The Art of Jack Roth: Color Line Equations - Spanierman Modern

SPANIERMAN MODERNcolor line equations THE ART OF JACK ROTH (1927–2004) SPANIERMAN MODERNcolor line equationsTHE ART OF JACK ROTH (1927- 2004)

color line equationsTHE ART OF JACK ROTH (1927–2004)ESSAY BY THOMAS MCCORMICKMAY 12 – JUNE 11, 2011SPANIERMAN MODERN53 EAST 58TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10022-1617 TEL (212) 832-1400MCAMPBELL@SPANIERMAN.COMWWW.SPANIERMANMODERN.COM

discovery…For those of us who devote our lives to the art business,one of our passions is discovering a forgotten artist.When that happens, we all share in the exhilaration.Jack Roth created a brilliant body of work over a longcareer, beginning in the late 1940s, when he workedin San Francisco with Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still.Along the way, he became a Guggenheim Fellow—noeasy accomplishment—and joined the legendarystable of artists represented by M. Knoedler & Co. inNew York. Roth painted his way through the majordevelopments in postwar American art, from AbstractExpressionism, through Pop, and ultimately throughColor Field abstraction. His broadly stained canvases ofthe 1970s and ’80s are crisp, fresh, and smart. A brilliantmathematician (and a poet!), Roth brought considerablepowers to the game, placing his unique signature on thedevelopment of abstract painting in America.1. metafour #1, 1980Acrylic on canvas30 x 68 inchesSuffering from poor health for several years prior to hisdeath in 2004, Roth stored away much of his work in anonion barn in Chester, New York—creating a treasurechest waiting to be opened. With this exhibition we hopeto revive interest in a painter of tremendous talent andfervor, whose work is as compelling and vital today aswhen he put brush to canvas over sixty years ago.Ira Spanierman2 3

color line equationsTHE ART OF JACK ROTH (1927–2004)These paintings arealmost dangerouslyeasy to like, but theyhave teeth, and thoseteeth are kept ingood order.John Russell, New York Times (1980)Jack Roth, ca. 1980There has long been a divide between the disciplines of art and science, and it is rare for a personto possess the skill to not only cross the line but to excel in both worlds. Such a label may fairly beapplied to the Abstract Expressionist painter Jack Roth. His talent, success, and passion as a painterwere equaled by his pursuit and mastery of mathematics, poetry, and photography. The painter’swife and partner of fifty years, the artist Rachel Roth, recently remembered him this way: “Jack wasthe hardest working person I’ve ever known. I’ve never said this before, but I think he was a genius,and I don’t say that lightly!”Rodney Jack Roth was born March 13, 1927 in Brockway, Pennsylvania. At his father’s deathin 1931 the family moved to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where Jack had what he characterizedas a “normal” childhood. In 1943, he won a $35 Student Senatorial Scholarship and enrolled atPenn State University majoring in chemistry and agricultural-biochemistry. His narrow educationalviewpoint was liberated by a German professor who encouraged students to pursue a morehumanitarian and well-rounded education. Delving into philosophy, literature, history, and art, Rothtook a part-time job at the university library where he became an enthusiastic and copious reader.He particularly liked reading Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Zola, D.H. Lawrence, and Spengler.In June of 1945, Roth entered the Army where he had a variety of stateside assignments.These included Japanese language school in Minnesota, Adjutant General’s School in Georgia,Air Force classification specialist in Washington, D.C., personnel inspector for the Strategic AirCommand, analyst at the Pentagon for the Adjutant General’s Office and finally insurance specialistat Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco. There he married Colleen Bleier, an artist withwhom he had two children. Discharged from the service in 1948, he moved to Big Sur, where heaggressively worked in painting, drawing, and sculpture. His scientific thinking led him to develophis own formulation for linseed oil and earth pigments from the raw clays he dug locally. Heworked extensively in sculpture, in direct clay modeling, wood and metal constructions, and directwoodcarving. While in Big Sur he met a number of interesting characters, including the authorHenry Miller with whom he often played chess.Roth moved to San Francisco in 1949, where he hoped to study writing under the G.I. Bill, butenrolled instead at the California School of Fine Arts (later the San Francisco Art Institute). Therehe studied painting with Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, and ElmerBischoff. He was particularly influenced by Still, with whom he stayed friends later in life.His roommate at the time was Jon Schueler, with whom he also remained friendly later in NewYork. Roth was given his first solo exhibition in 1949 at the Little Gallery in Sausalito. While in theBay Area, he worked for a commercial silkscreen printer and the architect Forest Wright.In the fall of 1950, Roth returned to Penn State where he completed his bachelor’s degreein chemistry in 1951. Since his previous stint at Penn, Roth had come to realize that science wasless important to him than art, and he branched out into the study of art and music, giving lectures4 5

