, 1988 - January
1989
1989
New York, Mary Boone Gallery, May 6 - 27.
New York, Pat Hearn Gallery, May 6 - 27.
1990
Paris, Galerie Samia Saouma, November 29 - December 29.
1991
Cologne, Galerie Max Hetzler, March 22 - April 20.
New York, Gagosian Gallery, November 21, 1991 - January
11, 1992.
1992
None
1993
Dallas, Gerald Peters Gallery, February 18 - March 27.
Miami, Center for the Fine Arts, April 3 - June 20.
Galerie Max Hetzler, Koln, Germany, October 1 - October 30.
Gagosian Gallery, Wooster Street, April 9 - May 14.
1994
None
1995
None
1996
Vienna Secession, November 23 - January 12, 1997.
1997
Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, March 22 - April 19.
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