The Armory Show 2023
Eric Firestone Gallery | Booth 320
The Javits Center, New York, NY 10001
September 8–10, 2023
THE ARMORY SHOW 2023
Eric Firestone Gallery is delighted to participate in the 2023 edition of The Armory Show. The presentation will focus on figurative painting by women, mixing work from the 1970s with contemporary painting. The presentation includes artists who the gallery has recently begun to exhibit, such as Lauren dela Roche, Judy Bowman, and Helen Oji, and will also introduce the work of feminist painter Jane Kogan and the Japanese American artist Rumiko Tsuda. Works explore the body in environments of confinement and freedom, between reality and fantasy. The presentation will additionally include work by Sally Cook, Charles DuBack, Martha Edelheit, Shirley Gorelick, Mimi Gross, Paul Housley, Daphne Mumford, Sana Musasama, Michael Rosch, and Peter Williams.
Jane Kogan
Black Woman in Cosmos, 1976
oil on canvas
86h x 40 1/2w in
218.44h x 102.87w cm
JKOG001
Jane Kogan’s “Amazon” series of the 1970s-80s was influenced by the feminist movement. The 8-foot tall canvases depict women in powerful stances. They draw inspiration from art historical sources, the feminine divine, and the artist’s imagination. Their collective effect is that of a phalanx of warriors wielding weapons both material and spiritual. Kogan’s series is evidence of her search for aesthetic symmetry, which creates a palpable tension within her paintings but also endows them with intense presence. Many of the figures are framed in natural settings by plants and creatures, and often by water. Kogan further complicates her portrayal of feminine power by queering her figures using clothing and other signifiers; in one self-portrait, she wears a doctor’s head mirror and a military jacket, in another a bowler hat. Kogan associates creation with both the masculine and the feminine and blurs the binary between essence and performance.
Also exploring the female body is self-taught artist Lauren dela Roche (b. 1983). For the Armory presentation, dela Roche completed a monumental 8 ½ foot wide painting on found and repurposed cotton feedsacks. Nude bodies are elongated and duplicated across her surfaces and set in decorative interiors that reference classical Greek mythology, domesticity, and dreamworlds. The textiles she employs as her painting surface were previously used for farming and agriculture; dela Roche handmends them as she works, allowing their histories to form another dimension to her work.
Mimi Gross
Zinnias in August, 2023
oil crayon and oil paint on wood
10 1/4h x 12 1/4w x 12 1/4d in
26.04h x 31.11w x 31.11d cm
MIGR317
Another centerpiece of the presentation is Mimi Gross’s 13-foot-wide painting, So Long Times Square, 1983. Gross (b. 1940) is known for her group portraits and installations, including the famed Ruckus Manhattan. Her monumental So Long Times Square was originally designed as a stage backdrop for the new O’Neal’s Cabaret at Times Square. She researched the composition by taking photographs and making drawings from the 4th floor balcony of the Spectacolor Studio in the Times building. The cabaret was short-lived and ill-timed to the commercial changes in the neighborhood. The painting was returned to Gross, who added the portraits at this time, depicting dancers Joseph Lennon and Manuel Diaz, dancer and choreographer Marianne Capehart, and artist Jodey Elbaum Cook.
Sana Musasama (b. 1957, Queens, New York) is an activist artist whose ceramic sculptures have a materiality which also implicates the body. Her sculptures are informed by her global travels, her connection to issues facing women and girls around the world, and indigenous artistic practices. Musasama began traveling as a way to recover identity and cultural place. Clay was the geographical catalyst that first brought her to West Africa where she studied pottery with the Mende people in Sierra Leone (1974–75). Later venturing to Japan, China, Cambodia, and South America, she continued her quest, expanding her interests to tribal adornment practices. The works in this presentation are part of Musasama’s House Series, structures whose human scale suggest comfort and protection.
Judy Bowman
The Fellas #7, 2023
mixed media on paper
20h x 16w in
Detroit-based Judy Bowman (b. 1952) is interested in portraiture that both speaks to a larger reality and comes from personal experience. Considering herself a visual griot, Bowman tells stories through her mixed-media works on canvas that reflect her coming-of-age experiences in Detroit’s East Side and Black Bottom neighborhoods. Scenes in her lively collages depict love, community, and fellowship—the type that resides in jazzy nights, the sway of young Black women, the swag of young Black men, church on Sundays followed by family dinner, family outings, cultural dignity, and richness. Peter Williams (b. 1952, Nyack, New York; d. 2021, Wilmington, DE) made paintings that exist in the space between seductive beauty and abject horror—evoking the complex experiences of Black Americans in the contemporary age. Often humorous and disturbing at once, the artist’s canvases reflect Black history in the context of his own life.
Shirley Gorelick (1924–2000) is known for her humanist paintings of subjects who have not traditionally been heroized in large-scale portraiture. She re-examined art historical works through a contemporary female gaze. In her 1974–76 painting Three Sisters (Westchester Gauguin), each figure is depicted twice, clothed and nude, and the ability of the subjects to shift between both states lends them a sense of agency. Repetitions of the body can be found in the work of other artists such as Sally Cook (b. 1932, Buffalo, NY) and Martha Edelheit (b. 1931), whose 1970-71 painting Seals replicates the same two models across its surface until they converge in the center.
Helen Oji
Swinging Ball, 1981
acrylic, rhoplex, mixed media on folded paper
10 1/2h x 12 1/2w in
26.67h x 31.75w cm
HOJI042
Rumiko Tsuda (b. 1947 Wakayama City, Japan) also takes inspiration from bodies in the urban landscape. Her epic 6-foot tondo painting, Mandala of New Yorkers, 2004, is an aggregate of hundreds of figures she originally sketched on the New York City subway. Helen Oji’s (b. 1950) Kimono series of the late 1970s and early 1980s only implies the presence of the body, building “garments” out of thickly applied acrylic paint and glitter. Rather than locate the figure in nature, natural elements are imprinted onto the Kimonos and absorbed into them.
