Contributed by Michael Brennan / Anne Russinof passed away a year ago at the age of 68. “Gestural Symphony” is a commanding memorial retrospective of her mostly large, emphatically gestural paintings. Posthumous exhibitions are by nature bittersweet, but Russinof’s resists melancholy because her work is so irrepressibly lively. Her signature outsize curves are sweeping and springy. They kick, bounce, and jump around.
In the 1960s, pop artist Roy Lichtensein lampooned the Abstract Expressionist preoccupation with the brushstroke by effectively commodifying it in a static image. Since then, many abstract painters have singled out the gesture as image, often ironically. Russinof’s gesture is different. While not entirely postmodern, she’s also not a member of the “frozen gesture” school of painting. Her work is warm and personal, reflecting a full synthesis of hand and brush by which gesture operates as authentic trace rather than quoted idea, reinforcing its immediacy.
Another key feature of Russinof’s paintings, not to be confused with texture, is tactility. A unique sense of touch is palpable in her brushwork, revealed in irregular variations in pressure and the illusion of transparency produced by her wet-into-wet technique of mixing color. It’s exemplified by Shakeout, in which foreground and background are lushly intermixed, with brushstrokes dragging diaphanously
As soaring as Russinof’s gesture often is, it’s also fixed within well-defined edges, yielding a provocative fusion of modern abstraction and iconicity. This quality seems to align with Eastern European – specifically, Eastern Orthodox – traditions of spiritual painting. Although Russian-French artist Serge Poliakoff was not a gestural painter, I detect kindred tensions in his work and hers. The paradoxical quality of boxed-in liveliness sets her work apart from that of gestural contemporaries like Jamie Nares, David Reed, and Joan Snyder. Anne Russinof’s painting, ever alive and kicking, resplendently survives her.
“Anne Russinof: Gestural Symphony,” Equity Gallery, New York Artists Equity Association Inc., 245 Broome Street, New York, NY. Curated by Emily Berger. Through January 31, 2026.
About the author: Michael Brennan is a Brooklyn-based abstract painter who writes on art.
Thanks to Michael for the lively remembrance of Anne and her potent work. She was also an extraordinarily warm and friendly person. It is still a shock that she passed away so suddenly. What a loss. Grateful that her work survives her.