Frank Moore: Five Paintings

David Zwirner is pleased to announce Five Paintings, a selection of exceptional works by the late painter Frank Moore (1953–2002) drawn from an important private European collection. For this exhibition, five paintings and four works on paper will be on view at the 34 East 69th Street gallery. Made in the artist’s downtown New York studio and in his upstate home in Deposit, New York, these jewel-like pictures are among the best known that Moore created in his brief lifetime and among the most documented—portraying entire ecosystems within their inventive frames, which serve to extend the artwork’s confines beyond the support.

Frank Moore: Five Paintings follows the 2021 presentation of the artist’s work organized by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author, critic, and curator Hilton Als, which was part of More Life, a focused series of curated solo exhibitions shown at David Zwirner on the fortieth anniversary of the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis.

Image: Frank Moore, Wizard, 1994

Location

34 East 69th Street New York New York, 10021

Dates

November 2—December 10, 2022

Artist

Frank Moore

Five Paintings

“Raised on Long Island, Moore spent his childhood summers with his family in the Adirondacks, where he developed a particular fascination with nature and the gentle and sometimes violent interplay between subterranean insect life, dirt, water, and plants.”

—Hilton Als (curatorial statement, More Life)

Frank Moore in Costa Rica, 2001

Frank Moore in Costa Rica, 2001

“The AIDS content ... first entered my work around 1987…. I had the same reaction to taking toxic drugs to suppress opportunistic infections as I had to using chemical sprays in the garden to get rid of aphids or gypsy moths. This was the beginning of an effort ... to view the health of the environment and human health as equivalent.”

—Frank Moore

Frank Moore

Wizard, 1994

Oil and silkscreen on canvas on wood with pharmaceuticals cast in lucite in an aluminum frame

68 x 96 inches (172.7 x 243.8 cm)

The five paintings in this presentation exemplify prescient themes that continue to reverberate today. Made at the peak of the AIDS crisis, Wizard (1994) places in the foreground the French virologist Jean-Claude Chermann who treated Moore and whose research led to the discovery of HIV and AIDS. Heaps of candy-colored tablets are joined by a blazing pile of coffins, each inscribed discreetly with the name of someone Moore knew who perished from AIDS-related complications. This painting was featured on the cover of Art in America the year it was made.

“In painting Wizard,” Moore recalled, “I discovered that even tedious detail can take on life. I was painting thousands of tiny pills in the background and noticed that they looked like discarded musical notes. I liked that idea, so I pushed it.”

Frank Moore, Wizard, 1994 (detail)

Frank Moore, Wizard, 1994 (detail)

Frank Moore, Wizard, 1994 (detail)

Frank Moore, Wizard, 1994 (detail)

Frank Moore, Wizard, 1994 (detail)

Frank Moore, Wizard, 1994 (detail)

“Wizard can be read like a Boschian treatise of the AIDS crisis at that moment in time…. The Plague is presented like a fable, almost a Wizard of Oz landscape littered with the accouterments of the health-care industry…. This painting, one of the artist’s finest, became a cult picture of the 1990s.”

—Gallery Partner David Leiber, from a lecture given at Cornell University, 2012

Frank Moore

Lullaby, 1997

Oil on canvas on featherboard with red pine frame

50 x 67 1/2 inches (127 x 171.4 cm)

One of Moore’s three “bed paintings”—the other two are in the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York—Lullaby pairs the domestic with the pastoral to bridge the earthly and the heavenly.

As the artist recalled in a Skowhegan School of Painting lecture given in 1998, “The buffalos which used to cover the plains like wildebeests used to cover the Serengeti are no more. They have receded into American folklore. But when I was growing up, my mother sang a lullaby to me, ‘Home on the Range’: ‘Give me a home where the buffalo roam / where the deer and the antelope play / where never is heard / a discouraging word / and the skies are not cloudy all day.’ ... It’s somewhat nostalgic.... the feeling was getting back to a simpler kind of childlike state.”

Frank Moore, Lullaby II, 1997. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Frank Moore, Lullaby II, 1997. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Frank Moore, Patient, 1997–1998. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas

Frank Moore, Patient, 1997–1998. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas

“Painting has become, for me, an intensely sensual activity. At times my awareness seems to project out of my body to occupy the space between my brush and the canvas.... The forms I paint, whether rocks or muscles or water and hair, all play upon my senses and become quite real.”

