About
Biography
Paul Resika (b. 1928) has been an integral part of the painting life of New York for more than eighty years. A precocious talent lauded by Clement Greenberg in his teens, Resika began studying with Hans Hofmann in 1945 and within two years he was producing dazzling abstractions. Although a promising member of the new avant-garde, Resika turned his back on Hofmann's teachings and moved to Europe to seek a classical education. He hewed to this contrarian path for years, finding his way back to a modern idiom in the late 1950s and 1960s through landscape, which reconnected him to the New York art scene. Becoming bolder and bolder in his composition and paint handling, Resika eventually embraced Hofmann's precepts and filtered them through his own mature vision to achieve a unique synthesis of representation and abstraction. Since the 1980s, Resika has been celebrated for his ravishing color and his ease in playing the past against the present: Titian, Tintoretto, and Corot are his masters, but so are Picasso, Matisse, and Bonnard.
Chronology
Written by Avis Berman |Edited by Colin Brooks1920s
1928
Paul Resika is born on August 15 in the Mount Morris Park section of New York City. He is the only child of Sonia Zeltzer (1899-1961), a dressmaker, and Abraham Resika (1902-1996), an electrical engineer.
1930s
1937-40
Is enrolled in the children's section of the American Artists School at 131 West 14th Street.
1940s
1940-44
Studies privately with painter Sol Wilson, a specialist in romantic seascapes.
1942
September. Matriculates to the recently created High School of Music and Art on West 135th Street.
1945
Summer. The painter Pennerton West urges Resika to study art with Hans Hofmann.
September. Attends night class in life drawing at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts at 52 West 8th Street for the academic year 1945-46. Continues with high school during the day. Becomes aware of Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning.
1946
June. Graduates from the High School of Music and Art.
September. Becomes a day student and monitor in the Hofmann school. Builds a studio above his father's electrical shop at 1660 Park Avenue, at East 117th Street.
1947
June. Follows Hofmann to Provincetown, Massachusetts, for the summer.
September. Hofmann, Boris Margo, and Adolph Gottlieb choose Resika for New Provincetown '47, a group exhibition at Jacques Seligmann & Co.
1948
April. First solo exhibition, held at the George Dix Gallery, New York.
1949
Begins a relationship with Annabelle Gold (1928-2023). She is later known as Annabelle Gamson and has a distinguished career as a dancer and choreographer.
1950s
1950
July 14. Marries Gold.
September. To obtain more classical training, leaves for extended residence in Europe for a traditional artistic education. Settles in Paris, where Gold joins him.
December. Goes to Rome and then departs for Venice.
1951
Studies figure composition at the free school of the Accademia in Venice.
1952
Becomes assistant to muralist Edward Melcarth, who instructs him in figure composition and Old Master techniques.
May. Participates in the First International Exhibition of American Painters at the municipal gallery in Bordighera. Receives honorable mention.
1953
Resika and Gold move to Rome.
March. Participates in the Second International Exhibition of American Painters in Bordighera. Wins the gallery's purchase prize; Jean Cocteau selects it.
August. Resika and Gold return to Manhattan.
1954
Separates from Gold. Attends anatomy classes held by Philip Reisman at his studio and Robert Beverly Hale's anatomy lectures at the Art Students League of New York.
Sublets the studio of the painter Joseph Pollet at 3 Washington Square North. His neighbors are Edward and Josephine Hopper and Walter Pach. A year later, Resika permanently takes over another space in the building.
1957
December 2. Divorces from Gold.
1958
After years concentrating on portraiture, turns to landscape painting as a way to bring light into his work.
1959
Summer. To continue with landscape painting, rents in Bridgehampton, New York, and experiences his first long stretch of painting outdoors.
Awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant.
November. Meets Brenda Moscarella (1939-2020), an aspiring actress.
1960s
1960
April 6. Marries Moscarella.
June. Financed by the Tiffany Foundation grant, Resika and Moscarella go to Venice and Asolo for three months.
September. Resika and Moscarella return to New York.
October 2. Their son, Nathan Anthony Resika, is born.
