Spanierman Gallery, LLC at East Hampton is pleased to announce the opening on September 10, 2009 of Four Visions . Curated by Arlene Bujese, the exhibition features the work of four artists, whose lives and careers have had many intriguing intersections and who have drawn inspiration from the dynamic milieu of abstract art on Long Island's East End . An opening reception will be held on September 12 from 6 to 8 pm.

A native of Alabama , John Little (1907-1984) moved to New York in the 1920s, where he studied with George Grosz and Hans Hofmann. In the 1940s he became immersed in the downtown art scene, and in 1948 he joined his close friends Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in the growing community of Abstract Expressionists in East Hampton . Along with Alfonso Ossorio and Elizabeth Parker, he founded the renowned Signa Gallery in 1957, which was a beacon for modern art on Long Island for three years. In Flying Point ( Water Mill, New York ) (1964) and The Banality of Peace Nos. 1 and 2 (1966), Little put his own personal stamp on the “push-pull” of Hofmann, with the clash of barely contained and sweeping forces held together seemingly just before a point of implosion.

Robert Richenburg (1917-2006) was born in Boston and studied art there and in New York . After serving as an explosives driver in World War II, he—like Little—trained under Hofmann, but also acknowledged the influences of Picasso, Arp, Miro, and Hartung. Through Ibram Lassaw's introduction, he became a member of The Club, along with Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. Beginning in the early 1980s, he summered in East Hampton , where he died in 2006. His work evolved in a number of series. The City (1960) relates to the Black Paintings he began to create in the 1950s. In Tic Tac Torn (1966) the picture plane is filled with undulations of form and color, while Undeniable (1956) has a congested, pulsing quality. Often deemed “romantic” for its reshaping of perceptual experience, Richenburg's work varies from white textural images to assemblage and collage. Often combining a variety of statements, he tends to break up space with action-type painting combined with an orderly use of form, sometimes cutting out and juxtaposing shapes onto active surfaces and creating pictographic works with numerous contained strokes.

Hans Van de Bovenkamp (b. 1938) emigrated from his native Holland , through Canada , to the United States in 1958. After receiving his Bachelor of Science and Design from the University of Michigan , he formed a company that created fountains and artifacts to support his work as an artist. In 1969 he established a studio in East Hampton and began exhibiting at the prestigious Elaine Benson Gallery in Bridgehampton, along with Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, and James Brooks. While mostly small in scale, t he works in this exhibition refer to monolithic form. Consisting of flat strips of sheet bronze and stainless steel welded into two-dimensional compositions, they balance several complementary, interacting shapes within more complex units. The recent works derive from his Mehhir series.

Born the summer that Pollock died, Josh Dayton (b. 1956) had an affinity with Pollock's art, as did so many other artists of his generation. As a teenager, he assisted his carpenter father on the East Hampton estate of Ossorio and became drawn to his work. In his later years, Ossorio discovered Dayton 's art and purchased a number of his paintings, only learning afterwards who had created them. Over time Dayton has moved from strong figuration to a more non-objective approach. In his recent work, gestural linear or textural strokes interact with flat, bold color shapes of painted paper on canvas, strategically placed on a ground that is itself made up of colored planes. Biomorphic forms, floating areas, and dancing shapes reference organic and human experience.