LYNNE DREXLER (1928-1999)Grass Symphony, 1962signed, titled and dated 'LYNNE DREXLER Grass Symphony 1962' (on the reverse)oil on canvas48 1/4 x 62 1/4 in.122.6 x 158.1 cm.For further information on this lot please visit theArtist or Maker: LYNNE DREXLER (1928-1999)Provenance: ProvenanceVallarino Fine Art, New York (acquired directly from the estate of the artist)McCormick Gallery, Chicago (acquired directly from the above)Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2016ExhibitedChicago, McCormick Gallery, Early Spring: An Exhibition of Works by Lynne Drexler, 17 April-5 June 2010Lynne Drexler's Grass Symphony is an indisputable masterpiece produced during her most sought-after period, in 1962. This painting was created after marrying her long-term partner, John Hultberg, and spending their first summer at Monhegan Island in Maine, a haven that would be a font of inspiration throughout Drexler's lifetime and where she would permanently reside from 1983. Grass Symphony demonstrates theprehensive advancement of Drexler's style that was largely overlooked by the critics of her day who failed to appreciate the scope of her talent and sensitivity to the formal and imagistic questions of painting after Abstract Expressionism. Her ambition and technique here is synthesized with an eloquence andpleteness that defy her relative youth and surpass many of her New York avant-garde associates; qualities that have at last been recognized as truly defiant and extraordinary. A shimmering rhapsody of blues and greens, punctuated by verses of red and yellow, in Grass Symphony there is a beauty and freshness that is exhilarating to behold over an elegant scale. It stands as a timeless and desirable painting by Drexler, conjuring the Water Lilies of Claude Monet, the patchwork of Gustav Klimt, and the bright colors of her famed teacher Hans Hofmann.Often labeled a second-wave abstract expressionist, Drexler's paintings go further than the medium-specific theories that underpinned New York's chief movement of the 1950s and encapsulate a lyrical abstraction that owes much to Pointillism and Impressionism. She was born in Virginia in 1928, the daughter of a distinguished Southern family. Attending the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, she studied under modernist architect and designer Ward Bennett and Peter Kahn – brother of Wolf Kahn – who implored her to study in New York under Hans Hofmann; her innate gift was self-evident from her earliest years. Her move to New York in 1956 marked her artistic departure in earnest. Studying under Hofmann, Drexler's painting developed a chromatic potency that was informed by Hofmann's color and spatial theories, often referred to as his notion of 'push-pull' painting. His influence was fundamental to her employment of color as a formal device – suppressing areas, elevating discrete passages, and buildingposition through a variety of tonal modulatio