Robert Feintuch USA, b. 1953
Overview
"The paintings take a long time to make, so naturally I get a lot of ideas about what they are about, while working on them."
Robert Feintuch (b.1953, New Jersey) is a painter who lives and works in New York. In his work, Feintuch looks for images that are metaphorically and psychologically suggestive. He has made paintings of objects, clouds and a series of self-portraits spanning several years. His work is figurative -simultaneously deeply rooted in history- and completely contemporary. It’s marked by painterly concerns—incredible luminosity and complex explorations of perspective. Feintuch uses the body to pursue psychologically suggestive meanings and in many of his paintings he has used himself as a model. In their combination of the sublime with the banal, the serious and the ridiculous, Feintuch’s works have been consistently seen as both comic and rooted in psychological life. His influences range from Fra Angelico, Andrea Mantegna to Philip Guston. In the catalogue for an exhibition of the Sonnabend Collection at the Serralves Foundation, Suzanne Cotter said that "Feintuch’s work embraces a kind of productive ambiguity. He uses the tension between the heroic, eternal quality of mythological figures and themes of mundane quotidian life to reinterpret myth, figuring and reliving it with deadpan theatricality, almost to the point of farce".
Feintuch’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally and he has been awarded residencies and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others.
Works
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Robert FeintuchThinking, 2006Polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel50.8 x 38.1 cm
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Robert FeintuchWall, 2006Polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel50.8 x 38.1 cm
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Robert FeintuchFat Hercules, 2011Polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel76.2 x 57.2 cm
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Robert FeintuchTwo-Fisted, 2014Polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel48.3 x 60.3 cm
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Robert FeintuchToeing the Line, 2015Polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel57.2 x 76.2 cm
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Robert FeintuchPoint, 2016Polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel60.3 x 48.3 cm
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Robert FeintuchTorch, 2017Polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel116.8 x 68.6 cm
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Robert FeintuchWeeds Stone Callous, 2020Polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel60.3 x 45.7 cm
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Robert FeintuchFeet Up II, 2017-2018Polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel60.3 x 48.3 cm
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Robert FeintuchKicking, 2018Polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel48.3 x 60.3 cm
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Robert FeintuchSmoke, 2018-2019Polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel116.8 x 68.6 cm
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Robert FeintuchFir, 2019Polymer emulsion and oil paint on honeycomb panel119.4 x 89.5 cm
Exhibitions
News
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Robert Feintuch group show "Torn Curtain - Buongiorno, Buonasera"
Studio La Città , Verona, Italy February 10, 2024Torn Curtain. Buongiorno, buonasera is an exhibition which has stumbled out from an ‘elective habit’ long shared between Hélène de Franchis and Luca Massimo Barbero...Read more -
Robert Feintuch
Article | Posit Journal January 24, 2024'One can no more look away from Robert Feintuch’s paintings than from a miracle — or a shocking impropriety. In dialogue with Philip Guston and...Read more -
Robert Feintuch - Between a Laugh and a Yelp
Article | BOMB MAGAZINE April 19, 2021 Read more -
Artist Talk: Rona Pondick and Robert Feintuch - New York Academy of Art
Spring Lecture Series February 8, 2021 -
Robert Feintuch group show "This is America"
UK MUSEUM - University of Kentucky, Lexington, KentuckY, USA October 6, 2020This is America* is an exhibition originally planned to coincide with the 2020 presidential election, looking at aspects of history, citizenry, race, dignity, power, and...Read more -
Robert Feintuch group show "The Sonnabend Collection"
Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada October 5, 2019Remai Modern presents The Sonnabend Collection. Developed through the vision of influential art dealer Ileana Sonnabend (1914-2007) her husband Michael Sonnabend (1900-2001), and their adopted...Read more -
Robert Feintuch and Rona Pondick with Phong Bui
INTERVIEW | BROOKLYN RAIL January 3, 2018 Read more -
Rona Pondick and Robert Feintuch: Heads, Hands, Feet; Sleeping, Holding, Dreaming, Dying
Bates Museum of Art, Lewistone, Maine, USA October 27, 2017A couple since the mid-1970s, when they met in school, sculptor Rona Pondick and painter Robert Feintuch share interests in making work that uses the...Read more -
RONA PONDICK AND ROBERT FEINTUCH: HEADS, HANDS, FEET; SLEEPING, HOLDING, DREAMING, DYING
Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, West Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA February 3, 2017This exhibition brings together sculptures by Rona Pondick and paintings by Robert Feintuch. A couple since the mid-1970s, the artists share interests in making work...Read more -
Robert Feintuch group show "Sonnabend Collection Half a Century of European and American Art. Part 1"
Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, Portugal February 5, 2016The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art presents a major exhibition devoted to the Sonnabend Collection. Curated by António Homem, the exhibition is organized in collaboration...Read more -
Robert Feintuch group show "Intimacy in Discourse: Reasonable Sized Paintings"
Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA October 18, 2015Mana Contemporary presents Part I in this two-part exhibition, co-presented with School of Visual Arts Chelsea Gallery in collaboration with Rail Curatorial Projects, exploring how...Read more -
Robert Feintuch group show "Directors' Cut: Selections from the Maine Art Museum Trail"
Portland Museum of Art Portland, Maine, USA May 21, 2015Directors’ Cut: Selections from the Maine Art Museum Trail presents highlights of Maine’s art history from the state’smost-renowned museums—under one roof at the PMA. Art...Read more -
Robert Feintuch - Interview with Phong Bui
INTERVIEW | BROOKLYN RAIL June 2, 2014 -
Robert Feintuch - solo show
Sonnabend Gallery, New York, NY, USA May 3, 2014This exhibition includes paintings inspired by historic images of the Assumption, the Ascension, and of heaven. Influenced by both Gothic paintings and cartoons from his...Read more -
Robert Feintuch group show "Sonnabend Collection"
Ca' Pesaro, Venice, Italy May 31, 2013Ileana Sonnabend was one of the greatest and most influential discoverers of artistic talent in the second half of the 20th century, renowned for her...Read more
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