KIRK HOPPER FINE ART

Forrest Bess, Bert L. Long, Jr., Chris Martin, Thomas Nozkowski

January 25–February 22, 2025

Forrest Clemenger Bess (1911-1977) was a bait fisherman and self taught artist who was considered somewhat of a small town eccentric. A self-described visionary artist, Bess painted his subconscious, and his small abstract paintings are filled with his vivid, personal visions. Bess’s work is included in many private and public collections including the Menil Collection, Houston; Houston Museum of Fine Arts; Museum of Contemporary Arts, Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Bert L. Long, Jr. (1940-2013) was a chef and self taught artist, gaining national and international recognition for his thought provoking art. Long described the philosophy behind his work as “a quest to help people diagnose their inner self” and believed his art to be “the vehicle to help facilitate the process.” Bert Long Jr.’s work can be seen in over 100 private and public collections worldwide including Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; Dallas Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Art, Houston; Bell Telephone, Houston; Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii; and Groupo Larios, Spain.

Chris Martin (b. 1954) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He studied painting at Yale University and received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Martin’s compulsive paintings are playful, unpredictable encounters of the world around him, combining found objects and collage in abstract geometries and bold rhythmic patterns. Martin’s abstractions serve as investigations in color, form, and texture—some thick and lumpy, others painted with spare restraint indicative of an unstable, constantly shifting internal landscape. Martin’s paintings are included in the permanent collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among other museums.

Thomas Nozkowski (1944-2019) was an American painter known for his small-scale abstractions that often resemble biomorphic forms. Referencing colors and objects found in daily life, Nozkowski created highly idiosyncratic works with affinities to artists as varied as Arthur Dove, Elizabeth Murray, and Raoul De Keyser. Born in 1944 in Teaneck, NJ, Nozkowski spent his youth in the suburbs, admiring the bohemian culture of New York from afar before moving there in 1961. While earning his BFA at Cooper Union, Nozkowski shifted from making sculpture to painting during the heyday of Conceptual Art in the late 1960s. By 1979, he had found an audience for his work in New York. Through a number of solo exhibitions at 55 Mercer Gallery and Rosa Esman Gallery in the 1980s, along with the Museum of Modern Art acquiring his work in 1982, his reputation for creating evocative drawings, prints, and paintings was solidified. Nozkowski’s long and prolific career is dotted with achievements such as a 1993 Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, and a 1999 award for painting from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among others.

Kirk Hopper Fine Art
1426 N Riverfront Blvd
Dallas, TX 75207
214.760.9230
www.kirkhopperfineart.com