The paintings in this exhibition mark a clear shift from Gerald Nichols’ constructed pieces and installations of the last ten years. In the late ’60s and ’70s, Nichols’ paintings relied on a formalist vocabulary, exploring a controlled range of ideas; content was defined by the accumulation of subtle gestures and the relationships they established within a rigid format. In the constructed pieces of the ’80s, relieflike wooden cutout structures were informed by the narrative as well as the formal content of such artists as Albert Pinkham Ryder and Winslow Homer.

In this exhibition of new paintings,