1961
Wins the Hallgarten Prize and the Henry Ward Ranger Purchase Fund award from the National Academy of Design.
1963
Robert Frank directs O.K. End Here, a film that wins the grand prize at the 1963 Bergamo Film Festival; Resika appeared in the production as a background character.
1964
February 14. Divorces from Moscarella.
March. Invited to join the Peridot Gallery, which presents Resika's first one-person show in a New York City gallery since 1948.
August. Begins a relationship with Blair Phillips Cowley (b. 1937), a musician, graphic designer, and the daughter of artists Elizabeth Cornell Blair and John C. Phillips. Phillips had lived on outer Cape Cod for many years, and he and Blair introduce Resika to the woods, ponds, and dunes of Wellfleet. From then on, Resika spends part of every summer in the Wellfleet-Provincetown area.
1965
Meets Mary French Rockefeller. She becomes a patron, purchasing a painting once a year.
November. Second solo exhibition at Peridot Gallery. In the New York Times, Hilton Kramer comments that Resika "is an accomplished landscape painter."
1966
Summer. With Blair and Nathan, lives in Volterra and Pisa.
September. Appointed adjunct professor of art at Cooper Union, teaching figure drawing and a landscape class near the Ramapo River.
1967
Summer. Lives in the Vaucluse, in Provence.
In Wellfleet later in the summer, broadens his landscape motif to include figures and water.
September 5. Marries Blair Cowley in Wellfleet. Back in New York, Resika uses 3 Washington Square North solely for painting and moves into his wife's apartment at 114 East 84th Street.
1968
March 20. Paul and Blair Resika's daughter, Sonia Phillips Resika, is born.
Summer. The family returns to the Vaucluse.
July. Included in 8 American Painters and Sculptors at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, which then travels to Breda and Nijmegen.
September. Takes over Edward Melcarth's painting class at the Art Students League.
1969
Receives an Ingram Merrill Foundation award of $5,000 to enable a year of painting.
April. Solo exhibition at Peridot Gallery.
1970s
1970
March. Solo exhibition at Peridot Gallery.
Summer. Blair Resika's mother, Elizabeth Blair, was living in Mexico; the Resikas join her in Tepoztlán.
Autumn. Wins a Hassam Fund Purchase Prize at the American Academy of Arts and Letters exhibition. The Farm Near Gordes, III is bought by the academy and presented to the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
1971
April. Paul Resika: The Valley of Tepoztlán opens at Peridot Gallery. Ochlayo is bought for the Chase Manhattan Bank corporate collection.
April 7. A fire breaks out in 14A Washington Mews, the building that backs onto 3 Washington Square North. Most of the Mews house is destroyed, as are many of the studios in 3 Washington Square North, including Resika's. Much of Resika's output of the previous twenty years—more than three hundred paintings—is gone.
June. The Great Rocks is bought by the Sara Roby Foundation, which later donated its collection to the National Museum of American Art (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum).
1972
February. Solo exhibition at the Houghton House Gallery of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York.
Becomes artist-in-residence during the spring 1972 semester at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire. Meets Varujan Boghosian, who becomes a close friend and artistic collaborator.
September. Rents space in the Gainsborough Studios, at 222 Central Park South.
1973
Rents a studio at 84th Street and York Avenue. Paints portraits of himself, artist Paul Georges, father-in-law John C. Phillips, and his daughter, Sonia.
Summer. Teaches at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.
Autumn. Joins the Century Association, New York.
1974
Is hired, along with Paul Georges, by Neil Welliver as visiting professor at the graduate school of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and they teach alternate weeks giving critiques.
April. Solo exhibition at the William Crapo Gallery of the Swain School of Design, New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Finds a studio at 80th Street and Broadway, the former site of the New York School of Art, where Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase once taught. It remains Resika's studio to this day.
1975
April. Joins James Graham & Sons, a venerable gallery specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American art.
1976
March. First exhibition at Graham Gallery.
Elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design.
June. Joins the faculty of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
December. With Paul Georges, Howard Kalish, and Richard McDermott Miller, establishes the Artists' Choice Museum, a cooperative enterprise for artists working in representational modes.