about the relationship of music and contemporary art. Roth next moved to the University of Iowafor graduate work, studying with James Lechay and Mauricio Lasansky. He also concentrated inmedieval, Asian, and modern art; Bergsonian philosophy; avant-garde American painting; Arabicand Chinese calligraphy; the influence of the I Ching on Southern Sung Painting; symbolismin the design of early Christian churches; and the relationship of non-figurative painting tomathematical physics. In June of 1953, he received his MFA with a thesis on Zen Buddhism andavant-garde painting in America.While in Iowa, Roth was busy with numerous outside activities as well; he foundeda cooperative gallery with four others called “Gallery 5.” He also reorganized a moribund oncampusstudent gallery called the Student Art Guild. He opened a commercial photographybusiness, photographed for the local paper, the Daily Iowan, and acted as art editor for a literarymagazine called Harbinger. A most important Iowa development was his introduction to a lovelyand talented art student named Rachel Chester, with whom there was instant chemistry. She wasone of the artists involved in founding Gallery 5. In May of 1953 Roth was divorced from his wifeand prepared to move to New York, arriving there in August. Separately, Rachel also headed toNew York.Roth settled on New York’s Lower East Side at 104 East 3rd Street, and he began looking forwork. His first job was in the office of a bra manufacturer, where he could outthink the calculatorsthey used for bookkeeping. He also freelanced as a reviewer and critic for The Arts Digest, wherehe reviewed a Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum. In 1954, he and Rachelwere married. Seeking more secure employment he sent out hundreds of job applications, buthaving little success, he began considering a return to academia. Meanwhile, he continued towork odd jobs including as a hotel night clerk and an orderly at Beekman Downtown Hospital.Meanwhile, Rachel enrolled in night school at Columbia University, taking a degree in libraryscience; she believed this would help if he went for his Ph.D. Jack and Rachel also began work ona book project titled East Side Address. This was an ambitious work of one hundred photographsby Jack, each paired with a poem by George Noss, whom the couple had met in Iowa, where hehad been a member of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.In 1954, Roth unsuccessfully applied for a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial FoundationFellowship in the field of photography, with the East Side Address project. However, he struckprofessional gold when James Johnson Sweeney, director of the Solomon R. GuggenheimMuseum, tapped him for the seminal exhibition Younger American Painters. The fifty-seven artistsin the show included Baziotes, Diebenkorn, Gottlieb, Guston, Kline, de Kooning, Motherwell,and Pollock. Sweeney traveled the country to select the participants, resulting in the first museumexhibition to focus on many of the key Abstract Expressionists. Sweeney adapted a travelingversion of the exhibition, also including Roth, which toured to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts,Indiana University, the Worcester Museum of Art, the Portland Museum of Art (Oregon), theHenry Art Gallery (Seattle), the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts, the Los Angeles CountyMuseum, and the New Orleans Art Museum.In 1956, Roth started graduate work in mathematics at New York University. Two years later,beginning what he called his “Southern period,” he moved to Durham, North Carolina, wherehe enrolled in graduate mathematics at Duke University, and Rachel found work as the librarianfor the Trent Collection of the History of Medicine. Roth finished his Ph.D. in 1962, and whilewriting his doctoral thesis, he taught mathematics at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Hetold a newspaper reporter once that life there was bearable only because he could listen to goodjazz, performed by patients from the famed, local drug rehab hospital. From 1963 to 1966, hetaught at the University of Southern Florida in Tampa. During this period he continued to makeart, although he traded in his brushes for pen and ink, working mostly in drawing. This was duemainly to a lack of suitable studio space and the demands of his graduate work.In 1963, Roth traveled to New York, where he presented work to the legendary Museum2. ibid #15, 1982Acrylic on canvas42 x 56 inchesof Modern Art curators Dorothy Miller and William Lieberman. Miller immediately purchased alarge drawing for the museum by Roth titled Where Are They Now. The work was shown that yearin the inaugural exhibition of the Paul J. Sachs Gallery, 60 Modern Drawings: Recent Acquisitions.Writing about the show in the New York Herald Tribune, John Gruen singled out Roth:One of the best drawings is by Jack Roth. Entitled “Where Are They Now,” it is a fanciful, yetpoignant, epitaph for some of our recent dead celebrities—Marilyn Monroe, Hemingway, FranzKline and Isaak Dinesen, among others. Their names are written, sometimes clearly, sometimeslike a smudge. Superimposed are some of their faces, drawn in veiled, ambiguous pencil strokes,as if allowing the viewer a final momentary glimpse of countenances that seem to fade intoshadows even as one looks. (August 2, 1963)That same year, with William Lieberman’s recommendation, the periodical Art in America namedRoth the new talent graphic artist of 1963. The University of Kentucky Art Gallery organized atraveling exhibition, Graphics 63, which was circulated by the Smithsonian Institution.Jack and Rachel never cared for life in the South, and in 1965 they moved back north,settling in Montclair, New Jersey, where Jack was hired as the chairman of the mathematicsdepartment at Upsala College. His employment there lasted for five years before he was deniedtenure for disruptive behavior— “making waves,” as his wife puts it. Roth, who was as demandingof those around him as he was on himself, came into conflict with the Upsala faculty andadministration. Writing in his defense, Roth stated:I realize now that the College is unable to become a great small liberal arts college. There is greatresistance to any sort of critical evaluation of our situation. The thought of change is frightening6 7