—Frank Moore

Installation view, Frank Moore: Five Paintings, David Zwirner, New York, 2022

Installation view, Frank Moore: Five Paintings, David Zwirner, New York, 2022

“An intellectually fervent, fiercely independent maverick, [Moore] revived and revised a panoply of outré realist styles to comment on pressing contemporary issues, especially the environment and AIDS. His achievement centers on always luminous, often panoramic but exquisitely rendered allegorical paintings….”

—Roberta Smith, The New York Times

Frank Moore, Wizard, 1994 (detail)

Frank Moore, Wizard, 1994 (detail)

Frank Moore working on a frame for one of his paintings, n.d.

Frank Moore working on a frame for one of his paintings, n.d.

Frank Moore, Lullaby, 1997 (detail)

Frank Moore, Lullaby, 1997 (detail)

Frank Moore, The Curators, 1996 (detail)

Frank Moore, The Curators, 1996 (detail)

Frank Moore, Invertebration II, 1995 (detail)

Frank Moore, Invertebration II, 1995 (detail)

“A frame is such a key moment, the threshold of transition into the experience of an image.... I've paid a lot of attention to it, and have gotten all kinds of results.... I love the way such frames can layer the content in the overall perception of a work, adding humor, irony, tenderness, elegance.”

—Frank Moore

Frank Moore

Nursery, 1994

Oil on canvas on wood with enamel frame

29 1/8 x 53 inches (74 x 134.6 cm)

Florine Stettheimer, Family Portrait, II. 1933. Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Florine Stettheimer, Family Portrait, II. 1933. Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Kay Sage, From Another Approach, 1944

Kay Sage, From Another Approach, 1944

Paul Cadmus, Stone Blossom: A Conversation Piece, 1939-1940

Paul Cadmus, Stone Blossom: A Conversation Piece, 1939-1940

Charles Ephraim Burchfield, Gateway to September, 1946-1956. © Burchfield Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo State, Buffalo, NY

Charles Ephraim Burchfield, Gateway to September, 1946-1956. © Burchfield Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo State, Buffalo, NY

Moore, who had studied painting and psychology at Yale University from 1971 to 1975, was influenced by many artists, including Florine Stettheimer, Charles E. Burchfield, Paul Cadmus, and Kay Sage.

Frank Moore

Study for "Survival of the Fattest", 1995

Gouache and watercolor on Arches paper in carved cherry frame

31 x 23 5/8 inches (78.7 x 60 cm)

Moore recalls of Survival of the Fattest—part of a group of works commissioned by the fashion designer Gianni Versace—“These [paintings] are all from around this place where I spend summers upstate. ‘Survival of the fattest’ because in the insect world, if you’re fat, you’re beautiful. In the human world, you’re thin, you’re beautiful.”

Frank Moore, Cow, 1996, part of a group of works commissioned by Gianni Versace.

Frank Moore, Cow, 1996, part of a group of works commissioned by Gianni Versace.

“Frank’s work was not political in the sense of trying to accomplish specific ideological objectives. But in examining connected ecosystems—the global effects of genetic engineering, the love affair between oil interests and agriculture, or multiple impacts of a virus, bodily and cultural—his paintings often led to political insights.”

—Loring McAlpin, founding member of the AIDS activist art collective Gran Fury

Frank Moore

Invertebration II, 1995

Gouache and watercolor on Arches paper in carved cherry frame

19 3/4 x 29 inches (50.2 x 73.7 cm)

Frank Moore in Costa Rica, 2001

Frank Moore in Costa Rica, 2001

Frank Moore with a snapping turtle at his home in in Deposit, New York, n.d.

Frank Moore with a snapping turtle at his home in in Deposit, New York, n.d.

“Autobiography is a grounding device. It’s like touching the ground. You know what it is. You’ve been there. It’s your life.”

—Frank Moore

Frank Moore

Spring, 1996

Oil on canvas on wood panel

26 x 56 inches (66 x 142.2 cm)

A kind of self-portrait as well as a tribute to themes of rebirth and resurrection, Spring (1996) seems to depict the artist after medical treatment; delicate snowflakes are superimposed over his profile, and he exhales a flutter of winged insects and diaphanous butterflies. Related to Moore’s pair of paintings Everything I Own (1993–1994), which refers to the tradition of the Buddhist mudra, this painting likewise visualizes in a complex way the ethereal and the terrestrial in its symbolism.

