Kamrowski's last hurrah

continued

constellation of cells and antennae connected by spectral wavy lines.

Don't panic. You're still in Chelsea, but you've just entered an alternate artistic universe, one that adroitly bridges surrealism and abstract expressionism to arrive at a beguiling visual language all its own.

The gifted creator of this cosmos, Gerome Kamrowski, died at his home in Ann Arbor this past March at age ninety. Sixty years earlier, he was one of the most talented painters in the New York avant-garde, along with William Baziotes, Robert Motherwell, and Jackson Pollock.

But in 1946 Kamrowski effectively aborted his fast-track career to accept a teaching job at the U-M. Because of this self-imposed exile from the center of the modern art world, Kamrowski's work never gained the wider attention and acclaim it deserved.