Bauer at BLK BOX PHX

A brush poised over a canvas. An artist consumed by bitterness and regret. BLK BOX PHX presents Bauer, the riveting story of modern artist, Rudolph Bauer. Member of the avant-garde movement in Berlin in the 1930s and then of the abstract non-objective movement in New York, he survived Nazi prison and immigrated to the United States in 1939. His works were once at the center of the Guggenheim collection, alongside paintings by Klee, Chagall and Kandinsky. When Solomon Guggenheim died, his heirs relegated his work to the basement of the museum. Seemingly bound for immortality, Bauer was suddenly plunged into obscurity. Set in 1953 at his New Jersey mansion, the artist imagines a meeting with his former lover and champion, Hilla von Rebay, by whom he feels betrayed. She has just lost her position as curator of the museum and resents his marriage to his maid, Louise. To what self-destructive means will the artist go, in face of what he sees as a terrible injustice? Passion and vengeance erupt in this visceral, true story. A beautifully written play . . . Gunderson goes deep in her exploration of greeds effect on love and art . . . it brings its audience to tears (The New Yorker).