The New Gallery - Thom Andriola - Houston, Texas Contemporary Fine Art

	Tony Magar Tony Magar has always been a painter's painter. He is a genuine paint mover whose colors dance, slash, splatter and arabesque across a richly textured picture plane. As informally spontaneous as the work sometimes appears to be, each painting is held together by a solid underlying structure of balance and form. Despite his free flowing gesture, Tony Magar is an accomplished draftsman and a pure poet of the painterly language. In his recent body of work, Magar returns, full force, to his Abstract-Expressionist roots; pulling together paintings that express a reverence for the past while maintaining a fresh contemporary vitality. Music has always been an important element in Magar's creative process. From Jazz to Classical; Jarrett to Coltrane to Samuel Barber to late Beethoven Quartets. In the works of Tony Magar, the tonality of the music translates into the tonality of the colors in his painting, while the rhythm and tempo become like the gesture and compositional form. He is one of the most active remaining artists of the great American Abstract-Expressionist generation.Magar has an entire chapter in the recent book 'New American Abstraction 1950-1970' published by Skira. His first exhibition was at the legendary Martha Jackson Gallery in 1958, where he exhibited side by side with Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, John Chamberlain, Willem De Kooning and Franz Kline. Magar was co-founder, along with Mark Di Suvero, of New York's legendary 'Park Place Gallery'. Forty-five years later, Tony Magar is still going strong. -resume. Thom Andriola New Gallery

Tony Magar has always been a painter's painter. He is a genuine paint mover whose colors dance, slash, splatter and arabesque across a richly textured picture plane. As informally spontaneous as the work sometimes appears to be, each painting is held together by a solid underlying structure of balance and form. Despite his free flowing gesture, Tony Magar is an accomplished draftsman and a pure poet of the painterly language.

In his recent body of work, Magar returns, full force, to his Abstract-Expressionist roots; pulling together paintings that express a reverence for the past while maintaining a fresh contemporary vitality.

Music has always been an important element in Magar's creative process. From Jazz to Classical; Jarrett to Coltrane to Samuel Barber to late Beethoven Quartets. In the works of Tony Magar, the tonality of the music translates into the tonality of the colors in his painting, while the rhythm and tempo become like the gesture and compositional form.

He is one of the most active remaining artists of the great American Abstract-Expressionist generation.Magar has an entire chapter in the recent book 'New American Abstraction 1950-1970' published by Skira. His first exhibition was at the legendary Martha Jackson Gallery in 1958, where he exhibited side by side with Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, John Chamberlain, Willem De Kooning and Franz Kline. Magar was co-founder, along with Mark Di Suvero, of New York's legendary 'Park Place Gallery'.

Forty-five years later, Tony Magar is still going strong.

-resume.

Thom Andriola
New Gallery