1977
March. The Art of Pastel: Robert De Niro, Anne Poor, Paul Resika opens at Graham Gallery.
Summer. With Varujan Boghosian, Fritz Bultman, Carmen Cicero, Sideo Fromboluti, Edward Giobbi, Budd Hopkins, Rick Klauber, Leo Manso, Robert Motherwell, Judith Rothschild, Sidney Simon, Nora Speyer, and Tony Vevers, becomes a founding member of Long Point Gallery, an artists' cooperative functioning as a professional exhibition space for contemporary art during the summer season in Provincetown. The first one-person shows, which are chosen by lot, go to Resika and Giobbi.
1978
"Five Realist Painters and the Concept of Contemporary American Realist Painting: An Aesthetic Study of Works by Leland Bell, Nell Blaine, Paul Georges, Louisa Matthíasdóttir, and Paul Resika," the doctoral dissertation of art historian Ruth G. Bass, is accepted by the graduate school of New York University.
Elected a full member (Academician) of the National Academy of Design.
Is hired by Parsons School of Design (a division of the New School for Social Research) to develop a master's degree in fine art in the painting program and run it. Resigns from Cooper Union and becomes chairman of the program.
1979
January. Included in Hans Hofmann as Teacher: Drawings by His Students, organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
March. Solo exhibition opens at Graham Gallery. One of the canvases shown was hung in the front window of the gallery; it was purchased by Willem de Kooning.
August. Concomitantly with Fritz Bultman, has second show at Long Point Gallery.
1980s
1980
Summer. Spends significant time in Europe, visiting England, Paris, and the South of France. Teaches at the Lacoste School of the Arts, which was started by Bernard Pfriem and affiliated with the Sarah Lawrence Summer School. The Maison Basse is one of the first houses Resika painted in Provence.
1981
March. Solo exhibition at Graham Gallery.
August. Co-exhibits at Long Point Gallery with Fritz Bultman.
1982
February. Leland Bell, John Heliker, Paul Resika, a faculty exhibition, opens at the Parsons School of Design.
1983
April. Solo exhibition at Graham Gallery.
Summer. Travels to France, Spain, and Portugal before going on to Wellfleet for the rest of the summer. Starts working with looser blocks of color.
1984
Spring. Awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.
Summer. Paints Benevy (In Memoriam) in remembrance of Herbert Benevy, a well-known framer, gallery owner, and friend who had recently died. The work becomes the first of the series that will become known as the Provincetown Pier paintings. The coalescence of monumental geometric form, light, and vivid color is the defining motif of Resika's career for the next decade.
July. Resika and Carmen Cicero each have a show at Long Point Gallery.
September. The Resikas see a Mediterranean-style house on the crest of a bluff called High Head in North Truro, Massachusetts, and buy it two months later. Having their own residence on Cape Cod enables the Resikas to stay there much longer. The Pilgrim Monument, seen across the bay from the house, becomes a favorite motif.
1985
April. Two exhibitions simultaneously open in New York City: Resika: A Twenty-Five Year Survey at the Artists' Choice Museum and Recent Paintings at Graham Modern Gallery.
1986
March. Resika and Robert De Niro have a two-person show at the Crane Kalman Gallery, London. It is Resika's first exhibition in London, and he goes there for the occasion.
June. Solo exhibition of recent oils on paper at Graham Modern Gallery.
September. Paul Resika, a solo exhibition, opens at Meredith Long & Company, Houston, and Long begins representing him.
1987
March. Solo exhibition of paintings and drawings at Graham Modern Gallery.
1988
February. Paul Resika: Pastels and Small Paintings opens at Graham Modern Gallery.
March. The Resikas travel to France.
1989
August. Participates in Contemporary Provincetown: 75 Years of American Art, 1914-1989, a group exhibition at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) that travels to Los Angeles.
November. The Artist's Eye, an ongoing series of exhibitions with artists as curators, is inaugurated by PAAM. Resika chooses the artists for the first show, Founders and Others.
1990s
1990
March. Solo exhibition opens at Graham Modern Gallery.
May. The Resikas spend the month in the South of France, in a house between Fayence and Seillans. The area remains a recurrent source for his Houses in Provence paintings.
