Shared Brilliance: A Bolt of Color at Jody Klotz Fine Art

Jody Klotz Fine Art presents Juxtapositions, a rare and revelatory encounter between two of the most compelling American abstract colorists to emerge in the mid-twentieth century: Friedel Dzubas (1915–1994) and Emily Mason (1932–2019). Bringing together thirty paintings and works on paper spanning from the 1960s through the final decades of their careers—Dzubas into the 1980s and Mason into the 2010s—the exhibition situates their practices in a sustained, cross-generational conversation.

As successive waves of younger artists turned toward conceptual art, pop, minimalism, performance, and post-studio experimentation, the primacy of painting was repeatedly called into question. Against this backdrop, Dzubas and Mason remained deeply committed to the possibilities of abstraction, insisting that the simple, physical act of laying paint on canvas could still yield inexhaustible emotional and perceptual complexity.

In an interview with gallerist Jody Klotz for PATRON, we discuss Dzubas and Mason’s common ground, one that reaffirms the enduring vitality of abstract painting.

Patron (P): What first prompted the decision to place Dzubas and Mason in direct dialogue, given that they worked largely unaware of one another?
Jody Klotz (JK): Like most ideas I have, it was intuitive and spontaneous. It went off like a lightning bolt in my head while standing in my gallery surrounded by some great paintings by both artists that I had recently acquired. 
I love both of these artists’ work and in recent years have been actively acquiring them. I have also placed many in private collections. I purchase all of my gallery inventory, which is not so common in today’s art market, and at that moment, I had numerous great works by both artists. The visual dialogue between them that I internalized prompted the idea. They just looked gorgeous together, and of course were painted in the same period, which was an obvious connection. I am very color oriented in my taste, not exclusively, but often. They are both all about expressive color, each with a unique color language or dialect, so to speak.
For a couple of years I have been wanting to do something in my gallery with Emily Mason, and this was a unique and original approach to exploring both artists’ work.

P: How did you determine which works best articulate the idea of “juxtaposition” rather than simple comparison?
JK: My idea was specifically to juxtapose these two important post-war artists and figure out how they compared and contrasted; stylistically, their backgrounds, their techniques, artistic milieus, and trajectory, etc. Where were the parallels? How did they relate to and differ from each other? How interesting was the idea? I was curious about it. At that point, I had accumulated around 30 works combined by the two artists—a substantial foundation for a show and vehicle to explore those ideas. 

My great fortune was that the outstanding art historian Patricia L Lewy agreed to write an in-depth essay on this theme for my gallery catalog and it really makes the show! Patricia is unquestionably the expert on the Dzubas, having written three books on the artist, including a defining monograph, and is associated with the Dzubas Estate. She was able to bring to life and flush out this premise brilliantly, and I am extremely grateful for that. I am not an art historian or scholar, but an art dealer for 45 years now, so I do have a perspective, but I would say my strength is the big ideas, and, of course, acquiring all of these works, which is no simple feat.

P: What curatorial logic shapes the installation: chronology, emotion, or visual relationships?
JK: Definitely visual relationships and emotion. Hanging a show of purely abstract works is challenging; getting them to visually “play together” in relation to their colors, dynamics of form, and creating a harmonious sense of energy to the works is an instinctive process for me.   As the theme of the show IS Juxtapositions, I thought to create pairings of a Dzubas with a Mason throughout the show, interspersing them as opposed to say one side of the gallery being Mason and the other Dzubas, would best illustrate the idea. More interesting that way. My gallery director Joshua Wright and I will do this together and it is a very challenging and fun process.

P: Both artists emphasize the emotive power of color—how do you see their emotional registers differing?
JK: Oh, very different, and quite varied throughout their respective bodies of works.  A generalization, but for me Emily Mason’s work is extremely soulful and makes me feel more introspective than a Dzubas works, who, generally speaking, feel more soaring and uplifting. 

P: Do you notice recurring color pairings or chromatic strategies that feel almost conversational between their works?
JK: I think they play off of each other in a way that does feel conversational, and we have tried to express that through the pairings on the wall in the show. But I find that difficult to express, it is more experiential for me.
But I can say that a high level of expressiveness in both artists work is palpable. Every painting has a voice of sorts, these paintings feel quite musical to me, the idea of how color relates to music is so interesting as well and has been explored from Kandinsky through to the teachings of Hans Hoffman. So I don’t know if conversational is the word that would come to mind, but like different musical notes interacting is how it resonates with me. 

P: How might viewers’ bodily or spatial experience change when moving from Dzubas’s work to Mason’s within the gallery?
JK: Depends on the painting really, as you would have very different feelings or spatial experience from one Emily Mason to another and with Dzubas as well. But to generalize, I think you would feel like you were opening up and soaring through the air with an expansive feeling looking at a Dzubas. They make me feel like I am coming out of myself like the feeling of looking at a grand landscape.  With Mason, i feel more contemplative with a sense of deep immersion into a world of color that you could almost fall into and swim in, like experiencing the feeling of a natural event.  What does the energy of El Nino feel like; she captures that in one of the paintings with that title included the show.

P: Are there moments in the show where their differences are meant to feel unresolved or even tense?
JK: Dzubas shifted from oil to Magna acrylics—how does that material change affect the physical presence of his paintings?
I actually only have one work by Dzubas in the show that is done in oil, which is entitled Redland from 1964.
In 1965 he changed his medium from oils to magna acrylic, which he would use to the end of his career. He was attracted to it because it dried quickly and held its color over time. And it allowed him to paint his large canvases without the long drying time needed for oils, which made it less messy.  

