Perle Fine: Ninth Street Woman at Berry Campbell, New York, September 10–October 24, 2026

Berry Campbell in Chelsea presents Perle Fine: Ninth Street Woman, on view September 10 through October 24, 2026, with fifteen paintings and works on paper from the 1940s to the early 1960s. The title points to the 1951 Ninth Street Exhibition, which gathered artists of the emerging New York School; Fine was one of eleven women in that show. Born in Boston in 1905, she trained at New York's Grand Central Art School and the Art Students League, then with Hans Hofmann in New York and at his Provincetown, Massachusetts, summer school. She joined American Abstract Artists in 1946 and was encouraged in nonrepresentational work by Piet Mondrian and Hilla Rebay, art adviser to Solomon R. Guggenheim's collection. Early canvases such as Bristling (1946) and Soft Spot (1945) test grid structure against expressive gesture, while the gouache-and-ink Study for Komposition (1945) shows forms worked out on paper. The Prescience series of the early 1950s, with curving shapes and softer color, is described by the gallery as anticipating aspects of Color Field painting. The centerpiece, Wall of Silence (1961), about fourteen feet across and made of two canvases, comes directly from the artist's estate. Aftermath of a Sweeping Storm (1958) incorporates aluminum patches into its surface, and Pounding Surf (1959) sets a large dark curve against blue strokes, gray passages and white drips. The show argues for Fine as an independent voice rather than a supporting figure in Abstract Expressionism.