7321 BEVERLY BOULEVARD LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90036
(323) 933-5523 FAX (323) 933-7618 email: tobeymoss@earthlink.net
 
 

JULES ENGEL

Shapes and Gestures

2001
 

The Vase 1947                    gouache               18 7/8 x 13 5/8 inches

Direct and lucid, it requires no paraphrase. The language, which is universal-Clarte, vivezza, elegance, ubereinstim mung, monumentality, calm--- comes from the center of his being.

Architectonic, congruous and genuinely contemporary, his larger pieces relate to modern edifices and open space in the same way that grouped statuary and the horses of Neptune fit in the piazze and against the rusticated walls of Florence.

Like Mies van der Rohe and Mondrian, with whom he shares a mutual pact to express the essential, his presence is unambiguous and emotionally affective without excess.

Distinguished as a painter, lithographer and film maker, as well as a sculptor, Jules Engel's work is relevant to all that has become in the past few decades quintessentially American in the arts. Of this place and time, sensitive to a rapidly advancing future, his roots are nonetheless firmly planted on personal territory: his own past, which embraces many media and many continents.

His work is never approximate. It is, rather, a summation and deftly summons the inner as well as the outer eye.

Live Action Films

1965 The Ivory Knife First Prize, Venice International Film Festival Outstanding Color Film Award: Guadalajara, Mexico  1965 Coaraze Jean Vigo Award (French Film Critics) First Prize: Mannheim International Film Festival French Government Award  1966 The Torch and the Torso Short Film Award: Edinburgh Film Festival, Scotland 1967 New York I00 Commissioned by Martha Jackson Gallery, New York

1967/68 American Sculpture of the Sixties Venice Film Festival, Italy 1968 The Look of a Lithographer Sponsor ford foundation 1969 Light Motion Commissioned by Esther Rubles Gallery Los Angeles 1976 Max Bill Commissioned by Comsky Gallery, Los Angeles

In 1939 he created choreography and color for Fantasia and, after serving in the Army Air Force Motion Picture Unit in World War 11, was one of the original members of U PA Studios-bringing Mr. Magoo, Gerald McBoing Boin g, Madeline, Icarus Montgolfier Wright Iscripte d by Ray Bradbury; Oscar nomination for Engel) and other notable characters to the screen. Simultaneously h e painted, printed, constructed, traveled and taught. This exhibition of his work opens with drawings of 1939 and extends through films of the 1990s.
 

He has received many awards-most recently the Norman McLaren Heritage Award in 1992 and a 'Lifetime Achievement' Award at the Cardiff International Film Festival in Wales, 1994. From February to April 1997, The Donnell Media Center, New York celebrates the art of Jules Engel and the CalArts Film /Video Departments with a series "The Animated Film: A tribute to Jules Engel and CalArts Animation."

JULES ENGEL was founding director of the Experimental Animation Department at California Institute of the Arts in 1971; he still is!