A Guide to the Art Collection
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THE WASHINGTON COLOR SCHOOL on View September 9, 2021 – October 23, 2021
For Immediate Release EDWARD TYLER NAHEM PRESENTS PRIMACY: THE WASHINGTON COLOR SCHOOL On View September 9, 2021 – October 23, 2021 Opening Reception: Thursday September 9, 2021 (6:00pm– 8:00pm) (New York) – August 23, 2021 – Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art (ETNFA) is pleased to present Primacy: The Washington Color School, an exhibition curated by Dexter Wimberly of paintings by nine eminent Washington Color School artists: Cynthia Bickley-Green, Gene Davis, Sam Francis, Sam Gilliam, Morris Louis, Howard Mehring, Kenneth Noland, Alma Thomas, and Kenneth V. Young. The origin of the Washington Color School is linked to a 1965 exhibition titled The Washington Color Painters, organized by Gerald Norland at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art in Washington D.C. Five of the six artists in the original 1965 Washington Color Painters exhibition are included in Primacy. Artists of the Washington Color School are distinguished by their rejection of gesture in favor of flat, hard-edged planes of color, as seen in Gene Davis’s adroitly executed Red Dog (ca. 1961) and Morris Louis’s Number 19 (1962), two works in the exhibition that create optical effects and showcase the transcendent potential of painting. Hung next to Howard Mehring’s Blue Note (1964) and Kenneth Noland’s Untitled (1965), these deceptively simple compositions radiate dynamism and tension. In the vanguard of experimentation, the Washington Color School artists pushed boundaries with techniques and processes that would lead them to form individual but related styles, all of which emerged in reaction to Abstract Expressionism. This point of origin is clearly seen in the earliest work in the exhibition, Study for Moby Dick (1958) by Sam Francis, an artist associated with both the Abstract Expressionist movement and Post-Painterly Abstraction. -
Colorful Language: Morris Louis, Formalist
© COPYRIGHT by Paul Vincent 2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED To UNC-G professor Dr. Richard Gantt and my mother, for their inspiration and encouragement. COLORFUL LANGUAGE: MORRIS LOUIS, FORMALIST CRITICISM, AND MASCULINITY IN POSTWAR AMERICA BY Paul Vincent ABSTRACT American art at mid-century went through a pivotal shift when the dominant gestural style of Abstract Expressionism was criticized for its expressive painterly qualities in the 1950s. By 1960, critics such as Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried were already championing Color Field painting for its controlled use of color and flattened abstract forms. Morris Louis, whose art typifies this latter style, and the criticism written about his work provides a crucial insight into the socio-cultural implications behind this stylistic shift. An analysis of the formalist writing Greenberg used to promote Louis’s work provides a better understanding of not only postwar American art but also the concepts of masculinity and gender hierarchy that factored into how it was discussed at the time. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to extend my thanks Dr. Helen Langa and Dr. Andrea Pearson for their wisdom, guidance, and patience through the writing of this thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. Juliet Bellow, Dr. Joanne Allen, and Mrs. Kathe Albrecht for their unwavering academic support. I am equally grateful to my peers, Neda Amouzadeh, Lily Sehn, Kathryn Fay, Caitlin Glosser, Can Gulan, Rachael Gustafson, Jill Oakley, Carol Brown, and Fanna Gebreyesus, for their indispensable assistance and kind words. My sincere appreciation goes to The Phillips Collection for allowing me the peace of mind that came with working within its walls and to Mr. -
Michael Clark (A.K.A
