Linda Karshan

Linda Karshan (Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1947) studied drawing, painting and colour at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1965–66, with the architect Robert Reed, a follower of Joseph Albers. In 1967 she worked at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis under the direction of Jan van der Maarck, and then in 1967–68 she studied Art History at the Sorbonne in Paris. Since 1969 she has been living and working in London, although she has spent periods working in her studios, first in SoHo, New York, and later, since 1998, in Lakeville, Connecticut, USA. In 1970 she did Renaissance studies at the Slade School in London, and in 1983 she obtained an M.A. in Art and Humanistic Psychology at Antioch University in London. In 1984 she presented her first solo exhibition at the Clarendon Gallery in London, and that year she also exhibited at the ASB Gallery in the same city. Since 1991 she has regularly worked with the Galerie Biedermann in Munich, with exhibitions there in 1994, 1997 and 1999. In January 2002 the Sir John Soane Museum in London devoted a solo exhibition to her work, with selection and catalogue organised by the Keeper of Prints and Drawings at The British Museum, London, Frances Carey. Following the modern tradition that began with Malevich and Mondrian and continued with Schwitters, Reinhardt, Johns and Minimalism, Linda Karshan uses, and feels, the grid as an archetypal image, both for the emergence of the expressive object of her artistic exploration and for the emergence of her essential nature, which the artist takes as the origin of her persona and her artistic output. The exhibition of Linda Karshan in the Sala de la Muralla at the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern is curated by Teresa Millet and includes a selection of drawings by the artist done in the last two decades. The catalogue of the exhibition reproduces all the works exhibited and contains texts by Lynn MacRitchie, who writes for the Financial Times, Suzanne Cotter, curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, and the poet Vicente Valero.