Miles McEnery Gallery is pleased to announce a focused survey of works by Esteban Vicente. The artist’s eighth solo exhibition at the gallery will open on 4 September at 520 West 21st Street, and remain on view through 25 October 2025. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication featuring an essay by Daniel Haxall, PhD.

The only Spanish-born member of the first generation of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism, Esteban Vicente was a master colorist. While rooted in the energetic mark-making of Abstract Expressionism, Vicente’s canvases resist bombast or overt drama. He was interested in what he described as the “capacity of color to become light,” and intentionally stripped away “fanciful” brushwork as a means of preserving a pure chromatic landscape, one where the artist’s hand receded. The distinct luminosity of Vicente’s canvases is a testament to the success of his pursuit.

The works on view span four decades of Vicente’s career, from 1960 to 2000. This survey includes the traditional medium of oil painting alongside collages and mixed media pieces, which were integral components of his practice. In particular, collage brought a heightened physicality to his artistic investigations, grounding the ephemeral nature of color in a tactile, constructed surface. It also served as a means of resolving the interplay of form and hue.

Deeply influenced by his natural surrounds, Vicente’s compositions pulse with a radiant sensibility that is less about depicting nature than distilling its essence: the furtive bloom of Spring, the fleeting moments of light before the world moves into evening, or the brooding quiet before a storm. In his canvases and collages, color is both subject and atmosphere, which he transforms into an emotive force that effortlessly stirs memory and sensation.