5 Things to Know About Stephen Edlich
1. Born in 1944, Stephen Edlich was first recognized with an exhibition at Waddington Gallery, Montreal in 1969.
2. The artist is best known for his works that reflect on cubist and constructivist practices of the European Avant-guard—his works an interpretation through his unique, American perspective.
3. He was part of the well known 1976 exhibition, Three Generations of American Painting where Edlich's art was presented alongside that of Robert Motherwell and Richard Diebenkorn.
4. He went on to be represented by Marlborough Gallery, New York who hosted serveral solo exhibitions of his work over the next decade.
5. Edlich's life and career were tragically cut too short. His body was found in his studio in 1989; he was 45.
Dedication to the Arts
General Electric's Corporate Art Collection
The General Electric Company Corporate Art Collection was founded in the early 1970s as the company moved to its new world headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut. From the outset, the main purpose of the collection was to enrich the GE work environment. The artwork that was henceforth assembled was of a wide aesthetic spectrum with visual styles ranging from gestural abstraction and pastoral landscapes, to contemporary photography. Presented in a full variety of mediums, the collection showed strong visual appeal, complimented by a sense of the quality, skill and commitment exhibited by the selected artists.
At its height, the GE Collection contained over 4,000 objects. It included works by contemporary masters Robert Motherwell, Joan Mitchell, David Hockney, Helen Frankenthaler, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jasper Johns alongside many others. With the objective that less than 10% of these works be in storage at any given time, the pieces were installed across General Electric’s corporate offices, including 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the sixty-acre campus in Fairfield, Connecticut, the renowned Management training center in Crontonville, New York and international locations such as London, Munich and Bangalore. Key pieces were also exhibited for public viewing in the Corporate Galleries and loaned to various museums.
This collection of artworks served to create a visual landscape that reflected and supported the values of GE and its employees. It promoted a sense of curiosity and creativity that encouraged viewers to take a moment out of their day to engage in new dialogues or simply revel in the limitless possibilities of the world and the cultures within it.