Skip to Content
/ Articles / Arts & Culture /

Engaging Works by New York City Artist Glenn Goldberg featured at Reading Public Museum

May 09, 2017 • by Reading Public Museum
Glenn Goldberg (b. 1953), Plume, 2016, acrylic, ink and gesso on canvas, 72 x 48 inches, Courtesy of the artist and FreedmanArt, New York

READING, PA — Paintings, small ceramic objects, and works on paper by Glenn Goldberg (b. 1953)—a prolific Brooklyn-based painter—will be featured in a new exhibition Of Leaves and Clouds. The exhibition is on view in the Cohen Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art on The Museum’s second floor from Saturday, May 6 through Sunday, August 20, 2017.

The show focuses on the artist’s intimate relationship with nature, a theme that can be traced throughout his decades-long career. It features Goldberg’s most recent paintings completed in his Brooklyn studio. The works in the exhibit have a common element: his ever-present dots over light washes of color creating multiple layers within each composition. Goldberg’s signature marks not only structure the space, but also are a record of the artist’s concentrated attention, time, and devotion.

Visitors will discover elements in his work such as mandalas, flower forms, and leaves, all delineated using dots and stencils, which reference Australian aboriginal painting. In the exhibition in Reading, Goldberg selected a few works from The Museum’s collection with which he felt a kinship. The works span from Pre-Columbian Latin American ceramics and textiles, to the art of the South Pacific, and include ornamented utilitarian and symbolic objects. Some of the selections explore essential design elements such as patterning, repetition, and symmetry (or near symmetry).

Scott Schweigert, RPM’s Curator of Art remarked that, “Goldberg’s work is intricately layered with universal symbols—birds, flowers, leaves, clouds, and plumes—which simultaneously make references to textiles, utilitarian objects from non-Western sources, and traditional design principles, giving them a sense of gravity and timelessness.”

Well-versed in European and American art from his studies at Queens College and the New York Studio School, Glenn Goldberg also draws inspiration from African and Asian art, textiles, and decorative art. His works are in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the High Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art. The original exhibition was organized by FreedmanArt, New York, NY and was also on view at Luther W. Brady Art Gallery at The George Washington University, Washington, DC.

We need your support!

Your contribution makes community media possible.

A donation of any size to your nonprofit media organization supports the future of media access in our community - the things you love, and the places you care about, by the people you know.

Live Streaming