New Peeler exhibition features women artists on frontiers of American abstraction

Part of “Blurring Boundaries,” an exhibition highlighting 86 years of American female abstract artists, Cecily Kahn’s “Laughter and Forgetting” (2017) will be on display at the DePauw University Richard E. Peeler Art Center from Feb. 7 through May 9.

Courtesy DePauw University

DePauw University will feature the new exhibition, “Blurring Boundaries: The Women of American Abstract Artists, 1936-Present,” opening Feb. 7 and running through May 9 at the Richard E. Peeler Art Center.

A celebration of an intergenerational group of artists — one that is both comprehensive and long overdue — “Blurring Boundaries” highlights the ways in which the women of American Abstract Artists have, for more than 80 years, shifted and shaped the frontiers of American abstraction.

American Abstract Artists was founded in New York City in 1936 to promote and foster greater understanding of abstract and non-objective art. AAA was a predecessor of the New York School and Abstract Expressionism and was instrumental in the development and acceptance of abstract art in the United States.

To this day, AAA organizes exhibitions, produces print portfolios and catalogues and provides a forum for discussion through panels and lectures. AAA distributes its published material to cultural organizations worldwide, documents its history in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, and maintains an archive at the Whitney Museum Library. 

Through 54 works, Blurring Boundaries explores the artists’ range of styles, including their individual approaches to the guiding principles of abstraction: color, space, light, material and process.

Included are works by historic members Perle Fine, Esphyr Slobodkina, Irene Rice Pereira, Alice Trumbull Mason and Gertrude Greene, as well as current members such as Ce Roser, Irene Rousseau, Judith Murray, Alice Adams, Merrill Wagner and Katinka Mann.

Online viewing options, lectures, and exhibition materials are available for remote engagement. For an up-to-date listing of free events and lectures associated with the exhibition, visit https://www.depauw.edu/arts-and-culture/arts/peeler/exhibits/.

The galleries at the Richard E. Peeler Art Center are open Monday-Friday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday 1-5 p.m. The galleries are closed during university breaks and holidays.

Visit depauw.edu/galleries for more information about special events associated with this exhibition. The exhibition is free.