Philip Pavia (1911-2005) was a culturally influential American artist of Italian descent, known for his scatter sculpture and figurative abstractions, and the debate he fostered among many of the 20th century's most important art thinkers.
[8][9][10] Pavia's spent two years studying architecture at Yale, before transferring to the Art Students League of New York in 1931 where he met life-long friend, fellow abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock.
Soon after, he was hired as WPA Federal Art Project artist, which he later described as an invaluable training ground for himself and for friends and contemporaries like Willem de Kooning, Landes Lewitin, Franz Kline, Jack Tworkov.
"[2][3] As a result, Pavia's first major show was in the 1960s, and featured "tumbling blocks of coloured stone that echoed the effects de Kooning had achieved in his paintings, and which are perhaps," the Times underscored, "underrated for their originality.
[3] John Russell, writing for the New York Times, describes them as "... remarkably ''like,'' without being merely descriptive, and when the light falls on their polished surfaces, the sitters really look like people who are growing old in the service of art.
Poets, composers, painters, sculptors, filmmakers, and critics all rubbed elbows and argued with each other about aesthetics at The Club’s many panel discussions...."[22] Over time, Pollock rejected surrealism and Jungian imagery, then de Kooning followed suit.
[23] Debate topics spanned both art and philosophy, and frequently included "non-members like Hannah Arendt, Joseph Campbell and John Cage," while bringing together abstractionists and expressionists, which helped lend currency to the term "abstract-expressionism.
[7][27] The magazine was used as a forum to discuss ideas of the day, and to champion both emerging artists, such as Allan Kaprow, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, and John Chamberlain and already established ones.
[28]Numerous high-profile artists supported the project, including Elaine de Kooning who spread word of the publication while serving as a judge on an art show and with local museums in New Mexico.
[29] Brooklyn Rail critic Phong Bui described the magazine's influence this way: "Although there were only six issues in its entirety — with a circulation of 2,000 in the first five and 8,000 copies in the last, which was solely devoted to sculpture — It is is considered to be an indispensable document of American art of that period.