Some People

Diane Arbus, Donald Baechler, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois, George Condo, Cum Wizard 69420, Maureen Dougherty, William Eggleston, Tsuguharu Foujita, Lucian Freud, Adam Fuss, Jeremy Jaspers, Chantal Joffe, Alex Katz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Joel Mesler, Joan Mitchell, McDermott & McGough, Alice Neel, Raymond Pettibon, Francis Picabia, Jack Pierson, Milton Resnick, Cindy Sherman, John Sonsini, Chaïm Soutine, Billy Sullivan, Henry Taylor, Boris Torres, Andy Warhol, Bruce Weber, Nicole Wittenberg, Matthew Wong

Cheim & Read is pleased to present Some People, a thematic group exhibition that explores portraiture from the 1930s to the present day, and features over thirty artists.

The title of the show is borrowed from the song by Stephen Sondheim and Jule Styne for the 1959 Broadway musical, Gypsy. Through painting, drawing, printmaking, and photography, this exhibition looks to examine a broad range of cultural influences and historical predecessors in the portrait that can be traced across five decades.

The earliest examples are a 1939 oil portrait of a young girl by Chaïm Soutine, and an ink and wash drawing of a woman’s face by Tsuguharu Foujita from 1949. These important works will be presented alongside very recent works coming directly from young artists’ studios, such as Jeremy Jaspers, Boris Torres, Cum Wizard 69420, and Nicole Wittenberg.

Through inference and context, this generous presentation draws out historical precedents and cultural influences among the artists. In this free association, the some thirty-six works on view join together in the continuously evolving formal and psychological conversation about what a portrait is and what it could be.