Artist: Ronnie Landfield

Findlay Galleries presents 19 new works from New York’s critically acclaimed color field painter Ronnie Landfield.

The name Ronnie Landfield ought to be synonymous with New York. Despite the City playing host to more than 75 years of dynamism in art, too few of the most well-known names were born and raised New Yorkers. Indeed, most of the greats were pulled here from elsewhere, whereas Landfield is a homegrown phenomenon.

Ronnie Landfield was born in the Bronx. In the early 1960s, he was attending the High School of Art and Design and enhancing his education by frequenting the 57th Street galleries where he met legendary artists and dealers. Soon, Max’s Kansas City and the Longview Country Club, places modern dealers and young artists only whisper about, were common haunts for artists like Landfield and his contemporaries. Where else would a young Ronnie Landfield find himself at the bar next to a young Larry Poons, both still emerging, and decades later still good friends?

Only in New York would a brash young Landfield find a patron in the renown American architect Philip Johnson, a supporter of avant-garde movements and young artists, who was then building his substantial art collection. Johnson would soon donate the iconic Landfield painting, Diamond Lake, to MoMA for their permanent collection, but not before the Whitney recognized Landfield’s talent and included his work in their 1967 Annual Exhibition.

Now, decades into a successful career, with work in major museums nationwide, Landfield remains part of the fabric of the city. He is a beloved teacher at the Art Students League – and he does the teaching, not an assistant. Despite his museum collections, his work is now in one of the City’s most iconic institutions – the subway. MoMA is featuring Landfield’s painting, Diamond Lake, in a major subway advertising campaign, coursing beneath the city streets in hundreds of subway cars, on a dozen subway lines, conveying millions of riders. That’s as New York as it gets.

Of course, artists flock to New York to try to make these very things happen. That’s the City’s dream and promise. However, when a young New York City kid becomes the dream and contributes to the promise, doesn’t that make them synonyms?