Ann Purcell: The Seventies

Berry Campbell is pleased to announce _Ann Purcell: The Seventies,_ an exhibition focusing on works created between 1975 and 1979. This exhibition examines a formative moment in Purcell’s career when she transitioned from Washington, D.C.’s intellectually charged artistic milieu to the New York art world. Produced over a decade of significant renewal in American painting, the works capture Purcell at a pivotal juncture: fully formed in her convictions but actively pushing into renewed engagement with expressive abstraction. During this period, Purcell explored the physical and improvisational possibilities of paint, balancing spontaneity and structure. Describing her approach as “thinking but not thinking, looseness and freedom along with control,” Purcell’s work reflects a painterly intelligence shaped by art history, exceptional mentors, and consistent explorations within abstraction. This exhibition marks Purcell’s fifth with Berry Campbell and follows recent acquisitions of her work by the Wichita Art Museum, Kansas, and The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.