Deborah Remington

Crown Zellerbach Corporate Collection, San Francisco (acquired in 1960)

San Francisco, The 79th Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition of the San Francisco Art Association, 1960

Very few minor cracks in the thick paint; somewhat yellowed surface.
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Deborah Remington (born 1935) was raised in southern New Jersey and obtained her BFA at the Art Institute of San Francisco, just at the time (1955) when the Beat movement there was at its height.  She exhibited her work at the King Ubu Gallery in San Francisco in 1953.  Shortly after, the King Ubu Gallery closed and  its space on Fillmore Street was occupied by  the avant-garde "6" Gallery, founded in early 1955 by the poet Jack Spicer and five of his students from the Art Institute,  including Remington and Manuel Neri. The "6" Gallery exhibited paintings, had poetry readings ( Alan Ginsberg first read "Howl" there in October, 1955), showed experimental films and hosted jazz performances.  From its inception, it was a hub for the Beat Generation of San Francisco, which included local painters of Abstract Expressionism.

 

The present work is a key example from the early and emergent phase of her career when she was a central figure in the groundbreaking Abstract Expressionist movement in particular and the Beats in general.