Visitors to the next exhibit opening at the Yale Center for British Art should not be surprised to find dots dancing before their eyes.
The dot has been the point of artistic inspiration for more than 30 years for Andrew Forge, the William Leffingwell Professor Emeritus of Painting and former dean of the School of Art, whose works will be on view in a retrospective exhibit at the museum May 15-July 14.
Titled "Andrew Forge: A Retrospective," the display features paintings and works on paper that have been chosen by the artist himself. The show marks several firsts: It is the first exhibit to trace the artist's progression from the landscapes and figurative paintings of the 1950s to the "dot" paintings that have engaged him for the past three decades; it is also the first time that the 11 canvases of Mr. Forge's "Months" series have been shown together and that many of his larger works have been on view.
A native of England who studied at the Camberwell School of Art, Professor Forge began his teaching career at the Slade School and served as head of the fine arts department at Goldsmith's College in London before coming to the United States in 1972 as a visiting professor at Cooper Union School of Art in New York. The artist joined the Yale faculty in 1975 as dean and professor of painting, holding the former post until 1983 and the latter until his retirement in 1994. He assumed the Leffingwell chair in 1991. His work is represented in the collections of the Tate Gallery, the Arts Council of Great Britain and the Corcoran Gallery, as well as in private collections in both England and America.
Although he began his career as a representational artist, painting from observation, Professor Forge underwent a radical change in 1963, when he traded his heavily pigmented canvases for the simplicity of the dot. He recalls: "For some reason, the problem of scale had become insoluble. I discovered that the dot, which represented nothing beyond itself, had its own scale."
Unlike the pointilist paintings by such artists as Georges Seurat, Mr. Forge's paintings do not begin with subject matter. "Each painting starts with a single dot, and it grows as the dots accrue over the field of the canvas," explains the artist. "During the early stages, the formative principle is simply the vibration of the dots ..."
While the works are not meant to be representational, they are not entirely abstract either, he says: "As the dots close up and intimations of light and space and substance and transparency begin to appear, one is drawn to name." The titles Professor Forge gives these paintings -- such as "Sousbois," "February" or "S. Undressing" -- also tend to strike a balance between representation and abstraction, he admits. The artist encourages viewers to observe the works from various distances, in order to find their own personal approach to his work.
In conjunction with the exhibit, the British Art Center is publishing an illustrated catalogue featuring critical essays by poet John Hollander, Sterling Professor of English, and Michael Kubovy, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Virginia and author of "The Psychology of Perspective." Docent-led gallery talks about the exhibit will be offered at 11 a.m. on the following Thursdays: May 23 and 30, June 6, 13, 20 and 27, and July 11; and at noon on the following Saturdays: May 25 and June 22.
The Yale Center for British Art, located at 1080 Chapel St., is open to the public free of charge 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and noon-5 p.m. on Sunday. For information, call 432-2800.