Paul Resika

Paul Resika is widely considered to be one of Hans Hofmann's closest protégés. He took as his starting point Hofmann's theory of “push-pull”, in which different planes of color simultaneously approach and recede from the viewer, a function of their relative size and coolness or warmness of color. 

Born in New York City, Resika studied with Hofmann in the 1940s and received his first show, at age nineteen, at New York's George Dix Gallery in 1948. He was part of what is now considered the "second generation of the New York School"—artists who applied abstract expressionist techniques, such as the emphasis on gesture and emotional immediacy, to the depiction of representational subject matter. During the 1950s, Resika traveled extensively in Europe and began developing the series of recurring pared-down, quasi-abstract motifs that continue to engage today: piers and harbors, farmhouses, floral still lifes, female figures and landscapes. Resika's boat series is the artist's most acclaimed body of work, one in which the abstract teachings of his mentor are applied to the genre of landscape.

Currently Resika spends winters in New York City, summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and one month each spring in southern France. Each locale and its accompanying season informs his work greatly and plays an important role in his choice of subject matter and palette. Resika's work is in the collection of a number of important museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Musem of American Art in Washington DC.