Waking Dream for Kurosawa, 2008
M
Martin Kline���s exhibition at the New
Britain Museum of American Art is a
grand, mid-career retrospective, befitting
a major artist, spanning nearly a generation
of work. The show is accompanied by a
handsome book with text by Marshall N. Price and essays
by Henry Geldzahler, Barbara Rose, Carter Ratcliff and
others. The entire exhibition is under the aegis of Douglas
K.S. Hyland, Director of the Museum.
Kline���s work���abstract paintings in encaustic (wax mixed
with colored pigment) and sculptures in a variety of
materials, as well as drawings in pencil and ink���might
at first appear recondite. But Kline has endowed his
works with telling titles that bespeak a knowledge, broad
and deep, of 18th and 19th century literature, history and
sensibilities. These titles are often humorous, but they
provide a key to understanding paintings and objects
HYLAND