Autumn. Leaves James Graham & Sons to join Lawrence Salander, a dealer in American historical and contemporary art, at Salander-O'Reilly Galleries.
November. After years of decreasing involvement in administration and teaching, resigns from Parsons School of Design.
December. First solo exhibition at Salander-O'Reilly Galleries.
1991
May. The Resikas travel in France, staying in Fayence and visiting Antibes and Biot. Because Resika is no longer teaching, he spends longer seasons on Cape Cod.
November. Solo exhibition at the Mead Art Museum, Amherst College.
1992
May. The Resikas leave New York for the South of France.
August. Figures on the Beach, an exhibition of twenty gouaches, opens at Long Point Gallery.
1993
January. Solo exhibition at Salander-O'Reilly Galleries.
April. The Resikas travel to the South of France and Paris.
1994
January. Kevin Roche and Alfred Kazin, the president and secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, inform Resika of his election to the academy as a member in the Department of Art. He is formally inducted on May 18.
May. Paul Resika: Provence Paintings opens at Salander-O'Reilly Galleries.
Summer. The sculptor Dimitri Hadzi visits Resika in Provincetown and coaxes him into making etchings.
1995
August. Co-exhibits with Sideo Fromboluti at Long Point Gallery.
Participates in Provincetown Portraits, a group exhibition at PAAM.
Autumn. In New York, takes up printmaking in earnest in response to Hadzi's encouragement. Begins collaborating with master printer Marjorie Hunt Van Dyke for roughly one month a year, and continues to do so.
November. Solo exhibition at Salander-O'Reilly Galleries.
1996
September. Anderson, Resika, Smith, with Lennart Anderson and David Loeffler Smith, opens at the Painting Center, New York.
December. Travels to Europe, visiting England and the Netherlands.
1997
May. Contributes to Landscapes: Nature, a limited-edition print portfolio created by fifteen members of the National Academy of Design; sales benefit the academy's art school.
Visiting France, stays in Fayence, sees Paul Cézanne's studio in Aix-en-Provence, an André Derain exhibition in Istres, the Picasso Museum in Vallauris, and Saint Paul de Vence.
August. The year 1997 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Resika's first summer visit to Provincetown and his first New York gallery exhibition. To celebrate them, one exhibition is organized at PAAM and two take place at Long Point Gallery.
Long Point Gallery permanently closes at the end of the summer season.
October. First solo exhibition in San Francisco opens at the Hackett-Freedman Gallery.
Lori Bookstein, a former director of Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, opens Lori Bookstein Fine Art, her own gallery in New York. She begins handling Resika's drawings, gouaches, prints, and other works on paper, while Salander-O'Reilly continues to represent his paintings. Is included in Bookstein's inaugural exhibition.
1998
March. Paul Resika: Paintings opens at Alpha Gallery, Boston. Is introduced to the gallery by Boghosian; it is his first one-person show in Boston.
May. Form and Atmosphere: The Etchings of Paul Resika, 1995-1998, the first comprehensive exhibition of Resika's graphic work, opens at Lori Bookstein Fine Art. The show travels to six other galleries and museums.
Seeing the Essential: Selected Works by Robert De Niro, Sr., Paul Resika, and Leland Bell opens at Hackett-Freedman Gallery.
Blair, Paul, and Sonia Resika leave for Europe, going to London and Fayence.
July. Participates in New to the Berta Walker Gallery at Berta Walker Gallery. Resika began consigning paintings to Walker in 1990, but because he was a member of Long Point, she did not represent him. As of 1998, Walker becomes Resika's dealer in Provincetown.
August. Resika: Prints opens at Berta Walker Gallery.
December. For its hundredth anniversary, the American Academy of Arts and Letters commissions a portfolio consisting of fifty original prints made by the organization's members. Resika creates one print on his own; he collaborates with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Beeson to produce Pull My Daisy. The exhibition American Academy of Arts and Letters Centennial Portfolio, 1898-1998 is held at the academy's galleries.
1999
February. Solo exhibition at Salander-O'Reilly Galleries.
