Nan Swid

This rich yet restrained exhibition included wall reliefs made of weathered rectangular objects, such as old books, ledgers and wooden boxes, that had been drenched in encaustic paint and then assembled into compositions. When the works were viewed from the front, the seductive power of their variegated matte surfaces appeared paramount, although the identity of the objects themselves was veiled.

Best known for Swid Powell, a design firm famed for tableware created in collaboration with architects such as Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid, Nan Swid has recently begun to show her own artworks in galleries in New York and Miami.

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Here at AF we always try to get the 411 aka information on all the art worth seeing all over Manhattan and beyond. At Margaret Thatcher Projects last September 19th, we got  the In Formation on the latest show by Nan Swid. She has shown in group exhibitions before at the gallery but now her solo show brought into focus the breadth of her oeuvre.

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Yesterday I went down to Michael’s to lunch with Nan Swid. Nan is a longtime New Yorker who hails from Kansas City or thereabouts. She’s lived here most of her life, however, married to a native New Yorker Stephen Swid who is a well known businessman/entrepreneur; and she is also a mother and a grandmother... Continue to full article

...Almost a week later, David and I made it to Chelsea, where our first stop was Margaret Thatcher Projects to see the Nan Swid exhibition In Formation (September 19- October 19). Truthfully I was very excited to take David to Thatcher Projects because I love, love, love this show. Swid has assembled various handmade or appropriated books and objects that are richly coated in encaustic, good enough to eat. It also speaks to so many things I find missing in today's art, including the Nan Swid surface detail as well as each section having its own contrasting identity.

In their own ways, Nan Swid and Donald Kaufman have always been enablers. A founder of the design company Swid Powell, Swid worked with an A-list of artists and architects like Frank Gehry, Richard Meier and Ettore Sottsass to produce all manner of tabletop objects.