to the college as both success and failure are a threat to the present structure. Many seeminterested in the college as only a comfortable sinecure, which provides them with a modest living.They go through the motions most properly with little involvement and with a concern for littleexcept their own security.Roth found a new position at the recently opened Ramapo College in 1971, teaching bothmathematics and advanced painting. After three years, he received tenure and his finances weresecure. He was finally enjoying the kind of relaxed happiness that promoted productivity. He threwhimself into painting and authored two books on calculus. In 1977, he received the first ThomasesAward for outstanding contributions to the school. He also was given a large studio space andbegan making much larger canvases. This newfound sense of security and freedom helped setthe scene for Roth’s next success. In the following year he was able to produce over one hundredpaintings and a like number of drawings. Some of the paintings were very large, up to eight-bytwentyfeet.In 1979, Roth applied for a second time for a Guggenheim Fellowship, this time in painting,and in March of that year, he was informed he had been chosen. This was a tremendous honorand acknowledgement of his hard work and talent. The cash award of $14,000, combined with asabbatical leave from the college, allowed Roth to immerse himself in his work. In his June 1980report to Ramapo College summarizing his yearlong leave, Roth wrote:During the period in question I completed nearly 250 paintings, acrylic on cotton or linen canvas.These range in size from 78 x 100 inches to 3 x 10 inches and include about 30 polytychs.In addition I completed about 100 paintings in acrylic on paper, about 100 collages, and 400 or sodrawings… I thank the Guggenheim Foundation for making this year possible.For all his success Roth had yet to gain representation by a major New York gallery. Thatchanged in the summer of 1979, when he agreed to show with M. Knoedler & Co., located at 19East 70th Street in Manhattan. Knoedler was one of the top galleries in the country, representingthe estates of Alexander Calder, Adolf Gottlieb, and David Smith, along with the work of RobertMotherwell, Frank Stella, Nancy Graves, Friedel Dzubas, Jules Olitski, and Richard Diebenkorn.Roth’s first exhibition was held in January of 1980 and reviewed in the New York Times by JohnRussell:3. untitled(rope dancerseries), 1980Acrylic on canvas67 x 40 inchesJack Roth is a painter in his early 50s. This is his first one-man exhibition in New York, but it isimmediately clear that he has behind him a long history of hard work. His chosen idiom is thesoft-shelled abstractionism that in other hands has begun to look played out. Color ispredominantly matte and muted, drawing (where present at all) looks as if it might have beendone on the walls of a cave, forms are large and sprawl.But Mr. Roth has something of his own to add. He is a master, for instance, of the animated edge.Where the entire central area of his canvas is at peace with itself, as it usually is, the perimeter isfull of chromatic incidents of a cheeky, unsubdued kind. Where we are all set to relax with what looklike so many transplanted cloud structures, Mr. Roth comes up with a set of geometrical sharp edgesthat warn us not to take him for granted. These paintings are almost dangerously easy to like, butthey have teeth, and those teeth are kept in good order. (February 1, 1980)What John Russell probably did not know, but is unquestionably germane to the work, is thelink between Roth’s devotion to both painting and mathematics. The marriage of the two is likelyresponsible for the sharpness of those “teeth.” Roth wrote about this, especially around the timehe began showing with Knoedler. In an unpublished 1981 essay titled “Towards a MathematicalTheory of Art,” which exists in a jumble of edited rewrites, Roth sought to outline the mathematicalmechanism by which art searches for reality. While his precise theory is elusive, with topics such8 9

