David True

If you're going to be an artist, you might as well go ahead and do it. Stake it, stake it deep.
Cut Flowers, Unexpected
Cut Flowers, Unexpected, 1989
Color woodcut.
27½ x 40"; 30 x 43". 150.
Crown Point Press and Tadashi Toda, woodblocks carved by Shunzo Matsuda.
$4,000    InquireInquire
Fragile Wings
Fragile Wings, 1989
Color woodcut.
15½ x 20"; 20¾ x 25". 100.
Crown Point Press and Tadashi Toda, woodblocks carved by Shunzo Matsuda.
$2,000    InquireInquire
Back Around
Back Around, 1987
Color spit bite and sugar lift aquatints.
30 x 22"; 40¾ x 30¾". 25.
Crown Point Press and Renée Bott.
$2,500    InquireInquire
Cut Secure
Cut Secure, 1987
Color aquatint with sugar lift and soap ground aquatints.
36¾ x 25¼"; 46¼ x 34". 25.
Crown Point Press and Renée Bott.
$2,500    InquireInquire
Open Channel
Open Channel, 1987
Color aquatint.
20½ x 41¾"; 30 x 52". 50.
Crown Point Press and Renée Bott.
$4,500 fair market value    Unavailable
Cold Romance
Cold Romance, 1985
Aquatint.
47½ x 41½"; 56¼ x 48½". 10.
Crown Point Press and Brenda Zlamany at Jeryl Parker Editions, New York.
$4,500 fair market value    Unavailable
Day Without Words
Day Without Words, 1985
Aquatint with flat bite etching.
48 x 62"; 48½ x 65¾". 10.
Crown Point Press and Brenda Zlamany at Jeryl Parker Editions, New York.
$6,000 fair market value    Unavailable
Roaming Swiftly, Knowing Quickly
Roaming Swiftly, Knowing Quickly, 1985
Aquatint.
61 1/2 x 46 3/4"; 65 x 48". 10.
Crown Point Press and Brenda Zlamany.
$5,000 fair market value    Unavailable
Woodland
Woodland, 1985
Spit bite aquatint.
47½ x 33"; 60½ x 44". 10.
Crown Point Press and Brenda Zlamany at Jeryl Parker Editions, New York.
$3,500    InquireInquire
Late
Late, 1983
Color aquatint.
24 x 36"; 30 x 44½". 25.
Crown Point Press and Marcia Bartholme.
$2,000 fair market value    Unavailable
Lifting Descent
Lifting Descent, 1983
Color hard ground etching.
12 x 9"; 15½ x 11½". 25.
Crown Point Press and Marcia Bartholme.
$1,000 fair market value    Proof AvailableProof Available
Savannah Sea
Savannah Sea, 1983
Color aquatint.
17 x 24"; 25¾ x 33". 35.
Crown Point Press and Marcia Bartholme.
$2,000 fair market value    Unavailable
Sour Mistress
Sour Mistress, 1983
Color hard ground etching with aquatint.
17 x 24"; 26 x 32½". 15.
Crown Point Press and Marcia Bartholme.
$1,500    InquireInquire

David True was born in Marietta, Ohio, in 1942. He studied at Ohio University, receiving his BFA in 1966 and his MFA in 1967. True gained recognition in the landmark exhibition “New Image Painting” at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1977. A forerunner in diverging from minimal art into a new form of figuration, True created an oeuvre that varies in subject matter but is united in what Art in America identified in 1988 as “a sense of disequilibrium.”

True depicts humans and nature in his art in symbolic ways. He is primarily a painter, and also works with acrylic and ink on paper with washes, stenciled images, and vibrant colors. His imagery points to abstract concepts and emotions that are verbally inexpressible, demanding a search for meaning and attention. John Yau reconciled the ostensible contradiction between style and concept in True’s work in Artforum in February of 1983: “By stylizing everything, True emotionally distances the viewer. The paintings pivot between desire and its impossibility. They are emotional pendulums of a sort, unable to stop swinging between these two states.”

At Crown Point Press, many of True’s prints have paradoxical titles such as “Cut Secure,” “Lifting Descent,” and Cold Romance,” affirming the imbalance and contradiction that his work embodies. His art, often colorful, contains universal human truths, questions, and struggles. Many critics have acknowledged the psychological underpinnings of True’s images. Arts magazine, March 1989, associated his work with “the subconscious – things floating in and out of focus without the objective will of reasoning.” Gerrit Henry articulated this in Print Collector’s Newsletter, September 1985: “[True’s] work has been described as ‘visionary,’ but it is a highly visceral vision.”

True received National Endowments for the Arts fellowships in painting in 1983 and 1993. He showed in the Venice Biennale in 1984 and his paintings are in numerous permanent museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, Yale University, Cornell University, the Walker Art Center, and the Henie-Onstad Art Center in Norway. True lives and works in New York and teaches at Cooper Union.

-Sophie Kovel, Crown Point Press