TitleAnointed Crook
Artist
William Scharf
(1927 - 2018)
Date1998
MediumAcrylic on board
DimensionsUnframed: 12 × 14 7/8 in.
Framed: 21 3/4 × 24 1/2 × 1 1/4 in.
SignedSigned on reverse
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, March 19, 2003
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number2003.4
Label TextWilliam Scharf was born in Media, Pennsylvania and attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the late 1940s. As a young man, Scharf served as the studio assistant to Mark Rothko and his earliest paintings show a surrealist affinity with the totemic work of the older Abstract Expressionist painter. Scharf's painting, however, never fit squarely into an orthodox Abstract Expressionist mode and he continues to create works that contain vaguely recognizable imagery. Scharf's exhibited in numerous group shows throughout the 1950s and he had his first solo exhibition at the David Herbert Gallery in New York in 1960. Since that time he has held many teaching positions and has been the subject of two museum retrospectives, the last one at the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. in 2000.In many ways, "Anointed Crook" encapsulates a distinguished body of work created by the artist over fifty years. It skillfully combines ambiguously representational imagery with the brilliant colors of pink and chartreuse in a microcosmic world that suggested the pulsating frequencies of incubatory life. Scharf's work always contains a sense of mysterious oppositional forces tugging at one another. The artist has stated: "Of the many opposites a painter is challenged by, the tensions, forces and drama of light and dark are the most basic and primary. The painter's quests and questions are shaped by the weighing of disquieting darks against the enchantments of painted light."
