55 Walker (Bortolami, kaufmann repetto, and Andrew Kreps Gallery) is pleased to announce a retrospective of the late Ukrainian-American artist Sonia Gechtoff (b. 1926, d. 2018). Gechtoff was an acclaimed painter who began her career in Beat-era San Francisco but lived most of her life in New York City. Gechtoff was overlooked for much of her career but has received renewed interest in her early career palette knife paintings and later career works which synthesized painting and drawing. This exhibition, organized in partnership with David Richard Gallery and the Sonia Gechtoff Estate, includes paintings on canvas and paper made between 1958-2017.

Gechtoff is best known for her atmospheric abstractions of swirling colors redolent of seas, skies or smoke. Inspired by the work of Clyfford Still, Gechtoff developed a distinct technique of palette knife painting. Her drawings were executed similarly, with long deliberate strokes of graphite that evoke windswept grasses and vegetation.