MaryandClaude

The Enderlin Gallery is proud to present its first exhibition, the works of
Claude Pelieu (1934-2002) and Mary Beach (born 1919). The show will
include collage, drawings, mixed media and works on canvas.

Claude Pelieu and Mary Beach met in 1962 and, until Claude's untimely
passing in December of 2002, they shared an exemplary, rich and creative
life. Traveling extensively while living primarily in Paris, New York and San
Francisco, their existence was a bohemian adventure during which they
ceaselessly explored and continuously created. With a keen and graceful
eye, they deconstruct, critique and reinterpret the classical and
contemporary worlds of art and media, while creating striking new works of
wit and beauty - drawing subconscious associations that are both
mysterious and poetic.

Long hailed in Claude's native France as the natural inheritors of the
Surrealist legacy (a direct line has been drawn by French critics from
Picasso and Braque to Schwitters and Duchamp to Warhol and
Pelieu), their works are highly prized and respected. However, in Mary's
native America, the pair remain relatively unknown: their work awaits
discovery by both mainstream critics and collectors.

This show, the first of Claude's work since his passing, will afford the
opportunity to discover, or reassess, a large body of their work. Including a
great number of collages on paper, large collages on board, paintings and
drawings, the show represents an overview of their life's work, providing
insight not only into their individual development, but into the workings of
their unique creative partnership.

The Enderlin Gallery has the great honor of exhibiting here, for the first
time, many of Claude's final works. Not only are they some of his most
intriguing and beautiful, they also provide a fitting and touching coda to a
life of art and passion exceedingly well lived.