JULES ENGEL
Shapes and Gestures
2001
The Vase 1947
gouache
18 7/8 x 13 5/8 inches
JULES ENGEL's work speaks
for itself.
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.
-Lucretia Cole March/67
FILMS OF JULES ENGEL:
What l found so wonderfully compelling about your work was how it captured
the best of what choreography can accomplish, but generally fails to when
performed live in the theater. Not only is your work constructed to direct
the audience's eye to a subtle, minute and particular gesture or shape,
but in a manner which can be achieved in a fleeting instant. With just
a few images a rhythm is generated that elaborates upon itself; five images
which began moving in unison, subsequently break Ho a canon and then a
fugue. These images, while still retaining their initial quality, permutate,
providing 1 2 5 variations on a theme, each compelling and mesmerizing.
This use of repetition and the subtle variations that naturally arise,
embodies choreography at its most successful.
-Janice Margolis
Dancer/Choreographer
Selected Exhibitions
| 1950 |
"American Abstract Art",
Art Institute of Chicago |
| 1950/51 |
San Francisco Museum of
Art- Purchase Prize
Los Angeles County Museum
- Purchase Prize
Caravan Gallery, New York
an Prize,
Art Digest Award |
| 1951 |
Denver Museum of Art -
1st Watercolor Award |
| 1951/52 |
Whitney Museum of American
Art, New York |
| 1952 |
Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York |
| 1952/53 |
R. H. deYoung Museum, San
Francisco |
| 1952/54/56/58 |
Paul Kantor Gallery, Los
Angeles |
| 1955 |
Sao Paulo Bienal, Brazil |
| 1955 |
Saidenberg Gallery, New
York |
| 1955 |
American Institute of Architects
Fine Arts Award |
| 1960 |
Fifteen American Painters"
- University of
Michigan |
| 1960 |
Tamarind Lithography Workshop
Fellowship |
| 1961/62/64/66 |
Esther Robles Gallery -
Los Angeles |
| 1962 |
Dallas Museum of Contemporary
Arts, Texas |
| 1963 |
Walker Art Center, Minnesota |
| 1963 |
Art Institute of Chicago |
| 1963 |
Pennsylvania Academy of
Fine Arts |
| 1964 |
Cornell University, New
York |
| 1964 |
Galleria Zetlo, Verona,
Italy |
| 1966/67 |
Ruth White Gallery New
York |
| 1968 |
Artist in Residence, Utah
State University |
| 1971/73 |
Comsky Gallery, Los
Angeles |
| 1976 |
Montgomery Art Center,
Claremont, California |
| 1978 |
"Film Als Film"-Cologne,
Stuttgart, Germany Bern, Switzerland |
| 1990/91 |
"Turning the Tide: Early
Los Angeles Modernists"
Santa Barbara Museum of
Art, California
Palm Springs Desert Museum,
California
Laguna Art Museum, California
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum
of Art, Utah
M.K. McNay Art Museum,
San Antonio, Texas
Oakland Art Museum, California |
| 1992 |
Williams Gallery Princeton,
New Jersey |
| 1993/96 |
Tobey C. Moss Gallery Los
Angeles |
| 1994 |
Sid Deutsch Gallery, New
York |
| 1996/97 |
"On the Edge of America-California
Modernist Art", Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles |
| 1997 |
Tobey C. Moss Gallery,
Los Angeles |
| 1999 |
Tobey C. Moss Gallery,
Los Angeles |
| 2001 |
Tobey C. Moss Gallery,
Los Angeles |
|
Selected Animated Films
| 1960 |
Icarus Montgofier Wright
- Oscar Nomination |
| 1963 |
Carnival |
| 1967 |
Centipede |
| 1968 |
Silence (silent) |
| 1971 |
Landscape (Music Stan Levine) |
| 1973 |
Accident ( Music:
Carl Stone) |
| 1974 |
Train Landscape (Music:
Stan Levine) |
| 1975 |
Rumble (Music: David Shoemaker) |
| 1975 |
Swan (Music: Saint-Sens) |
| 1976 |
Shapes and Gestures (Music:
Steve Goldman Gold J) |
| 1977 |
Wet Paint (Music:
Nikolaj Bogatirev) |
| 1978 |
Mobiles (Music: Barry Schroder) |
| 1978 |
Hors d" Deuvres (Music:
Roy Sablosky) |
| 1978 |
Celebration (Music: Mel
Powell) |
| 1986 |
Play Pen (Music Rob
Miller) |
| 1987 |
Interior (Computer
Generated) |
| 1987 |
Gallery 3 (Music:
Elizabeth Bartfai) |
| 1987 |
Dance - Lines in Spare
(Music: Elizabeth Bartfai) |
| 1988 |
Villa Rospigliosi (Music:
Elizabeth Bartfai) |
| 1988 |
Times Square (Music R.
Dennis Wiancka) |
| 1992 |
Papillion (slent) |
| 1992 |
The Meadow (Music Cassanda
Hawk) |
| 1995 |
Aviary (Music Cassanda
Hawk) |
| 1996 |
Toy Shop (Music: Gooch) |
|
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!
