The Pelham Arts Center Announces Calls For Entries

From The Pelham Arts Center:

Pelham Art Center is pleased to announce a call for entries for the 9th Alexander Rutsch Award and Exhibition for Painting. This juried competition is open to U.S.-based artists aged 19 and older. A $5,000 cash prize and a solo exhibition at Pelham Art Center are awarded to the winner. Pelham Art Center is proud to sponsor the competition and award to honor the memory and artistic achievement of Alexander Rutsch (1916 – 1997), an artist who actively supported Pelham Art Center for more than 25 years. After his death, friends, family and supporters of Alexander Rutsch established a generous fund to support a biennial, open, juried competition in painting. The last Rutsch Award recipient was Texas-based artist Lindy Chambers.

The Alexander Rutsch Award and Exhibition program continues Rutsch’s belief that art transcends all of our humanity. Rutsch saw art as “the stone in the water sending ripples throughout the universe.” His extraordinary work, rich in the celebration of life and our shared human experiences, is included in many of public and private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Those interested in submitting work for the 9th Alexander Rutsch Award and Exhibition can find the prospectus and entry form beginning November 1, 2016, at www.pelhamartcenter.org/rutsch. For questions, contact gallery@pelhamartcenter.org or 914-738-2525. Entries must be received byFebruary 1, 2017.

For Listing Purposes

2017 Alexander Rutsch Award and Exhibition for Painting.

Solo Exhibition May 5 – June 17, 2017, and $5,000 cash award.

U.S. based artists, 19 years of age and older. All work submitted must be available for exhibit.

Entries must be received by February 1, 2017. Download prospectus and apply online beginningNovember 1, 2016, at www.pelhamartcenter.org/rutsch. Questions:gallery@pelhamartcenter.org or 914 738 2525

About Alexander Rutsch

Alexander Rutsch was born in Vienna, Austria. After studying voice in Austria, he became an opera singer like his parents, but after WWII, Rutsch’s love for visual expression propelled him to change careers. He was a painter, sculptor, philosopher, musician, singer, and poet. His life as a romantic is reflected in his work, as he sought to perfect his soul and humanity. “I paint my dreams,” said Rutsch. “My dreams are color and life. They soar in my head like millions of symphonies. I can never stop building dreams.”

In 1952, after studying under Josef Dorowsky, Josef Hoffmann, and Herbert Boeckl at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, Alexander Rutsch received a scholarship to study in France, where he made contacts and began collaborations with his contemporaries Picasso and Dali, among others. Rutsch said of his experiences with Picasso, “Picasso played a short but important moment in my life in Paris that affected my entire artistic future. I learned from him that it is not important if art is not aesthetically finished. It can be raw, uncooked, rough. If an artist feels he has said it – it is not important to polish or finish it. Because of Picasso, I learned that if I don’t feel the need to finish – I don’t have to.” In 1954, he exhibited his work at the Salon Artistique International de Saceux and won first prize for abstract painting, the first of many awards during his prolific career.

During the 13 years he lived in Paris, Rutsch exhibited in many prominent galleries there and throughout Europe. In 1958, the City of Paris awarded him with the prestigious Arts, Science and Letters Silver Medal. In 1966, Jean Desvilles presented his prize winning film “Le Monde de Rutsch” at the Cannes Film Festival and the Venice Biennial. In 1968, Rutsch moved to Pelham, New York, where he continued to work in his studio and exhibit in galleries and museums worldwide.

Rutsch’s work, as seen through his mastery of various art forms – sculpture, painting, print-making, and drawing – has been described as “vibrating showers of lines, bold geometries, wounded anatomically rambling scrap-wood skeletons, enigmatic totem figures, and congregations of fetishized, domesticated, and recycled rubbish heaps [that] conspire to a fantasy of Expressionism, Cubism, Dada, Fauvism, Cobra, and Primitivism.” His pieces, as described by Emily Genauer, impart silence and the monumentality of primitive statuary. His sculptures are stylized to abstract construction made of “found” objects, welded and reshaped into bronze figures and animals of uncommon wit, airy grace, and individuality. His portraits are crisp, intense, spare linear characterizations that convey empathy. Pelham Art Center is proud to sponsor a competition and award to honor the memory and artistic achievement of Alexander Rutsch. Visit www.alexanderrutsch.com to learn more.

Previous Winners

2015 – Lindy Chambers

2013 – Siobhan McBride

2011 – Nina Rizzo

2009 – Tracy Miller

2007 – Liang Guo

2005 – Dorothy Robinson

2003 – Mitchell Marco

2001 – Frank Trankina

Photo Courtesy of The Pelham Arts Center