The late artist Richard Mayhew anchored his century-long life where water meets land. He was born in 1924 on the south shore of Long Island and died in September of this year in Soquel, on the north shore of Monterey Bay, California. His bright, color-saturated paintings, which he calls “psychic landscapes,” blend imaginary landscapes and emotional realms. Infused with memory, they are a meditation on his own relationship with the land, as well as that of his Native and African American ancestors.
Venus Above Manhattan in New York City Opens a New Gallery Exhibition, Richard Mayhew: Watercolorsa collection of 22 radiant and majestic paintings by the artist. The works are rendered in eye-popping colors, rendered in the artist’s signature stunning color palette, from moody earth tones to colorful electric sherbet hues (think: chartreuse, vermilion, lavender, lilac , magenta and various citrus shades). These works on paper demonstrate Mayhew’s unique mastery of color and his dexterity in translating his creative vision across mediums, from slowly oxidizing oil paints (the material used in many of his most exhibited paintings) to the rapid Dry instant watercolor painting. It is noteworthy that most of these paintings (with the exception of two) are being exhibited for the first time.
This exhibition is accompanied by a full-color exhibition catalog. Richard Mayhew: The Natural Ordershown at the gallery last year, was the first exhibition devoted to the artist’s watercolors in about twenty years. This month marks another milestone for Mayhew’s watercolors: The Museum of Modern Art in New York City confirmed that it has acquired the artist’s first painting, a watercolor titled “Monterey Blues Series V” (1994) and Pastel work, this work is in natural order. The nearly two dozen watercolors on display in this new exhibition cover approximately the last third of Mayhew’s life, from 1990 to 2024.
As it turned out, this was the last exhibition that the artist helped curate. According to the gallery, Mayhew personally selected each piece and arranged it in his garage, painting new works specifically for the exhibition during his final months. watercolorAs such, this is also the first exhibition of Mayhew’s artistic legacy and is a profound tribute to his artistic legacy.
It is deeply moving to engage with Mayhew’s creative labors in his later years at this moment. I happened to be visiting California when I heard about the artist’s death. Recalling my conversation with him in the 2020 profile, and remembering the joyful way he burst into song during the interview, I made a beeline to SFMOMA to see his artwork as a memento. Standing in front of the luminous forest scene painted in oil in Nyack (1975), knowing that Mayhew is no longer alive, I gained a new, visceral understanding of the spiritual dimension of his work. My eyes followed the painting’s rust-orange path across a field toward a patch of light beyond the tree line, as if following a path from one side of life to the other. Back in New York, the crisp white walls and quiet gallery spaces take on a similar sacred aura, like an art cathedral.
Featuring a selection of vivid, dreamlike paintings, the exhibition is also a tender space for observation, memory and celebration of life, tapping into an invisible current of creativity that even transcends the artist’s lifespan. Let the colors stimulate your retinas. Watch the paint flow together. Check the edges of the paper and see if you can tell which three have a secret painting hidden on the back. Find solace among cumulus trees along the horizon and twisting slopes. Floating among warm, ethereal mist and distorted shapes, where natural images blur, as in Space and Time – No. 6 (2003) and SESS (undated). In these paintings, water becomes sky and becomes forest. Marveling at the crackled, shimmering textures of the salt in those places, the artist wetted his paper with sediment-rich water from the Pacific and coated it with paint—or sometimes sprinkled table salt on top of the still-glittering watercolor paint— —Invite the ocean and the earth to rotate together. You can get lost in these paintings and find your way home again.
Richard Mayhew: Watercolors Venus Over Manhattan continues through January 18, 2025 (39 Great Jones Street, NoHo, Manhattan). This exhibition is organized by the gallery.