as mathematical algorithms, the Big Bang Theory, and Einstein, a few quotes serve to illustrate the spirit inwhich he tried to relate art and math:Since the beginnings of Abstract Expressionism the major problem has been that of subject matter.This is my concern also….We teach our students in mathematics to solve problems, equations,differential equations, etc.…The real problem, usually, is to state the problem. Language is the key.Until we can properly state the problem…we muddle about vaguely searching for a proper languageand logic.The title of this paper is “Towards a Mathematical Theory of Art.” I am not concerned withmathematical methods for making or evaluating art…I am looking for a mathematical explanationof such art, an explanation which I hope will clarify the “subject of the artist.”The subject of art is reality and the act of painting is a search for reality; a search for understanding.In the words of the American painter Hans Hofmann, a Search for the Real. I subscribe to this view.In this paper I outline the mathematical mechanism by which this search proceeds.4. cornering #211978Acrylic on canvas55 x 42 inchesAs Roth delves deeper into his topic it becomes difficult, if not impossible, for the average readerto understand. A more prosaic entry point to his frame of mind might be two quotes from his writing.The first is, from Lewis Carroll: “Begin at the beginning, continue to the end and then stop.” The second is,by Roth: “In the morning I shave. I look in the mirror but I don’t shave the mirror.”Whatever the philosophic and rational underpinnings of his work, Roth had a very successfulrelationship with Knoedler, selling over one hundred paintings in three solo exhibitions. His wife recallsthat in the beginning they doubted anything would sell, and as the gallery requested that more and morepaintings be sent to New York they worried what to do with them when they were returned. When it becameclear that the work was selling, it was gratifying but not what really concerned the artist. Rachel was moreenthusiastic about sales for, as she recalls, “Jack was never really concerned with the whole commercial sideof things.”In the early 1980s, Roth continued to exhibit outside New York. In 1982, he was awarded the NewJersey Council on the Arts Grant, which was followed up with solo exhibitions at the Montclair Art Museumin 1982 and the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton in 1983. In that same year he began showing at thePrinceton Gallery of Art, which was operated by Arline Snyder and her son Gary, who went on to open hisown successful gallery in New York. Gary Snyder included Roth in what would be the painter’s last majorshowing: Abstract Expressionism: Expanding the Canon, in 2001.In 1985, Roth had triple bypass surgery, which was successful but sent him into a long period ofdepression. He retreated into poetry for a period of time. Wanting a project that would keep them busyand take them out to the country, the couple bought a thirteen-acre property in Bloomville, New York, thathoused a complex of five barns. Rachel had always loved barns, and they envisioned this as a place to workand store paintings—the largest barn could hold eighty dairy cows. Sometime later they sold that propertyand bought a single, old barn in Chester, New York, which was a much shorter drive from Montclair. Thisbarn was used mainly as a storage facility for both artists’ work. In the early 1990s, Jack Roth began tosuffer early onset of Alzheimer’s disease and in 1992, he retired from teaching. He had great plans to keepworking and wanted to study cellular biology. The disease slowly progressed, and one day he announcedto his wife that he just could not paint anymore. She recalls that, true to form, he never complained. Rothbecame completely debilitated toward the end of his life and died in a care facility in March of 2004, justshy of his 78th birthday.In discussing his career recently, Rachel Roth was asked about the passion and fervor with which herhusband approached his work—both as a painter and an academic. She thought about it and said that herhusband had always given himself permission …permission to do anything he wanted, as many times ashe wanted. No barriers. Happily, the results of this philosophy are present in this exhibition for all to enjoy.Thomas McCormickChicago • March, 201110 11

