GARY BUKOVNIK
ARTIST’S BIOGRAPHY
January 2006
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Cleveland-born and educated Gary Bukovnik
has lived in San Francisco for over 25 years. Bukovnik’s
art conveys a monumental quality. Primarily using the mediums
of watercolor, monotype, and lithograph, Bukovnik fuses sensual
vitality with fluid yet powerful colorations, creating floral
images of great depth and intensity.
To produce his graphic works, Bukovnik
collaborates with Trillium Press, whose owner and master printer,
David Salgado, studied at the Tamarind Workshop, formerly in
Los Angeles. Among the artists who have printed with Trillium
are Joseph Raffael, Mark Adams, Beth Van Hoesen, Nathan Oliveira,
and Paul Wonner.
In 2003, the American Academy in Rome
invited Bukovnik to attend the academy as a Visiting Artist
and provided him with a room and studio for six weeks. He was
asked to attend a second session in February 2005. In 2001,
he was selected to create a poster for the prestigious List
Collection, which creates posters to commemorate programs at
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. Lincoln
Center past contributors have included Roy Lichtenstein, Andy
Warhol, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Alex Katz, Elizabeth
Murray, and Donald Sultan.
The player will show in this paragraph
Video Interview with Gary Bukovnik
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Solo
exhibitions in 2004/2005 include Elins Eagles-Smith Gallery
and A.C.T. Gallery in San Francisco, the Bonfoey Gallery in
Cleveland and the Erickson Fine Art Gallery in Healdsburg. Other
recent exhibitions have been organized by the Butler Institute
of American Art, Youngstown; Paula Brown Gallery, Toledo; Neuhoff
Gallery, New York; the Bonfoey Gallery, Cleveland; Lisa Kurts
Gallery, Memphis; Irving Galleries, Palm Beach; Galerie Kutter,
Luxembourg; the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Johnstown,
Pennsylvania; Chin Show Cultural Center, Taipei; Takashimaya,
Tokyo; the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie
Mellon University, Pittsburgh; and Brevard Museum of Art, Melbourne,
Florida. Among the artwork displayed at the Brevard Museum of
Art was a tapestry based on a Bukovnik watercolor and hand-woven
in Aubusson, France by Atelier Raymond Picaud, weavers since
the seventeenth century. Atelier Raymond Picaud has been at
the forefront of progressive tapestry firms since the 1930s,
focusing on images of modern artists such as Alexander Calder,
Georges Braque, and Helen Frankenthaler.
Bukovnik’s watercolors and monotypes are the subject of
Flowers: Gary Bukovnik Watercolors & Monotypes, published
by Harry N. Abrams, New York. This book includes a foreword
by James J. White, curator at the Hunt Institute for Botanical
Documentation; an interview with the artist by Robert Flynn
Johnson, curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco;
and an essay about Bukovnik and the depiction of flowers in
art by Judith Gordon, a San Francisco-based writer. A new book
(Gary Bukovnik Watercolors) was released in October 2005 by
the publisher Hudson Hills Press. It contains over 70 Plates,
a foreword by Louis A. Zona, Director of the Butler Institute
of American Art, an introduction by Carter E. Foster, Curator
of Drawings at the Whitney Museum and an interview by Clare
Henry, art critic for the Financial Times.
His work is represented in diverse public and private collections,
such as the Brooklyn Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Chicago Museum of Art;
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Butler Institute
of American Art, Youngstown; Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco;
Bank of America; AT&T; Neiman Marcus; and Westin Bonaventure
Hotel, Los Angeles. Bukovnik also donates his art to benefit
community and civic organizations such as the San Francisco
Symphony, which since 1982 has commissioned a poster announcing
its fall season. Other organizations include the New York Metropolitan
Opera; Refugees International, Japan; and Project Open Hand,
San Francisco and the Performing Arts Center New York City at
Lincoln Center.
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