Paul Housley (b.1964, Stalybridge, UK) is a London-based artist who makes small-scale figurative works often inspired by art historical sources. Despite this, they have a humility and conversational tone which undermines the machismo often associated with the old masters. Housley’s love of the materiality of paint comes through in his thick surfaces, built up through a process of painting over old canvases and re-working images. The final images are raw, direct, and formally reduced. As Housley says, “I like that challenge, to seek out interesting paintings with limited resources and small objects.”
Jane Kogan
Parable for the '70s - You Are What You Eat, 1978
oil on canvas
84h x 43 1/2w in
213.36h x 110.49w cm
JKOG002
Jane Kogan
Black Woman in Cosmos, 1976
oil on canvas
86h x 40 1/2w in
218.44h x 102.87w cm
JKOG001
Martha Edelheit
View of Cross Bronx Expressway from Highbridge Park, 1972
acrylic on canvas
71h x 81w in
180.34h x 205.74w cm
MEDE250
Martha Edelheit
Untitled (Shirtless Male)
acrylic on canvas
38h x 30w in
96.52h x 76.20w cm
MEDE093
Lauren dela Roche
Butterfly Egg, 2023
acrylic on cotton feedsack with acrylic varnish
76h x 106w in
193.04h x 269.24w cm
LDRO005
Lauren dela Roche
Parallel Projection, 2023
acrylic on found cotton feedsack with acrylic varnish
40h x 40w in
101.60h x 101.60w cm
LDRO010
Mimi Gross
So Long, Times Square, 1982–83
oil on canvas
96h x 167 1/4w in
243.84h x 424.82w cm
MIGR064
Shirley Gorelick
Libby, 1971–73
acrylic on canvas
80h x 40w in
203.20h x 101.60w cm
SHIRGO048
Daphne Mumford
Dancer Stretching (Vickie in a Split), 1977
oil on canvas
50h x 60w in
127h x 152.40w cm
DMUM008
Helen Oji
Swinging Ball, 1981
acrylic, rhoplex, mixed media on folded paper
10 1/2h x 12 1/2w in
26.67h x 31.75w cm
HOJI042
Helen Oji
Oxide, 1977
Acrylic on folded paper
10 1/2h x 12 1/2w in
26.67h x 31.75w cm
HOJI044
Judy Bowman
Untitled, 2023
mixed-media collage on canvas
40h x 30w in
101.60h x 76.20w cm
JUDB081
Judy Bowman
The Fellas #7, 2023
mixed media on paper
20h x 16w in
50.80h x 40.64w cm
JUDB076
Sally Cook
Look Out, 1985
oil on canvas with hand-painted frame
33h x 24w in
83.82h x 60.96w cm
SALC018
Jane Kogan
Parable for the '70s - You Are What You Eat, 1978
oil on canvas
84h x 43 1/2w in
213.36h x 110.49w cm
JKOG002
Jane Kogan
Black Woman in Cosmos, 1976
oil on canvas
86h x 40 1/2w in
218.44h x 102.87w cm
JKOG001
Lauren dela Roche
Butterfly Egg, 2023
acrylic on cotton feedsack with acrylic varnish
76h x 106w in
193.04h x 269.24w cm
LDRO005
Lauren dela Roche
Weaver Pawn, 2023
acrylic on found cotton feedsack with acrylic varnish
54h x 68w in
137.16h x 172.72w cm
LDRO009
Judy Bowman
The Fellas #7, 2023
mixed media on paper
20h x 16w in
50.80h x 40.64w cm
JUDB076
Judy Bowman
Untitled, 2023
mixed-media collage on canvas
40h x 30w in
101.60h x 76.20w cm
JUDB081
Martha Edelheit
Untitled (Shirtless Male)
acrylic on canvas
38h x 30w in
96.52h x 76.20w cm
MEDE093
Martha Edelheit
View of Cross Bronx Expressway from Highbridge Park, 1972
acrylic on canvas
71h x 81w in
180.34h x 205.74w cm
MEDE250
Mimi Gross
So Long, Times Square, 1982–83
oil on canvas
96h x 167 1/4w in
243.84h x 424.82w cm
MIGR064
Daphne Mumford
Dancer Stretching (Vickie in a Split), 1977
oil on canvas
50h x 60w in
127h x 152.40w cm
DMUM008
Shirley Gorelick
Libby, 1971–73
acrylic on canvas
80h x 40w in
203.20h x 101.60w cm
SHIRGO048
Sally Cook
Look Out, 1985
oil on canvas with hand-painted frame
33h x 24w in
83.82h x 60.96w cm
SALC018
Helen Oji
Oxide, 1977
Acrylic on folded paper
10 1/2h x 12 1/2w in
26.67h x 31.75w cm
HOJI044
Helen Oji
Swinging Ball, 1981
acrylic, rhoplex, mixed media on folded paper
10 1/2h x 12 1/2w in
26.67h x 31.75w cm
HOJI042
THE ARMORY SHOW 2023
Eric Firestone Gallery | Booth 320
September 8–10, 2023
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VIP Preview Day (Invitation Only):
Thursday, September 7
11AM – 7PM: 11AM Access VIP Passholders
3–7PM: Access for all VIP Passholders
5–7PM: Access for all VIP Passholders and Vernissage invitation recipients
Public Hours:
Friday, September 8: 11AM – 7PM
Saturday, September 9: 11AM – 7PM
Sunday, September 10: 11AM – 6PM
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Javits Center
429 11th Avenue, New York, NY 10001