ARTIST MICHAEL CLARK: WASHINGTON April 3 – May 27, 2018 American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center Washington, DC ALPER INITIATIVE FOR WASHINGTON ART FOREWORD Michael Clark (a.k.a. Clark Fox) has been an influential figure in the Washington art world for more than 50 years, despite dividing his time equally between the capital and New York City. Clark was not only a fly on the wall of the art world as the last half- century played out—he was in the middle of the action, making innovative works that draw their inspiration from movements as diverse as Pop Art, Op Art, Conceptual Art, Minimalism, and the Washington Color School. The result of this prolific and varied artistic oeuvre is that Clark’s output is too much for one show. After consulting with former Washington Post art critic Paul Richard, I decided Michael Clark: Washington Artist at the American University Museum would concentrate on his significant artistic contributions to the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s in Washington, DC. In line with his amazingly diverse and productive career, a conversation with Michael Clark is similar to drinking from a fire hose. In one sentence, he can jump from painting techniques using masking tape to making cookies for Jackie Onassis. My transcription of our conversation, presented here as a soliloquy, tries its best to maintain some kind of coherence and order, but in reality, I just tried to hold on for the ride. In contrast, the amazing thing about Clark’s art is how still, focused, and composed it is. The leaps and diversions of his lively mind are transmuted into an almost classical art, more Modigliani than Soutine, probably reflecting the time spent in his early years copying masterworks in the National Gallery of Art. -
Bulletin #3. Peeling Back Robert W. Newmann
Peeling Back RoBeRt W. NeWmanN �NarRatiVe PoRtfOlio by Antonia 1. 1 Dapena-Tretter dRoSte eFfeCT �BULLETIN 3 Peeling Back RoBeRt W. NeWmanN �NarRatiVe PoRtfOlio 3 WaSHingtoN InStaLlation art: 1. 2 COlor ScHoOl SuBtracTive RoOts: The EaRly LaYeRs 24 ARROws 7 ImmaTeRial Embracing the ScUlPtureS: Literal: ADditive CoNCePtUal Layers 15 CONcluSiONs 38 Peeling Back RoBeRt W. NeWmanN �NarRatiVe PoRtfOlio — by Antonia Dapena-Tretter Abstract Unpacking Robert W. Newmann's portfolio requires a layered approach with equal attention paid to biography, aesthetics, and the larger art market of the 1970s to the present. These diverse methodologies intertwine to reveal the artist's surprising rejection of the Washington 1. 3 Color School tradition of ethereal stained canvases in favor of the real space of large-scale installations. Literal layers—taking the form of pigment added to the canvas or inches of substrate sandblasted away— Bulletin 3 separate Newmann's art from that of his teachers and serve as a common thread, tying together enormous shifts in practice and medium. Although each period of the artist's oeuvre reinforces his strong attraction to the experiential, the unexpected challenges of wedding an artwork to the space around it ultimately drove Newmann to accept and embrace the unavoidable nature of the immaterial. Peeling Back Robert W. Newmann — Narrative Portfolio Washington Post critic Paul Richard theorized that 1960s D.C.-based artists such as Kenneth Noland, Thomas Downing, and Gene Davis «worked from a particular sensibility, nourished by the grids and circles of the original L’Enfant plan.»1 If this is taken to be true, the hard- edged lines of the Washington Color School canvases were born from the same inspiration as Robert Newmann’s For Pierre L’Enfant (pic. -
Free Art and a Planned Giveaway
54 ARCHIVES of AMERICAN ART JOURNAL | 57.1 fig. 9 Letter from Henri Ehrsam to Gene Davis, June 29, 1965. Henri Gallery Records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. first attempt to create the paintings, using local art students, so poor that he refused to put his name to them.40 McGowin ultimately enlisted Michael Clark (now known as Clark V. Fox), a recent graduate of the Corcoran School of Art and a skilled artist, to paint the fifty copies.41 The process of mass-reproducing Popsicle highlighted a hierarchy of labor in Giveaway, by which the physical production of the work was subordinate to its conception. Working on five canvases at a time, twelve to sixteen hours a day for nine days, and paid less than a skilled worker’s hourly wages plus meals, Clark painted all fifty works.42 Extant canvases bear the silkscreened names of the three event organizers followed by Clark’s original signature, with some—but not all—of the works also signed by Clark’s assistants ( fig. 10).43 In effect diminishing the painter and fabricators’ skill and artistic contributions, Douglas Davis declared “although his work is original and profound, in some ways Gene Davis is an easy copy.”44 Like Sturtevant’s repetitions, the copies of Popsicle were not exact.45 Mixing pigments to produce the exact hues of the original painting was challenging, given the brevity of Davis’s instructions.46 Moreover, at least one critic noted stylistic differences between Davis’s and Clark’s stripes; the older artist had been interested in how overlapping colors could produce faint effects of subtle vibration, but Clark did not have the luxury of letting one stripe dry before painting the next.47 Subtle aesthetic differences between the original and its reproductions produced fresh skepticism about a model of creative practice unable to see beyond the dichotomy of author and nonauthor. -
