Winold Reiss was the son of landscape painter
Fritz Reiss, so it was natural that Winold also produced a
number of landscapes during his long, productive career. But
Winold's drawings and paintings of fields, barns, and communities
are motivated by something other than the romanticism at the
heart of many landscapes: his are experiments in the use of
color to fashion spatial design. Some, such as his many drawings
of barns and scattered buildings, remind us of Edward Hopper's
houses, which demonstrate Hopper's interest in their graphic
and cubic qualities. That same angular approach to form is
what structures Reiss's cityscapes, which often use dashes
of color to convey mood. Some of his imaginative studies seem
to exult in a kind of Dionysian ecstasy, perhaps associated
with particular cultures. In later imaginative works, Reiss
often reached for something more explicitly spiritual, as
if the universal pattern at the root of all his work finally
centered his mature attention. —JCS
The images that follow are arranged in approximate
chronological order, despite the difficulty of determining
exact dates for some of the work. Unless noted otherwise,
works are from various private collections, some through the
courtesy of owners who wish to remain anonymous. Clicking
on a thumbnail will take you to an enlarged view of the image
and a more detailed description.