5. parametricpressure, 1980Acrylic on canvas67 x 80 inches12 13

6. untitled, 1980Acrylic on canvas14 x 14 inches7. new synthesis #88, 1981Acrylic on canvas62 x 66 inches14 15

8. spring - 1, 1981Acrylic on canvas66 x 66 inches9. la ligne tremblante #7, 1980Acrylic on canvas55 x 67 inches16 17

1810. bête noire #2, 1979Acrylic on canvas70 x 100 inches

11. l’officiel - 4, 1979Acrylic on canvas57 x 52 inches12. untitled, 1976Acrylic on canvas70 x 60 inches20 21

16. new synthesis #26, 1981Acrylic on canvas48 x 84 inches17. metafour, 1980Acrylic on canvas, 67 x 54 inches26 27

2818. phant - 4, 1980Acrylic on canvas26 x 36 inches

19. rope dancer #37, 1980Acrylic on canvas17 1/2 x 38 inches20. untitled (rope dancer series), 1980Acrylic on canvas10 x 30 inches21. untitled, 1976Acrylic on canvas69 x 90 inches30 31

22. basic or black, 1966Acrylic on canvas68 x 68 inches23. untitled, 1980Acrylic on canvas54 x 54 inches32 33

24. dance to the music, 1981Acrylic on canvas22 x 18 inches25. dance to the music of spring,montclair #61, 1981Acrylic on canvas52 x 70 inches34 35

26. rope dancer #33, 1980Acrylic on canvas65 x 80 inches37

27. new synthesis #53, 1981Acrylic on canvas60 x 48 inches28. idem – 61982Acrylic on canvas90 x 47 inches38

4029. reeze, 1980Acrylic on canvas60 x 90 inches

public collectionsMuseum of Modern Art, New YorkNorth Carolina, Museum of Art, RaleighDuke University, Durham, North CarolinaUniversity of Kentucky, Lexingtonone-man exhibitions30. new synthesis #32, 1981Acrylic on canvas40 x 31 inches1949 Jack Roth, Contemporary Gallery, Sausalito, California (also 1950)1952 Jack Roth, Gallery 5, Iowa City, Iowa1953 Jack Roth Paintings, Hansa Gallery, New York1958 Jack Roth, Drawings, Chapel Hill Art Gallery, North CarolinaJack Roth, Paintings, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina1962 University of Kentucky Art Gallery, Lexington1963 Jack Roth, Drawings, Grand Central Moderns, New YorkJack Roth, Cinema I and II, New York1964 Jack Roth: To Interpret Reality, University of South Florida, TampaBoxes, Collages, Constructions, Florida Presbyterian College, St. PetersburgKornman Gallery, Tampa, FloridaJack Roth, Washington Place Gallery, LaGuardia Place, New YorkHastings College, Nebraska1965 Jack Roth, Kornman Gallery, Tampa, Florida1967 University of Florida, Jacksonville1978 Ramapo Series I, Ramapo College Art Gallery, Mahwah, New Jersey1980 Jack Roth: Recent Paintings, Knoedler & Co., New YorkJack Roth: Ramapo Paintings, Clocktower, New YorkGallery 99 Presents the Paintings of Jack Roth, Gallery 99, Bay Harbor Island, Florida1981 Jack Roth, Paintings, Knoedler & Co., New York1982 Jack Roth: Drawings, Ramapo College Art Gallery, Mahwah, New JerseyJack Roth, Rosenberg Fine Arts, Ltd., Toronto, CanadaJack Roth: Recent Paintings. Montclair Art Museum, New JerseyJack Roth, Gallery 99, Bay Harbor Islands, Florida (also 1983)1982–83 Jack Roth: Drawings and Watercolors, Ramapo College Art Gallery, Mahwah,New Jersey (traveled to Hiram College, Ohio; Sweet Briar College, Virginia;Junior College of Albany, New York; Montclair State University, New Jersey;New Jersey State Museum, Trenton)1983 Jack Roth Paintings, Knoedler & Co., New YorkJack Roth, Acrylics on Paper, Ochi Gallery, Boise, IdahoJack Roth, Milhouse-Bundy Museum, Waitsfield, VermontJack Roth, Acrylics on Paper, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton1985 Jack Roth Paintings, Princeton Gallery of Art, New JerseyJack Roth, Wyckoff Gallery, New Jersey1986 Jack Roth, Ramapo College Art Gallery, Mahwah, New Jersey1997 Collonades Gallery, Montclair, New Jersey2011 When I grow up, I want to be just like Jasper Johns, Jack Roth Drawingsfrom the 1960s, McCormick Gallery, Chicago, Illinois42 43

