Big Foot is Found in the Sierra Madre 2021 21x16 - California

Year2021

Hand SignedUpper Right on Verso 

Condition Excellent 

Not Framed 

Purchased fromArtist 2021 

Provenance / HistoryThe work is 20.5 x16 x 4 inches. It is a relief work with subject matter inside and outside of the central structure...a plexiglass box. Kerns works with a multitude of materials in a 3-D relief construction. He uses metal, paint, wood, plastic and various textural materials . The pieces add a level of exuberant humor and irony to works grounded in abstract expressionist modalities. This is one of a group of six works shown in a recent (2022) retrospective. Ed Kerns is an American Expressionist of the New York School who studied and worked for Grace Hartigan and Bill DeKooning. 

Story / Additional InfoEd Kerns is an American painter and educator. He studied with Grace Hartigan, the highly regarded American Abstract Expressionist. Through his friendship with Hartigan, Kerns came to know and work for many artists of the New York School, including Willem de Kooning, James Brooks, Philip Guston, Clyfford Still, and Sam Francis. Kerns’ career in New York had a meteoric trajectory. In 1972, his first exhibition at the Sachs Gallery on 57th Street in Manhattan garnered high critical praise. The New York Times, The Village Voice, Arts Magazine, ArtForum , and Artnews were among the numerous publications to praise his work. Kerns lived and exhibited in Manhattan for 12 years before coming to Lafayette College to chair and build the modern era Art Department. 

Certificate of AuthenticityArt Brokerage 

LID158965

Ed Kerns - United States

Art Brokerage: Ed Kerns American Abstract Expressionist Artist: b. 1945. Ed Kerns (February 22, 1945) is an American abstract artist and educator. Kerns studied with the noted Abstract-Expressionist painter, Grace Hartigan and through the elder artist came to know and work with many artists of that generation including, Phillip Guston, Willem de Kooning, James Brooks, Ernest Briggs, Richard Diebenkorn and Sam Francis. Born in 1945 in Richmond, Virginia, Kerns started painting at a young age. He attended the Richmond Professional Institute, receiving his BFA in 1967. He went on to the Maryland Institute, where he studied with painter Grace Hartigan. Here, Kerns received the Hoffberger Fellowship and graduated with an MFA in 1969. Kerns first gained exposure in 1972, when he was commissioned by art collector Larry Aldrich to paint 100 paintings over the course of the year as gifts.That same year, Kerns had his first solo art show at the AM Sachs Gallery in New York. Over the course of the 1970s and 80s, Kerns formed a close partnership with the Rosa Esman Gallery and exhibited ten solo shows there. Of his work in the late 1970s and early 80s, gallery coordinator Judith Stein says, “He works slowly, creating no more than ten large paintings a year. His media are acrylic, sand, and thread, the last used to stitch together sections of canvas. Often plywood or upsom board is used as support.” Listings wanted.