May. Arrives in Paris. Reunites with Paul and Lisette Georges at Issy-les-Moulineaux, and goes on to Nice, Fayence, Marseilles, and Sanary-sur-Mer.
June. Departs for Cape Cod, where he begins working on the Vessels series.
July. Varujan Boghosian/Paul Resika/Paul Resika/Varujan Boghosian: Together Again! opens at Berta Walker Gallery.
August. With Boghosian, co-curates a centennial celebration of Charles W. Hawthorne for PAAM.
2000s
2000
March. Solo exhibition opens at Hackett-Freedman
May. Travels to the South of France.
December. Solo show at the Galería Metta, Madrid.
2001
March. Solo exhibition at Salander-O'Reilly Galleries.
August. Solo exhibition at Berta Walker Gallery.
September. Paul Resika: Etchings and Monotypes opens at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.
Allan Miller makes Boats Like Sails, a documentary film that follows Resika as he creates a painting.
2002
March. Solo exhibition at Alpha Gallery.
April. Paul Georges dies, and throughout 2002 and 2003 Resika paints homages to his lost friend.
August. Figures by the Pond, a solo exhibition of pastels, opens at Berta Walker Gallery.
September. Solo exhibition at Hackett-Freedman Gallery.
October. Solo exhibition at Salander-O'Reilly Galleries.
2003
August. Paul Resika, Robert De Niro, Sr.: Selected Works at Hackett-Freedman Gallery.
Exhibition of constructions by Boghosian, sculpture by Gilbert Franklin, and paintings by Resika at Berta Walker Gallery.
September. Is included in A Fine Line: Drawings by Academicians, a group exhibition curated by William Bailey at the National Academy of Design.
2004
February. Lovers: Drawings by Rosemarie Beck and Paul Resika, 1968-69 opens at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.
April-May. Visits the South of France and London; sees Constantin Brancusi: The Essence of Things at the Tate Gallery.
Summer. Berta Walker Gallery celebrates its fifteenth season in Provincetown, and all three of the gallery's exhibitions focus on Resika.
2005
February. Solo exhibition at Meredith Long & Company.
March. Solo exhibition at Salander-O'Reilly Galleries. The work in the show, as well as the paintings Resika had at the gallery in 2002, are inspired by Matisse.
April. Visits Venice, Verona, and Bologna.
June. Arrives in Cape Cod. Shows pastels and four large-scale canvases (the Creation series) at Berta Walker Gallery.
October. Solo exhibition at Galleria d'Arte Benucci in Rome; Resika travels there for the opening.
2006
February. Works in the South of France.
Varujan Boghosian-Paul Resika: Works on Paper, Including a Selection of Collaborations opens at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.
March. Paul Resika: Recent Paintings opens at Hackett-Freedman Gallery.
August. Varujan Boghosian Collages; Paul Resika Paintings and Gouaches; Penelope Jencks Sculpture opens at Berta Walker Gallery.
October. Visits the South of France and Italy.
2007
March. Paul Resika: Paintings: Jack's Island, featuring works inspired by Lobster Lake in Maine, opens at Salander O'Reilly Galleries. The gallery also mounts a group show called Portraits, in which Resika is represented by two canvases.
Participates in Celebrating 10 Years of Gallery Artists and Art, an anniversary exhibition at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.
May-August. More than forty lawsuits are filed against Lawrence Salander and Salander-O'Reilly Galleries for fraud and grand larceny; the gallery closes. By the end of the year, Resika is consigning oil paintings to Lori Bookstein Fine Art.
2008
February. Visits Jamaica and is inspired by the light and the vivid tropical landscape.
May. Moves from 114 East 84th Street to 175 Riverside Drive.
August. Berta Walker Gallery shows constructions by Boghosian, sculpture by Penelope Jencks, and paintings by Resika.
September. James Graham & Sons, Resika's former gallery, organizes Paul Resika: Paintings from the 1980s.
2009
January. Chosen for Personal Geometry, a group exhibition at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.
March. Is in The Print Club of New York: Seventeen Years of Commissioned Prints, a group exhibition at the National Arts Club, New York.
May. Paul Resika: Selected Paintings, 2000-2008 opens at Alpha Gallery.