P: Mason often poured paint but later intervened with brushes and tools; how visible is that negotiation between control and chance?
JK: It is not visible at all to me. Mason would use a variety of techniques after pouring her paint and tilting the canvases in different directions before intervening on the surface by scrubbing, overpainting, scratching and marring her surfaces.  But at the end, you really do not sense the artist’s hand.  It’s like alchemy, or visual magic! She was masterful and her paintings feel effortless.   She talked about wanting every painting to take her somewhere she’s never been before, as though the paint is creating it with her, not she on her own.

P: Are there works here where each artist unexpectedly mirrors the other’s technique?
JK: I don’t really think so. They are very different and distinctive voices, but they have common threads, one being the visceral effect on the viewer which is very exciting expressed through interactive color.

P: How does scale factor into the emotional impact of each artist’s work—from intimate studies to monumental canvases?
JK: That is a very good question!  I have two very large and spectacular works by Dzubas in the show; 8 x 8-foot painting and a 4 x 13-foot paintings. The scale of the paintings definitely contributes to a more expansive impressive feeling from them, but there are two 7 x 5-inch Emily Mason paintings that are so exquisite. They are tiny little compact worlds of their own which I think are equally emotionally powerful. I do not equate a greater emotional impact with scale.

P: Did either artist conceive of their paintings as immersive environments rather than discrete objects?
JK: Dzubas very much so. He was inspired by the limitless space of Baroque painting, particularly the 18th century Italian master Giambattista Tiepolo, who painted those grandiose ceilings and frescos populated with figures that create the illusion of an endless sky with everything moving upward.  He recreated this sense of expansiveness in his paintings like the historical and religious frescos that inspired him.  He was definitely interested in painting on a heroic immersive scale.

P: In what ways did Greenberg’s influence shape Dzubas’s reception, and how might that lens differ today?
JK: Greenberg’s influence had an undeniable influence on Dzubas’s career, as Greenberg was highly influential and introduced Dzubas into his circle of gallerists and artists, which led to his being included in shows at commercial galleries like Leo Castelli Gallery, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, Kootz Gallery where Greenberg curated a show entitled Talent 1950 and included Dzubas, and others.  He was included in the now celebrated “Ninth Street Exhibition” in 1951.  Many of Dzubas’s connections came indirectly or directly through Greenberg, with whom he became friends in 1948.

P: How has broader art-historical scholarship altered the way Emily Mason’s work and legacy are understood, particularly beyond the New York School’s male-centered framework?
JK: In recent years, there is a focus on rewriting the narrative of Abstract Expressionism to include women artists in their rightful place of importance in that history, as they were marginalized in that narrative due to many factors. So there is that. But also, she is being re-evaluated and rediscovered in the art world and market at large in a big way.  She did not fit neatly into any category and did not like being categorized. I think perhaps the fact that she was painting in her style as Conceptual and Minimalism developed, and she, like Dzubas, stayed their course, that maybe the work was not in as much focus.  A gorgeous first major monograph published by Rizzoli just came out on the artist in September and she just had her first major show in Europe, in Paris.

P: How do the artists’ vastly different backgrounds—Dzubas as an émigré without formal training, Mason as an heir to an artistic lineage—surface in their work, if at all?
JK: I am not sure about Dzubas, but with Mason, she was intent upon finding her own pictorial path and language, and rejected going to the schools that her mother, the important American Abstract artist Alice Trumbull Mason would have expected.  She did step out of the circle that she was raised in to forge her own path.  The level of sophistication that Mason’s background instilled in her I think is reflected in the sophistication of her work.

P: Did living and working in New York at similar moments produce shared visual concerns despite their separate circles?
JK: I would think so.  They would have been exposed to many of the same ideological concerns, events in the art world, and exhibitions, etc.  But remember Dzubas is 17 years older than Mason, so when Mason was in high school when Dzubas was establishing himself in NY in the mid 1940’s.

P: How might Mason’s relationships with Alice Trumbull Mason and Wolf Kahn complicate readings of her work as independent or dialogic?

JK: Mason was intent upon finding her own pictorial path and language.   She was nurtured in her pursuit of a life in art and grew up surrounded by her mother’s artist friends; Milton and Sally Avery, Rothko, the De Kooning’s, Gorky and others.  Her level of sophistication must have been very great, but she was independent minded and made a point to go to different schools than expected and forge her own path.  Wolf Kahn and her exposure to his teacher Hans Hoffman may likely have had an influence on her as well, but I think she absorbed those influences into her own unique sensibilities.

P: How might prolonged looking alter one’s perception of color relationships in these works?
JK: They are both mesmerizing in their own ways and I do think make you think about colors in a different way.  I think if you are not a painter, like me, you are just amazed at what they were able to achieve with color as their vehicle, the combinations they used, the visceral emotion that they elicit, the variety of expression created through color I think make you realize the power of the language of color abstraction.

P: Why does this pairing feel especially relevant now?
JK: I think both artists are receiving a greater amount of recognition and reevaluation as important artists reflected by exhibitions and publications, and there is a growing collector base very interested in both of these artists, so I think it is a timely show.  The number of works in this show also allow for the ability to see quite a large group of works by both artists, and that is notable.

P: What might younger artists learn from Dzubas’s and Mason’s sustained faith in painting?
JK: I would think to stay the course of their vision, even if it is counter-current movements or trends, as both of these artists did.

P: How does this exhibition contribute to a broader reevaluation of postwar abstraction?
JK: It would be nice to think that creating a new perspective on both artists adds a little something to the narrative.
I think the pairing of the two artists allows for an interesting and new visual dialogue which has never been created until now, so it contributes a new facet to both artist’s exhibition history and offers insight into how differently artists used their technique, color, and sensibilities to produce incredibly different things.  Patricia Lewy’s essay is a contribution to scholarship on both artists.

Jody Klotz Fine Art is located at 1060 N. 2nd Street, Abilene, TX. 79601. jodyklotz.com