Arena 1 is pleased to present an exhibition of sculpture by the late Jacqueline Piatigorsky. Artist, writer, cultural advocate, tennis player, and competitive chess master, as well as wife and companion to one of the 20th century’s leading musicians, polymath Piatigorsky came from a European background of privilege and historical conflict and was a galvanizing (if self-effacing) presence in Los Angeles’ arts scene for decades before her death in 2012 at the age of 100. The exhibit of her work will be on view through September 27, 2014.
Jacqueline Piatigorsky – named a Woman of the Year by the Los Angeles Times in 1966 – won many senior tennis championships, published a memoir and several essays, and was one of only four female members of the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame. But she thought of herself first and foremost as a sculptor. She mastered several three-dimensional media, but she identified with none so much as stone. She was able to coax alabaster, marble, and other stone materials into forms at once graceful and monumental. She took a traditional approach to carving, and her objects, including stylized birds and abstract forms, fit comfortably into the modernist aesthetics of her era and beautifully into the eclectic tastes of ours. She held three one-woman exhibitions during her lifetime, the first at the Edgardo Costa Gallery in Beverly Hills in 1976 and the latter two at the Heritage Gallery on La Cienega Boulevard in 1988 and 1997. This memorial exhibition honors the accomplishment and the memory of one of the local art community’s most beloved figures.
ARENA 1 Gallery
3026 Airport Ave.
Santa Monica, CA 90405
www.arena1gallery.com
310-397-7449
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