L ynne Drexler’s Judas Blossom (1960), with its swatch-like patterns and painterly blossoms of vibrant hues, is a prime example of the artist’s sought-after use of colour and eloquent technique. Lush abstractions of flowers and foliage seem to stretch far beyond the canvas, making this a work a sublime example of Drexler veritable oeuvre. The present work was produced in the year preceding her first solo show in 1961 at the prestigious Tanager Gallery, a co-operative who illustrious members included Willem de Kooning and Alex Katz. It was beginning in 1959 that colour and Drexler’s inventive patch-like brushwork become the object, with the natural world serving as her inspiration. The works produced in the decade commencing 1959 reveal an artist who was unafraid; bold, inventive, and willing to venture outside of the confines of Abstract Expressionism, Drexler continued to explore the impacts of colour and gesture when contemporaries had moved on to Pop and Minimalism. It was during this period that Drexler developed her characteristic exuberant brushstrokes and vibrant colour palette that has garnered acclaim in recent years, synthesising Post-Impressionist landscape painting with post-war painterly abstraction. Inspired by nature, the delicate pink petals of the Judas Tree would be a recurring influence on Drexler, and the tree form which the present work get sits title. Native to Sothern Europe and the Middle East, the Judas Tree carries a myth related to the Bible’s Judas Iscariot, its rich history serving as an intoxicating reference for Drexler. 

With its distinctive and sophisticated array of rich cool red and pink tones which recede into the background and bright greens and punchier pinks which leap forward from the surface of the canvas, Judas Blossom articulately demonstrates Drexler’s characteristically jubilant style. Born and raised in Virginia in 1928 as the daughter of a distinguished Southern family, Drexler moved to New York City in the late 1950s. Mixing with the city’s community of avant-garde artists, it is here that she began to establish her distinctive style of crisp, colourful brushwork. Under the tutelage of first-generation Abstract Expressionist’s Robert Motherwell and Hans Hofmann, prominent figures in the New York School, Drexler took up painting full t.mes . Informed by Hoffmans’s “Push and Pull” theory, which established a relationship between colour, form and space to achieve the illusion of depth, Drexler’s early work is underlined by a formal approach to abstraction, with her small-scale painting relying on vivid colours and gestural, swatch-like shapes to animate the canvas. 

A test.mes nt to the significance of Drexler’s early works, a curated exhibition of works spanning 1959 to 1969 is being exhibited at the Mnuchin Gallery, New York from the October 27 to December 17, 2022. As the most extensive exhibition of the artist’s early works, the importance of Drexler’s oeuvre is now firmly cemented. Finally recognised, Drexler’s work is now housed in the permanent collects ions of several prominent institutions including Museum of Modern Art, New York, Hudson River Museum, New York, Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C..

《綻 放的猶大樹》滿佈花朵般穠麗生動的色塊，將德雷克斯勒備受好評的用色手法和精純畫工展露無遺。在一片片斑斕的色調下，抽象的花朵和嫩葉長得茂密繁盛，甚至有往畫布外延伸開去之勢。1961年，德雷克斯勒在著名的紐約譚納傑畫廊（Tanager Gallery）舉辦生涯首場個展，這間著名的畫廊由藝術界人士合作創立，成員包括大名鼎鼎的威廉・德庫寧和亞歷克斯・卡茨。1959年之後的十年，色彩和嶄新的方塊形筆觸成為德雷克斯勒的主要素材，大自然也成為她的靈感來源，《綻放的猶大樹》作於1960年，正值她嘗試新素材的初期。德雷克斯勒作風大膽，新意迭出，也樂意跳出抽象表現主義的框框去冒險，正當同年代的藝術家都紛紛轉投波普藝術和極簡主義時，她依然不懈探索色彩和動態的潛力。而恰恰在這段時期，德雷克斯勒逐漸發展出形態茂密的筆觸和斑斕絢麗的用色，將戰後抽象色塊繪畫糅合至後印象派風景畫之中，獨有的筆觸和用色在近年為她贏得不少美譽。《綻放的猶大樹》從大自然汲取養分，例如標題直接取自猶大樹，而這種樹木嬌嫩的粉色花瓣也是德雷克斯勒反覆刻畫的對象。猶大樹原本生長在南歐和中東地區，名字相傳來自出賣耶穌的猶大，神秘的色彩令德雷克斯勒為之著迷，並多次用作繪畫素材。

本作的畫面上灑滿鮮明的色塊，冷艷的深紅和粉紅逐漸消融於背景，蔥翠的亮綠色和奪目的粉紅色鮮艷欲滴，完美示範了德雷克斯勒歡欣跳脫的特色風格。德雷克斯勒在1928 年生於弗吉尼亞州，出身美國南方顯赫世家的她在家鄉成長，直到1950年代末才移居紐約。在紐約，她與前衛藝術家來往，隨之建立起屬於自己的風格，筆觸變得明快俐落，繽紛多彩。當時紐約畫派的領軍人物包括第一代抽象表現主義大師羅伯特・馬瑟韋爾和漢斯・霍夫曼，在他們的指導下，德雷克斯勒投身全職繪畫生涯。霍夫曼在「色彩推拉理論」中主張以顏色、形式和空間的關係創造視覺深度，德雷克斯勒深受此理論啟發，在早期作品中明顯偏向形式主義的抽象風格，並運用豔麗的色彩和動態的色塊為小型畫作注入活力。

紐約 Mnuchin 畫廊將於2022年10月27日至12月17日展出德雷克斯勒從1959至69年的早期作品，這是歷來最具規模及最全面的德雷克斯勒早期作品展，凸顯了這個時期的重要性。時至今日，她的作品已廣受認同，並獲得不少機構永久典藏，包括紐約現代藝術博物館、哈德遜河博物館、芝加哥藝術學院及華盛頓國家美術館。