August. Is selected for Search for the Real: Drawings by Hans Hofmann and His Students, at PAAM. An expanded version travels to the Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, New York.
August. Paul Resika; Varujan Boghosian; Charles W. Hawthorne opens at Berta Walker Gallery.
October. Resika agrees to be represented by Lori Bookstein Fine Art for all of his work.
2010s
2010
May. Solo exhibition at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.
June. Departs for Cape Cod. Paints images of lily pads, which are based on the plant life he sees in the ponds at Wellfleet.
July. Is honored in Continuing Views, an exhibition at Prince Street Gallery, New York, in homage to the Parsons School of Design's graduate faculty program in painting.
Is featured in three different exhibitions at Berta Walker Gallery.
September. Selected for The Pilgrim Monument: A Centennial Celebration, A Tribute Exhibition at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum.
Participates in In the Light of Corot at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York.
November. Travels to London, Amsterdam, and Madrid.
2011
June. Paul Resika: Flowers opens at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.
July. In Cape Cod, draws and paints many studies of the pickerelweed, an aquatic plant that grows in the marshes and pond edges around Truro and Wellfleet.
Is represented in The Tides of Provincetown: Pivotal Years in America's Oldest Continuous Art Colony (1899-2011) at the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut. The exhibition travels to three other museums.
August. Paul Resika: Cape Flora and Fauna opens at Berta Walker Gallery.
Solo exhibition at Alpha Gallery.
2012
April. Visits London, Venice, and Padua.
July. Participates in Long Point: An Artist's Place, 1977-1998 at PAAM.
August. Paul Resika & Varujan Boghosian: Color, Collage & Collaboration opens at Berta Walker Gallery.
October-November. Has a two-part exhibition at New York University's Maison Française: Paul Resika: Houses in Provence: Paintings and Paul Resika: Houses in Provence: Works on Paper.
2013
January-May. Works with Marjorie Van Dyke, creating a new group of etchings that are exhibited later in the year.
January. Is the subject of 8 + 8, a double exhibition organized by Lori Bookstein Fine Art and Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects.
September. Paul Resika, 1947-48, opens at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.
Participates in See It Loud: Seven Post-War American Painters, a major group exhibition organized by the National Academy Museum. Chosen with Resika are Leland Bell, Paul Georges, Peter Heinemann, Albert Kresch, Stanley Lewis, and Neil Welliver.
December. Exhibition devoted to recent etchings opens at VanDeb Editions, New York.
2014
May. Modern Color: Paintings by Paul Resika and Tyler Loftis opens at Leigh Morse Fine Arts, New York.
August. Colors and Forms of Provincetown: Paul Resika, a solo exhibition, opens at Berta Walker Gallery.
2015
June. Paul Resika: Paintings, 1947-2014, an exhibition with twenty-nine works, opens at PAAM.
July. Paul Resika: Provincetown in New York opens at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.
Trio of Friends: Varujan Boghosian, Paul Resika, Sidney Simon opens at Berta Walker Gallery.
2016
April. Century Masters: Paul Resika, curated by Varujan Boghosian, opens at the Century Association.
April. Paul Resika: Recent Paintings opens at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.
July. Houses in Provence, a solo exhibition, and Collaborations: Varujan Boghosian & Paul Resika, open at Berta Walker Gallery.
October. Spends two weeks in France.
2017
February. Paul Resika: Empty: Paintings opens at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects.
July. Paul Resika: Recent Paintings, 2015-2017 opens at the Hudson D. Walker Gallery in the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, and Resika is one of three cultural figures honored at the center's annual award celebration.
July. Paul & Blair Resika in Tepoztlán: Photographs, Paintings, Pastels, & Gouaches opens at the Wellfleet branch of Berta Walker Gallery.
2018
April. Paul Resika: Geometry and the Sea, a double exhibition, opens at both Bookstein Projects and Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects.
May. Travels to Eastern Europe, visiting the Czech Republic to see Titian's The Flaying of Marsyas in the Archbishop's Palace in Kroměříž.
August. Paul Resika: Divine Geometry opens at Berta Walker Gallery.
