NEW YORK – Craig F. Starr Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of early works by Joel Shapiro. On view from February 1 through March 23, the exhibition includes a selection of sculpture and drawings from 1969 through 1972. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the show with an essay by art historian Richard Shiff, Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art at the University of Texas at Austin.

Joel Shapiro began working in the late 1960s at a time when traditional notions of sculpture were being radically redefined by Minimalism and Conceptual Art. Between 1968 and 1973, he was interested in creating art that explored the passage of time and the accumulation of marks and materials. In his drawings, he investigated these ideas through the repeated gesture of mark-making with fingerprints on paper, and in sculpture, by amassing conical and spherical shapes which he hand formed in clay and porcelain. The works exhibited are primarily on loan from private collections across the country. Four sculptures and 13 drawings will be on view, including the large-scale Fingerprint Drawing (1969) from the Museum of Modern Art.

Joel Shapiro (born 1941, New York City) received B.A. and M.A. degrees from New York University. Shapiro's work has been the subject of more than 160 solo exhibitions and retrospectives internationally. He has executed over thirty commissions and publicly sited sculptures in major cities across the globe. Works by Shapiro can be found in prominent private collections and numerous public collections worldwide. Joel Shapiro lives and works in New York City. This is his first exhibition at the gallery.