Estate of Nell Blaine

The highly regarded gestural colorist Nell Blaine bridged the delicacy of intimate interiors with the viscosity of Abstract Expressionism for most of the latter half of 20^th century.  After studying with Hans Hoffman, Blaine would become the youngest member inducted into the American Abstract Artists group in 1944, celebrated for her hard edge abstractions. Eventually, Blaine was drawn towards the representational and soon melded a unique style of bold AbEx brushwork with a rhythmic stippling harkening to Bonnard and Matisse. From this point forward her fluent aqueous brushstrokes retained the salient aspects of nature, whether rendered in ink, watercolor or oil. A table setting or a floral arrangement became a symphony of fluid calligraphic lines, each stroke serving the integrity of the scene depicted.

Nell Blaine was born in Richmond, Virginia 1922. She immersed herself in an important artistic community and developed her early aesthetic whilst studying at the Hans Hoffman School. She moved to New York in 1942. In the 1950s Blaine emerged as an integral member of the Second Generation of New York School painters, including such figures are Larry Rivers, Jane Freilicher and Fairfield Porter.

For the span of her artistic career, Nell Blaine’s work received a tremendous amount of attention, starting as early as 1945, with her first solo exhibition at the Jane Street Gallery.  Since then Blaine has had over sixty solo shows. Her works have been the subject of numerous gallery and museum exhibitions across the country and are included in many noteworthy private and public collections such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.