August 15. Celebrates his ninetieth birthday in North Truro with a party of seventy-five people.
October. After returning to New York, Resika comes upon an engraving after a painting by Fra Angelico. It motivates an ambitious new series of full-length figures seen against a background suggesting ships moving toward the shore.
Figures of Beach and City: Visits with Paul Resika, which consists of poems and photographs of Resika's New York studio by Vincent Katz, plus reproductions of Resika's recent paintings, is published by Libellum Books/Bookstein Projects.
2019
March. Paul Resika: Through the Trees opens at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects.
June. Paul Resika: Flowers opens at Bookstein Projects.
August. Color Beyond Description: The Watercolors of Charles Hawthorne, Hans Hofmann, and Paul Resika opens at PAAM.
2020s
2020
January. Rizzoli Electa publishes Paul Resika: Eight Decades of Painting, the first monograph about the artist. Edited by Blair Resika, the book contains excerpts of reviews from 1945 to 2018; essays by Avis Berman, Karen Wilkin, Jennifer Samet, and John Yau; and more than two-hundred color and black-and-white illustrations.
February 3. Participates in Masterworks of American Figurative Painting, a group exhibition in New York drawn from the Center for Figurative Painting’s permanent collection.
March 3. In conjunction with the publication of Paul Resika: Eight Decades of Painting, the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture presents a panel on Resika and his work. The panelists are Avis Berman, Jennifer Samet, and John Yau.
Mid-March. New York City is declared in a state of emergency on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been circulating since January. All “non-essential” businesses are shut down and residents are required to shelter in place.
June. The Resikas move to their Cape Cod house and stay there the rest of the year.
August 15. An exhibition based on Paul Resika: Eight Decades of Painting opens at the Berta Walker Gallery. Mike Carroll and Sky Power are also showing at the gallery.
September 21. Varujan Boghosian dies, but no memorials are planned until 2021. Resika will write two tributes to him.
September 24. Bookstein Projects opens an exhibition in celebration of Paul Resika: Eight Decades of Painting.
October. Is represented in Figuration Never Died: New York Painterly Painting, 1950-1970, curated by Karen Wilkin, at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Vermont.
2021
January 8. Is selected for Figuratively Provincetown, curated by Romolo Del Deo, opening at the Montagne Gallery, Boston.
March 11. The Resikas return to New York for two months.
April. Resika goes to see the Frick Collection in its temporary installation at 945 Madison Avenue, the former home of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Various friends and colleagues visit him in his studio.
May 23. The Resikas leave for Cape Cod.
July 24. Collaborations: Varujan Boghosian & Paul Resika opens at Berta Walker Gallery. Both Boghosian and Resika showed with Berta Walker almost annually since the gallery opened in 1990. Their friendship lasted over seventy years, which included thirty years of collaborative collages.
July 26. The Resikas hold a memorial celebration for Boghosian at their house.
October 15. The Resikas depart for New York City.
October 18. Lennart Anderson: A Retrospective, a traveling exhibition curated by Graham Nickson and Rachel Rickert, opens at the New York Studio School. Resika contributes an essay to the catalogue.
2022
January 14. Paul Resika: Self-Portraits, 1946-2021 opens at Bookstein Projects. It consists of nineteen paintings and works on paper, accompanied by a catalogue with an essay by Hayden Herrera.
January 31. In collaboration with Bookstein Projects, the New York Studio School presents Paul Resika: Allegory (San Nicola di Bari), a show of his series created between 2018 and 2021. Fifteen paintings and five drawings were on view, with a catalogue with essays by John Yau and Christopher Busa.
May 22. The Resikas leave for Cape Cod.
August 26. The Paul Resika: Allegory (San Nicola di Bari) exhibition travels to the Berta Walker Gallery.
October 5. The Resikas return to New York.
November 4. Is chosen for Mini Masters, a group exhibition of small-scale works by historical and contemporary Provincetown artists, opening at the Berta Walker Gallery.
November 11. At the American Academy of Arts and Letters ceremony for deceased members, Resika delivers the memorial address for Varujan Boghosian.
Blue Geometry enters the collection of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum.