Frank Moore, Everything I Own II, 1993

Frank Moore, Everything I Own II, 1993

Frank Moore

Invertebration I, 1995

Gouache and watercolor on Arches paper in carved cherry frame

29 x 19 3/4 inches (73.7 x 50.2 cm)

Frank Moore

Study for "A Midsummer's Night", 1995

Gouache and watercolor on Arches paper in carved cherry frame

31 x 21 3/4 inches (78.7 x 55.3 cm)

The Curators (1996) questions what happens to an artist’s legacy after one passes, a concern which preoccupied Moore after his HIV diagnosis. In what appears to be the crypt of an encyclopedic museum, the walls’ bricks are carved with the names of Moore’s friends, influences, and contemporaries. The work is enclosed in a black frame netted with painted white spiderwebs that also appear in the top left corner of the composition, there spelling out “PAY WHAT YOU WISH.” Requiring a closer look, The Curators features a tautological exercise by Moore that makes reference to Belgian surrealist René Magritte: a painting in the bottom right corner pictures a meta version of the work itself, infinitely repeating within the frame.

Frank Moore

The Curators, 1996

Oil on canvas panel with frame

70 3/8 x 88 3/8 inches (178.8 x 224.5 cm)

René Magritte, The Human Condition, 1933. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

René Magritte, The Human Condition, 1933. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Frank Moore, The Curators, 1996 (detail)

Frank Moore, The Curators, 1996 (detail)

“Painting has become, for me, an intensely sensual activity. At times my awareness seems to project out of my body to occupy the space between my brush and the canvas.... The forms I paint, whether rocks or muscles or water and hair, all play upon my senses and become quite real.”

—Frank Moore

Installation view, Frank Moore: Five Paintings, David Zwirner, New York, 2022

Installation view, Frank Moore: Five Paintings, David Zwirner, New York, 2022

Inquire about works by Frank Moore

An installation view of the exhibition, Frank Moore: Five Paintings, at David Zwirner in New York, dated 2022.

An installation view of the exhibition, Frank Moore: Five Paintings, at David Zwirner in New York, dated 2022.

An installation view of the exhibition, Frank Moore: Five Paintings, at David Zwirner in New York, dated 2022.

An installation view of the exhibition, Frank Moore: Five Paintings, at David Zwirner in New York, dated 2022.

An installation view of the exhibition, Frank Moore: Five Paintings, at David Zwirner in New York, dated 2022.

An installation view of the exhibition, Frank Moore: Five Paintings, at David Zwirner in New York, dated 2022.

An installation view of the exhibition, Frank Moore: Five Paintings, at David Zwirner in New York, dated 2022.

An installation view of the exhibition, Frank Moore: Five Paintings, at David Zwirner in New York, dated 2022.

Frank Moore

Wizard, 1994

Oil and silkscreen on canvas on wood with pharmaceuticals cast in lucite in an aluminum frame

68 x 96 inches (172.7 x 243.8 cm)

Frank Moore

Lullaby, 1997

Oil on canvas on featherboard with red pine frame

50 x 67 1/2 inches (127 x 171.4 cm)

Frank Moore

Nursery, 1994

Oil on canvas on wood with enamel frame

29 1/8 x 53 inches (74 x 134.6 cm)

Frank Moore

Spring, 1996

Oil on canvas on wood panel

26 x 56 inches (66 x 142.2 cm)

Frank Moore

The Curators, 1996

Oil on canvas panel with frame

70 3/8 x 88 3/8 inches (178.8 x 224.5 cm)

Frank Moore

Study for "Survival of the Fattest", 1995

Gouache and watercolor on Arches paper in carved cherry frame

31 x 23 5/8 inches (78.7 x 60 cm)

Frank Moore

Invertebration II, 1995

Gouache and watercolor on Arches paper in carved cherry frame

19 3/4 x 29 inches (50.2 x 73.7 cm)

Frank Moore

Invertebration I, 1995

Gouache and watercolor on Arches paper in carved cherry frame

29 x 19 3/4 inches (73.7 x 50.2 cm)

Frank Moore

Study for "A Midsummer's Night", 1995

Gouache and watercolor on Arches paper in carved cherry frame

31 x 21 3/4 inches (78.7 x 55.3 cm)

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