Mixed Media
Harry Nadler
After moving to Albuquerque to teach in the art department of the University of New Mexico in 1971, artist Harry Nadler spent many years going back and forth between his New Mexico home and studio on Guadalupe Trail and an old fisherman’s cottage on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean on Long Island, New York. Twice a year, accompanied by his wife, Helen, he would load up his Volvo with art supplies and his Australian shepherd and make the cross-country journey. Most of his work has not been shown in New Mexico since his 1990 death, at the age of 60.
From the Sea to the Desert, an exhibition of paintings, prints, and drawings, opens at The Taos Center for the Arts’ Stables Gallery on Wednesday, Sept. 11. It is a rare chance to see Nadler’s art at a New Mexico venue. From the
Sea to the Desert, which was organized by friends and family members of the artist, brings together an array of works made between the early 1960s and the final year of his life. Influenced by Abstract Expressionism as well as the works of European artists, such as Francisco Goya, his work gravitates between the abstract and representational. Inspired by Goya’s 19th-century print portfolio Disasters of War, he developed an interest in the Holocaust as a theme at different stages of his career. He created a series of works in the early 1960s called Buchenwald Landscapes, which he dedicated to victims of the Holocaust. In the mid-1980s, after reading the works of Austrian philosopher Martin Buber, he created a triptych developed around the idea of sacred space, which was meant to memorialize Holocaust victims. In the last years of his life, he explored the convergence between art and spirituality, and immersed himself in a study of the Kabbalah.
A reception takes place at 6 p.m. on Sept. 13. The exhibition remains on public view through Sept. 15. The gallery is located at 133 Paseo del Pueblo Norte, Suite D. Call 575-758-2052 or visit the Taos Center for the Arts at tcataos.org for more information. — Michael Abatemarco