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Street scene drawing in blue and black from Alex Katz’ 1960s studio in New York City, by Lowell Nesbitt. The artist’s Rottweiler dog peeks out the window. The subjects of many of Nesbitt’s studio interior paintings were those of his colleagues, including Claes Oldenberg, Robert Indiana, Helen Frankenthaler, and Andy Warhol. At the center of this composition, prewar building facades of Soho, sketched loosely in light blue, can be seen through a large picture window. Printed in black and blue, a hanging plant — de rigueur home decor of the 1970s — cascades to the windowsill, just to the right of the artist’s beloved Rottweiler, Eric, who is silhouetted in shadow. Hazy, mirage-like, the street view oozes tranquility, at odds with the chaos of the city.
At the center of this composition, prewar building facades of Soho, sketched loosely in light blue, can be seen through a large picture window. Printed in black and blue, a hanging plant — de rigueur home decor of the 1970s — cascades to the windowsill, just to the right of the artist’s beloved Rottweiler, Eric, who is silhouetted in shadow. Hazy, mirage-like, the street view oozes tranquility, at odds with the chaos of the city.
The artist’s mastery is evident in the dappled sunlight that falls across the hanging plant, illuminating just the dog’s ears. Along the window panes, Nesbitt has carefully depicted the debris of time and repeated paintings. Viewed closely, Nesbitt’s fine lines scatter in every direction, yet coalesce into uncanny realism as the viewer draws back.
Nesbitt was best known for his large-scale images of roses, lilies, and other blooms, depicted in close-ups reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe’s famed flower paintings. Other favorite subjects included studio interiors (Nesbitt painted the studio of Andy Warhol), his dog – a Rottweiler named Eric, Manhattan’s major bridges, and the Neo-Classical facades of SoHo’s 19th-century cast-iron buildings.
Lowell Nesbitt’s first solo museum exhibit was held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, and the artist later bequeathed over $1 million to the museum. After the Corcoran canceled a controversial exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs, Nesbitt publicly revoked his gift, as Mapplethorpe was an old friend.
Nesbitt exhibited frequently in both the United States and Europe and is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His first one-man show in New York City was at the Howard Wise Gallery in 1965, and over the years he was represented in New York by the Stable Gallery, the Robert Stefanotti Gallery, the Andrew Crispo Gallery, and the Marco DiLaurenti Gallery in SoHo.
