Diana Kurz: Hidden in Plain Sight presents a group of intimate-scale abstract paintings created by Kurz in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The works were recently rediscovered in her SoHo loft, where she has lived and worked since 1970. Unseen for decades, these paintings offer a rare glimpse into an overlooked period of Kurz’s career, revealing her early engagement with postwar abstraction at a pivotal moment in New York art history.
Executed in oil, with several incorporating collage, the paintings reflect Kurz’s exploration of color, gesture, structure, and surface. Their dynamic spatial relationships reveal the influence of Hans Hofmann, whose teaching introduced Kurz to the interplay of color and space central to his celebrated “push-pull” theory. Despite their intimate scale, these works possess a remarkable sense of movement and depth, illuminating an important chapter in the development of an artist best known for her figurative painting and advocacy for women artists.
