IRVING FELLER: MONOCHROME DRAWINGS
Organized by Jenn Nielsen
August 16th - September 4th, 2011
Organized by Jenn Nielsen
August 16th - September 4th, 2011
Opening: August 16th, 6-8pm
Cleopatra's
110 Meserole Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11222
***Exhibition hours***
OPEN: Tuesday-Sunday 12-6pm
“When the least you do, does more than the most you do,
then you have found something.”
— Irving Feller, 1996
Cleopatra’s is pleased to present IRVING FELLER:
MONOCHROME DRAWINGS, organized by Jenn Nielsen.
This installation marks Feller’s first gallery exhibition.
Irving Feller was born in Astoria, Queens in 1928,
the son of a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant, Feller was
trained to nail, glue, and assemble fur in his family’s
shop at a young age. Feller graduated from The High
School of Music and Art in New York City in 1946, and
went on to attend The Art Students League of New
York, École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Chouinard
Art Institute in Los Angeles.
Feller studied with significant American artists
including Reginald Marsh, Harry Sternberg, Nahum
Tschacbasov, Morris Kantor and M. Peter Piening. After
Wassily Kandinsky and Henri Matisse, Feller was
inspired most by his teacher artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi,
whose refrain, “Attitude! Attitude!” encouraged emotion
and instinct in his practice. Feller’s drawings
promote directness, simplicity, and self-expression;
His is a pragmatic path that removes impediments to
creativity, evident in his choice of materials—copy
paper, ballpoint pen, and dollar-store markers.
In 1952 Feller took over his uncle’s fur shop on
Greenpoint’s Manhattan Avenue, continuing the family’s
business. The storefront served as a shop as well
as a studio and a place to discuss his ideas about
art, religion, love and revolution with customers and
neighbors alike. Fur sales were slow in the summer
months and Feller made cross-country road trips to
Native American reservations. Trading furs for turquoise
jewelry and other objects, Native American design
came to inform Feller’s artwork as well as store
inventory. Although he was operating outside of the
conventional art world, Feller was not in isolation.
Feller’s Greenpoint storefront-studio closed in April
2011, this exhibition brings to light only a portion of
Feller’s work. Selected from thousands of drawings
and hundreds of paintings, this excerpt of monochrome
drawings introduces Feller’s essential modes
of abstraction.
Jenn Nielsen (b.1979), a Brooklyn-based artist, met
Irving Feller in his storefront in 2005. A copy of Kandinsky’s
Concerning The Spirituality in Art sitting on
the store’s radiator caught Nielsen’s eye as she was
then programming events for the Solomon R. Guggenheim’s
exhibition RUSSIA!. After discussing the power
of the pyramid and values of modern painting, it was
clear to Nielsen that Feller had something to important
to share; she is now directing a forthcoming feature
length documentary about Irving Feller, entitled
How Big Little Is.
“When the least you do, does more than the most you do,
then you have found something.”
— Irving Feller, 1996
Cleopatra’s is pleased to present IRVING FELLER:
MONOCHROME DRAWINGS, organized by Jenn Nielsen.
This installation marks Feller’s first gallery exhibition.
Irving Feller was born in Astoria, Queens in 1928,
the son of a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant, Feller was
trained to nail, glue, and assemble fur in his family’s
shop at a young age. Feller graduated from The High
School of Music and Art in New York City in 1946, and
went on to attend The Art Students League of New
York, École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Chouinard
Art Institute in Los Angeles.
Feller studied with significant American artists
including Reginald Marsh, Harry Sternberg, Nahum
Tschacbasov, Morris Kantor and M. Peter Piening. After
Wassily Kandinsky and Henri Matisse, Feller was
inspired most by his teacher artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi,
whose refrain, “Attitude! Attitude!” encouraged emotion
and instinct in his practice. Feller’s drawings
promote directness, simplicity, and self-expression;
His is a pragmatic path that removes impediments to
creativity, evident in his choice of materials—copy
paper, ballpoint pen, and dollar-store markers.
In 1952 Feller took over his uncle’s fur shop on
Greenpoint’s Manhattan Avenue, continuing the family’s
business. The storefront served as a shop as well
as a studio and a place to discuss his ideas about
art, religion, love and revolution with customers and
neighbors alike. Fur sales were slow in the summer
months and Feller made cross-country road trips to
Native American reservations. Trading furs for turquoise
jewelry and other objects, Native American design
came to inform Feller’s artwork as well as store
inventory. Although he was operating outside of the
conventional art world, Feller was not in isolation.
Feller’s Greenpoint storefront-studio closed in April
2011, this exhibition brings to light only a portion of
Feller’s work. Selected from thousands of drawings
and hundreds of paintings, this excerpt of monochrome
drawings introduces Feller’s essential modes
of abstraction.
Jenn Nielsen (b.1979), a Brooklyn-based artist, met
Irving Feller in his storefront in 2005. A copy of Kandinsky’s
Concerning The Spirituality in Art sitting on
the store’s radiator caught Nielsen’s eye as she was
then programming events for the Solomon R. Guggenheim’s
exhibition RUSSIA!. After discussing the power
of the pyramid and values of modern painting, it was
clear to Nielsen that Feller had something to important
to share; she is now directing a forthcoming feature
length documentary about Irving Feller, entitled
How Big Little Is.
Are you open everyday? I'd love to see more of Irving's work, miss the store a lot :-(
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wonderful work! what a great discovery! makes you wonder how many other backroom artists there are among us... are you still selling any of his drawings? i would love to purchase.
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