PETER DEAN | UNTITLED

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

Dean was a figurative expressionist painter who addressed the advancements and failures of modern civilization with a socially critical conscience, particularly technology, war, urban life, and general existential crises. As co-founder of two movements, the Torque group in 1965, whose members included Joseph Kurhajec, Peter Saul, and Leon Golub, and Rhino Horn in 1969, including Peter Pasuntino, Nick Sperakis, and others focused on socially critical art, Dean made a deliberate stand apart from the cool and analytic art of the 1960s and '70s like Minimalism, Hard Edge abstraction, Pop and Op art. Dean's rogue visionary style appealed to Allan Stone's "maximalist" tendencies, who avidly exhibited and collected his work. Dean has had numerous solo and group shows in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, and his work in included in several public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Milwaukee Art Museum; the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Mint Museum of Art, North Carolina; and the Grey Art Gallery, New York, among others.