Lynne Drexler: The Sixties

White Cube is pleased to present a solo exhibition of works by the late American artist Lynne Drexler (1928–99).

This is the first major presentation of the artist’s work in Europe, and her first exhibition with the gallery since representation of The Lynne Drexler Archive was announced in November 2023. A second solo exhibition will follow at White Cube Hong Kong in March 2025, marking the first-ever presentation of the artist’s work in Asia.

Featuring never-before-seen works from the Archive, Lynne Drexler: The Sixties comprises boldly coloured paintings, collages and works on paper made between 1959 and 1969. A significant period within her practice, the exhibition charts certain developments in her work, notably the introduction of the swatch-like brushstrokes for which she is known, as well as her use of geometric forms.

Born in 1928 near Newport News, Virginia, Drexler was associated with second-generation Abstract Expressionists. She was visibly influenced by Impressionism, Fauvism and Pointillism, art historical movements that at the same time reflect her love of classical music and nature.

Drexler shared the fate of many female artists of the post-war era, who were overshadowed by their male peers and counterparts and are only now being reintegrated into the annals of art history. Although she studied under Hans Hofmann and Robert Motherwell, she remained on the periphery of the art world while her husband, the painter John Hultberg, accrued comparable success and fame.

Following two extended sojourns to Europe in the early 1950s, Drexler made the pivotal decision to move to New York in 1955 and became engaged in the city’s vibrant and intellectual art scene. There, over the next decade, she would produce exemplary works of art that were equally formal explorations of colour, form and spatial tension.

By the mid- to late-1960s, with the popularity of Abstract Expressionism in decline, Drexler’s own work had matured into a distinctive, lyrical style of abstract painting, one inspired by the surrounding landscape of her summer home on Monhegan Island, off the coast of Maine.

After separating from Hultberg in 1983, Drexler settled on the Island and her art began to further incorporate elements of the rugged coastal scenery. Though mostly still undiscovered, in the final two decades of her life the artist became locally renowned by exhibiting in galleries around her home and the nearby mainland.

Lynne Drexler: The Sixties celebrates the legacy of an artist who, despite the shifting currents of the art world, never wavered in her desire to create. The exhibition is on view at White Cube Mason’s Yard, London, from November 27, 2024 until January 10, 2025. Her exhibition at White Cube Hong Kong will open in March 2025.