group exhibitions1952 Exhibition Momentum Midcontinental, Chicago1953 5th Annual Iowa Artists Exhibition, Des Moines Art Center, Iowa (First Younker Award)Exhibition Momentum Midcontinental, Chicago1954 Younger American Painters, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New YorkDallas Young Collectors Show, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Texas1955-56 Younger American Painters (traveling exhibition organized by the SolomonR. Guggenheim Museum, New York), Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Henry Gallery,University of Washington, Seattle; San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts;Los Angeles County Museum of Art; University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Isaac DelgadoMuseum of Art; Indiana University, Bloomington1958 15th Southeastern Annual, Atlanta, Georgia1st Hunter Gallery Annual, Chattanooga, TennesseeKnoxville Art Center National Exhibition, TennesseeSouth Coast Art Show, Sarasota, Florida (traveled to High Museum, Atlanta;North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina; Mint Museum, Charlotte,North Carolina; Birmingham Museum, Alabama)Group Show, Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts1963 60 Modern Drawings: New Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art, New YorkGraphics 63, University of Kentucky, Lexington (traveling exhibition circulatedby the Smithsonian Institution)Jack Roth and Rachel Roth, Paintings and Drawings, University of Kentucky, Lexington1980 Knoedler & Co., New York1982 1982 Summer Group Show, Knoedler & Co., New YorkFall Show, Rosenberg Fine Arts, Ltd., Toronto, CanadaTwo Person Show, Gallery of Fine Art, Princeton, New Jersey1995 Still Working: New Jersey Artists Over 65, The Gallery at Bristol-Meyers Squibb,Princeton, New Jersey2001 Abstract Expressionism: Expanding the Canon, Gary Snyder Fine Art, New YorkJack Roth, ca. 1980reviews and publicationsArt Digest (1953).J. J., “Jack Roth,” Art News 62 (Summer 1963), 18.Art Digest (1963).John Gruen, “A Chance to Catch Up at Seasonal Group Shows,” New York Herald Tribune,June 9, 1963, 6.Stuart Preston, “Art: Display of Drawings; Works of 46 American and European Painters atthe Modern Museum,” New York Times, August 2, 1963, 24.John Gruen, “60 ‘Drawings’—A Mélange,” New York Herald Tribune, August 2, 1963, 9.“Young Talent USA,” Art in America 51 (June 1963) 46-47, 52-53.Egbert Jacobson, exhibition review, Tampa Tribune, April 5, 1964, 7D.“Guggenheim Prizes Announced for 291,” New York Times, April 8, 1979, 32.Jack Tierney, “Art Rules Jack Roth’s Life,” The Herald News (New Jersey), May 15, 1979, B4.Judy Juanita, “Montclair’s Guggenheim Artist–Abstract Art from a Realist,” The Record(New Jersey), May 17, 1979, D4.Beverly Savage, “Artist-math prof enjoys the best of both worlds,” Newark Star Ledger,May 24, 1979, 63.Jane Blanksteen, “Interview with Jack Roth,” New York Times, May 27,1979, 24.New Jersey Monthly (August 1979), 112.John Russell, “Paintings by Jack Roth,” New York Times, February 1, 1980, C17.Valentin Tatransky, “Jack Roth,” Arts Magazine 55 (February 1981), 35.David Newman, “Jack Roth,” Arts Magazine 55 (March 1981), 24.Jack Roth, Jack Roth: Recent Paintings, exh. cat. (Montclair, N.J.: Montclair Art Museum, 1982).Tworkov, “El Arte Abstracto Nunca Muere por Ejemplo Jack Roth,” Goya 172(January-February 1983), 151-52.Vivian Raynor, “Trenton: West Coast Expressionism,” New York Times, September 11, 1983, 24.Eileen Watkins, exhibition review, Newark Star Ledger, September 25, 1983.Veranda (March-April 1999), 164.44 45