2023
February 11. Is represented in Red Dance, a group exhibition celebrating the joys of the color red with works of artists from the 1890s to the present, opening at the Berta Walker Gallery.
March. Sacred Spaces: Artists in Their Studios, by Gary James Farias, is published. Farias interviewed and photographed “ten of his favorite artists,” including Resika, for the book. Farias photographed Resika in his North Truro studio.
April 20. Paul Resika: Recent Paintings, an exhibition in two parts, opens at Bookstein Projects. The first segment features seven paintings from two of the artist’s series: End of Day and Free and Easy. Although the starting points of the canvases are setting suns and rising moons over water, they strike the eye as brilliantly colored abstractions.
May 17. The second part of the exhibition, with the monumental square paintings Cerulean and Tangelo, begins. Both parts of the exhibition are documented in a catalogue with an essay by Vincent Katz.
May 21. The Resikas leave for Cape Cod.
August 11. Paul Resika: Provincetown Paintings, 1947–present opens at the Berta Walker Gallery. Billed as a celebration of the artist’s ninety-fifth birthday on August 15, the exhibition consists of thirty-four oils and works on paper created in Provincetown from Resika’s arrival in 1947 to canvases painted in 2023. In addition, the gallery presents four photographs of him painting the motif by Blair Resika. Brenda Horowitz and Rob Dutoit are co-exhibitors.
October 15. The Resikas return to New York City.
2024
April 18. Paul Resika: Ode to the Moon, a solo exhibition of nine paintings, goes on view at Bookstein Projects.
May 19. The Resikas leave for Cape Cod.
June 6. Participates in Mercury Rising, a group show related to the theme of summer at Bookstein Projects.
July 20. Is chosen for Seeing Red: Renoir to Warhol, opening at the Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn.
July 24. Is included in Selections from Pastorale, a group exhibition of works bound up with the natural world and country life, at Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects.
September 13. Is represented in Traveling with Berta: From New York’s Graham Modern to Provincetown’s Berta Walker Gallery, a group show of artists affiliated with Walker throughout her career.
September 15. The Resikas attend the Provincetown Press’s gala honoring Berta Walker for her thirty-five years as a gallerist in Provincetown.
October 12. The Resikas return to New York.
November 12. Participates in Faces in the Crowd, a portrait exhibition presented by the Center for Figurative Painting.
2025
May 19. The Resikas attend a memorial party for Graham Nickson, artist, teacher, and long-time director of the New York Studio School, who died in January 2025.
May 22. The Resikas leave for Cape Cod.
June 18. Paul Resika: 1945 & 2025, the artist’s fifteenth solo show with the gallery, opens. As the title denotes, the exhibition consists of nine paintings the artist created at age seventeen and seven paintings made eighty years later.
July 25. Resika by Resika: 60 Years, an exhibition of twenty-four paintings and works on paper by Paul Resika and sixteen photographs by Blair Resika, opens at Berta Walker Gallery. Resika by Resika: 60 Years, a book by Blair Resika published in conjunction with the show, documents her ongoing photographic odyssey, reproducing her portraits of Paul from 1965 through 2024. Behind the Lens, an article about Blair Resika’s work by Anna Salvatore was published in the July 24, 2025 issue of the Provincetown Independent. Joe Diggs and Penelope Jencks were co-exhibitors at the gallery.
August 7. The Provincetown Press’s gala honors Resika for his body of work and for his continued presence in Provincetown.
September. Resika designs and donates an image for a T-shirt for “Swim for Life,” an event to raise money for local health services and other Provincetown charities.
October 1. The Resikas depart for New York City.
November 13. Is included in November Group, an exhibition of independent-minded artists diverse in age, sensibility, and era, opening at Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects.
Hopper’s House (1974) enters the collection of the Truro Historical Society, Highland House Museum.
2026
April 23. Paul Resika: Sun, Sea, Surf, Sand, a solo exhibition of eight paintings finished in 2025 and 2026, opens at Bookstein Projects.
June 1. The Resikas leave for Cape Cod.
June 11. Participates in Fresh Cut, a group show of floral still lifes opening at Bookstein Projects.