| Philip Taaffe, American (1955 - )
Philip Taaffe was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1955, and studied at the Cooper Union in New York. His first solo exhibition was in New York in 1982. He has traveled widely in the Middle East, India, South America, and Morocco, where he collaborated with Mohammed Mrabet on the book Chocolate Creams and Dollars, translated by Paul Bowles (Inanout Press, New York: 1993). Taaffe lived and worked in Naples from 1988-91. He has been included in numerous museum exhibitions, including the Carnegie International, two Sydney Biennials, and three Whitney Biennials. In 1990 his work was the subject of an extensive critical study in Parkett no. 26 (Zürich & New York). Publications include studies by Wilfried Dickoff (Max Hetzler Gallery, Cologne: 1992); Oleg Grabar (Gagosian Gallery, New York: 1994); Brooks Adams (Vienna Secession: 1996), and Robert Rosenblum (IVAM, Valencia: 2000). His work is in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; and the Reina Sofia, Madrid. Surveys of his work include the IVAM, Valencia, in 2000; Galleria Civica, Trento, Italy, in 2001; and the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, San Marino, Italy, in 2004. Philip Taaffe presently resides and works in New York City. Taaffe is an artist who defies simple categorization. Combining elements of Islamic architecture, Op Art, Eastern European textile design, calligraphy, and botanical illustration, Taaffe’s works are densely layered, labor-intensive abstractions. They draw on the decorative elements of Art Nouveau without assuming a fully decorative character; his use of repetition and geometric patterns of imaging create not only a sense of continuity, but infinity. |