exhibition checklistbasic or black, 1966 (cat 22)Acrylic on canvas, 68 x 68 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on versodance to the music, 1981 (cat 24)Acrylic on canvas, 22 x 18 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on versoibid d-2, 1982 (cat 14)Acrylic on canvas, 55 x 55 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on versol’officiel - 4, 1979 (cat 11)Acrylic on canvas, 57 x 52 inchesSigned and dated lower rightSigned, dated, and inscribed on versonew synthesis #30, 1981Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 22 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on versonew synthesis #88, 1981 (cat 7)Acrylic on canvas, 62 x 66 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on versobête noire #2, 1979 (cat 10)Acrylic on canvas, 70 x 100 inchesSigned and dated lower rightSigned, dated, and inscribed on versodance to the music of spring,montclair #61, 1981 (cat 25)Acrylic on canvas, 52 x 70 inchesSigned, dated and inscribed on versoidem – 6, 1982 (cat 28)Acrylic on canvas, 90 x 47 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on versometafour, 1980 (cat 17)Acrylic on canvas, 67 x 54 inchesSigned lower rightSigned, dated, and inscribed on versonew synthesis #32, 1981 (cat 30)Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 31 inchesSigned and dated on versoparametric pressure, 1980 (cat 5)Acrylic on canvas, 67 x 80 inchesSigned and dated on versocornering #11, 1979Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 22 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on versoibid #6, 1982 (cat 13)Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 82 inchesSigned and dated lower centerSigned, dated, and inscribed on versometafour #1, 1980 (cat 1)Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 68 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on versophant - 4, 1980 (cat 18)Acrylic on canvas, 26 x 36 inchesSigned and dated lower leftSigned, dated, and inscribed on versola ligne tremblante #7, 1980 (cat 9)Acrylic on canvas, 55 x 67 inchesSigned and dated lower rightSigned, dated, and inscribed on versonew synthesis #53, 1981 (cat 27)Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on versocornering #21, 1978 (cat 4)Acrylic on canvas, 55 x 42 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed lower rightSigned, dated, and inscribed on versoibid #15, 1982 (cat 2)Acrylic on canvas, 42 x 56 inchesSigned and dated lower rightSigned and dated on versonew synthesis #26, 1981 (cat 16)Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 84 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on versoreeze, 1980 (cat 29)Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 90 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on verso46 47

exhibition checklistrope dancer #33, 1980 (cat 26)Acrylic on canvas, 65 x 80 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on versountitled, 1976 (cat 21)Acrylic on canvas, 69 x 90 inchesSigned and dated on versountitled (new synthesisseries), 1981Acrylic on canvas, 12 x 8 1/4 inchesSigned and dated on versorope dancer #37, 1980 (cat 19)Acrylic on canvas, 17 1/2 x 38 inchesSigned and dated lower rightSigned, dated, and inscribed on versountitled, 1979 (cat 15)Acrylic on canvas, 70 1/2 x 80 1/2 inchesSigned and dated lower leftuntitled, (rope dancer series)1980 (cat 20)Acrylic on canvas, 10 x 30 inchesSigned and dated lower leftSigned and dated on versospring - 1, 1981 (cat 8)Acrylic on canvas, 66 x 66 inchesSigned, dated, and inscribed on versountitled, 1980 (cat 6)Acrylic on canvas, 14 x 14 inchesSigned and dated on versountitled (rope dancer series)1980 (cat 3)Acrylic on canvas, 67 x 40 inchesSigned and dated lower leftSigned and dated on versountitled, 1976 (cat 12)Acrylic on canvas, 70 x 60 inchesSigned and dated on versountitled, 1980 (cat 23)Acrylic on canvas, 54 x 54 inchesSigned and dated on verso48