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Modern & Contemporary Gallery

Karel Appel and Dieter Roth: Cats and Dogs

May 26 – August 05, 2018
Karel Appel, Sunshine Cat from the portfolio Cats, 1978. Lithograph on paper, edition 95/125, 22 1/4 x 30 inches (56.5 x 76.2 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum. Gift of Mr. Randall E. Heine. © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Karel Appel Foundation. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

Our Most Adored Domestic Animals

Dieter Roth, Untitled (detail) from the portfolio 2 Times 5 Dogs, 1979. Lithograph on paper mounted to portfolio, edition 100/100, 14 x 19 1/2 inches (35.6 x 49.5 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Gift of Robert Steinberg, 1981.55.3. © Dieter Roth Estate. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth, New York, New York. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.
Dieter Roth, Untitled (detail) from the portfolio 2 Times 5 Dogs, 1979. Lithograph on paper mounted to portfolio, edition 100/100, 14 x 19 1/2 inches (35.6 x 49.5 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Gift of Robert Steinberg, 1981.55.3. © Dieter Roth Estate. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth, New York, New York. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

Offering a playful and amusing take on two of the most adored domestic animals, cats and dogs, this installation was selected from two lithographic portfolios by Dutch artist Karel Appel (1921 – 2006) and German-born artist Dieter Roth (1930 – 1998).

Roth was a printmaker, sculptor, painter, poet and performance artist and part of the Fluxus movement, an experimental group of international artists, musicians and performers whose work challenged conventional notions of artistic practice. Animals were a common subject for him and the prints from his portfolio, 2 Times 5 Dogs, illustrate the artist’s energetic approach to drawing.

Appel was most closely associated with CoBrA, an experimental group of artists from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam working in the late 1940s and early 1950s. His colorful, expressionistic renderings of felines in prints from the Cats portfolio contrasts with Roth’s frenetic, and mostly monochromatic, canines. In works from these portfolios, created independently of one another, both artists capture cats and dogs with whimsy, humor and joy.

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