Terry Winters Returns to the Menil Collection September 25
+3 Terry Winters Returns to the Menil Collection September 25
Terry Winters Returns to the Menil Collection September 25
Terry Winters Returns to the Menil Collection September 25
Terry Winters Returns to the Menil Collection September 25
Terry Winters Returns to the Menil Collection September 25
Terry Winters Returns to the Menil Collection September 25
In February 2017, Terry Winters gave his audience at the Menil Collection an elaborate definition of drawing. One characteristic of drawing is it’s incredibly ancient. To illustrate this point Winters showed images of Paleolithic cave paintings at Lascaux which date c.15,000 to 13,000 B.C. He called them “prehistoric indications of a subjective presence.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if an artist with Paleolithic cave paintings on his radar, even peripherally, feels connected to the hunters and artist-shamans who ritualistically painted hunting prey and entered trance states inside caves. I’m tempted to believe a universal consciousness unifies us with Paleolithic humans. At the very least, we might hold primal memories of Paleolithic life in our cells because of the scientific fact that atoms in our DNA were forged in ancient stars, meaning the same star dust in us was in early humans. The loopy-line, bulbous, spherical forms in Winter’s paintings, prints, and drawings have biological and astronomical associations. My hunch is the symbolic language stretches a lot further.
This week Winters returned to the Menil Collection for the opening of his exhibition “Terry Winters: Vitalized Geometry” on September 25, 2026. Presented are 44 prints and works on paper that span nearly four decades of the artist’s career.
This morning I got to meet Winters at the “media preview,” and was intrigued to hear him use the words “the mystery of life” in association with his art. In a sense he reiterated his practice of “intuitively leaping” between drawings and paintings and prints, because working in one medium opens up a ton of new possibilities in the others. He also said, “drawing is the engine that drives all my new work.” I was floored by the magenta-toned oil paint on paper “Round” from 2022. This artwork is remarkably sensuous.
Here is what the Menil wants you to know:
The Menil Collection announces “Terry Winters: Vitalized Geometry,” on view September 25, 2026–April 4, 2027. This exhibition of approximately forty-four career spanning works is organized in close consultation with Terry Winters (b. 1949). Celebrating two groups of gifts to the Menil, the presentation focuses on the artist’s graphic production. In 2024, photographer Jack Shear and the estate of his late husband, artist Ellsworth Kelly, gifted fifty-one works to the museum, constituting examples of nearly three-quarters of Winters’s prints from the 1980s. In May 2026, the artist added to this group, offering seven works to the museum, including recently produced “Azimuth,” 2024; “Round,” 2022; and “Red Stone,” 2019.
Rebecca Rabinow, Director, The Menil Collection, said, “Terry Winters: Vitalized Geometry” is a celebration of the Menil Collection’s longstanding admiration for and relationship with the artist. When Winters, an inaugural member of the Menil Drawing Institute Committee, spoke at the museum in February 2017, he explained that for him, drawing is a way of understanding prints and vice versa, as he intuitively works between mediums. Winters’s prints are seductively beguiling. We are proud to present them, and thanks to the artist’s generosity, delighted to add so many to the Menil’s permanent collection.”
Showcasing the breadth of graphic techniques the artist employs in woodcut, silkscreen, lithography, and a variety of other methods, this exhibition explores the importance of printmaking to Winters’s practice and its dialogue with drawing and painting. According to Winters, “Each medium is an instrument. Almost in a musical sense, meant to be played; and each affects the developing imagery. How they look, how they feel, and what they mean is conditioned by the materials and procedures. Media is used to embody an image actual size, as vitalized geometry—hopefully with a sense of life.”
Winters draws inspiration from mathematical systems and the structures of the natural world, an interest that unfolds across his printmaking. “Vitalized Geometry” opens with the “Morula” prints (1983–84). Among Winters’s earliest prints, they are titled after a stage in embryonic development. It closes with his most recent print portfolio, “Azimuth,” 2024, which references the mathematics of navigating by starlight.
Sophie Asakura, Curatorial Associate, Modern and Contemporary Art, The Menil Collection, said, “The artist’s commitment to exploring abstraction and his inventive approach to material makes his work a vital touchstone of contemporary printmaking. The Menil has been working closely with Winters on every aspect of the exhibition to present a focused yet encompassing presentation.”
The Menil now has seventy-six works by Winters in its permanent collection, one of the most significant holdings of the artist’s work in the United States, alongside New York institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art.
Winters will present an Artist Talk at the Menil on January 28, 2027, at 7 p.m.
“Terry Winters: Vitalized Geometry” is curated by Sophie Asakura, Curatorial Associate, Modern and Contemporary Art, The Menil Collection.
About Terry Winters: Terry Winters is a painter, draughtsman, and printmaker who lives and works in New York City and Columbia County, New York. A graduate of the Pratt Institute, Winters is among a generation of artists who in the 1980s began exploring new modes of representation within the historical languages of abstraction. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at numerous museums, including the Whitney Museum of Art, New York (1991); Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1999); the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2001); and the Drawing Center, New York (2018).