Kenneth Noland Circles—Early and Late (1959-1962/1999-2002)
PRESS RELEASE KENNETH NOLAND CIRCLES—EARLY AND LATE (1959-1962/1999-2002) YARES ART 745 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10151 (212) 256-0969 Opening reception: Saturday, November 11, 5:30–7:30pm Amusement Blues, 1961. Acrylic on canvas, 94 1/4 x 94 inches (232.4 x 238.8 cm). Courtesy Yares Art, New York. © The Kenneth Noland Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. YARES ART is pleased to present Kenneth Noland: Circles on view in New York, November 11–December 30. The exhibition comprises twenty major works by Kenneth Noland (1924 –2010), one of the most important American painters of the post-war era. The paintings on view feature Noland’s best-known motif: the circle, in which concentric forms in rich and varied colors radiate from within each square-format compo- sition. Linking Abstract Expressionist bravura to Color Field luminosity, Noland’s large-scale “Circle” canvases, such as This and That (both 1958–59), Amusement Blues, and Spring Call (both 1961)—included in the current Yares Art exhibition—caused a stir when the artist first introduced them to the art world in the early 1960s. Today, their far-ranging influence continues to resonate in the work of a younger generation of artists, including Ugo Rondinone, Anslem Reyle, among numerous others. Noland himself revisited the circle motif in the late 1990s, producing a series of relatively intimate hard-edge compositions with vibrant concentric circles, and heightened color relationships, often employing iridescent hues. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to compare and contrast Noland’s first landmark series of “Circle” paintings with his last brilliant treatment of this theme. -
Oral History Interview with Sam Gilliam, 1989 Nov. 4-11
Oral history interview with Sam Gilliam, 1989 Nov. 4-11 Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with Sam Gilliam on November 4- 11, 1989. The interview took place in Washington, DC, and was conducted by Benjamin Forgey for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Sam Gilliam and Benjamin Forgey have reviewed the transcript and have made corrections and emendations. The reader should bear in mind that he or she is reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview BENJAMIN FORGEY: I feel like a good place to start - I mean, this is as you know, SG, is about Washington. But I thought we could back up a little bit. I'd be interested to know when you were in Louisville getting your graduate degree, how you decided to come to Washington, why you decided Washington, why you moved. SAM GILLIAM: I went to graduate school from 1958 til "61 because I taught during the daytime and went to school part-time. I came to Washington because Dorothy and I had decided to get married. All the time that - if I was in the Army here, she was in school some place else. And finally when I was in school in Louisville she was in school in Columbia, in New York City. -
The Origins of the Washington Color School
The Origins of The Washington Color School by Robert Bettmann Prepared for the DC Digital Museum of the Humanities May 2015 The District of Columbia is a cultural melting pot, with few markers of local accomplishment. The visual arts movement known as the Washington Color School is rivaled only by Go-Go music in local pride and national importance. The Color School’s inception and development connects D.C. to local and national trends in the arts, race, gender, and politics. The first major exhibit gathering Color School paintings in Washington DC occurred at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art (WGMA), a briefly influential museum and gallery. The WGMA opened in October 1962, at 1503 21st Street NW, with a show of artwork by Franz Kline and three nights of star-studded parties. The gallery was an early project of local arts champion Alice Denney, and Denney served as founding assistant director. The new museum’s first director was respected Baltimore-based curator Adelyn Breeskin, and the WGMA’s board chair was physicist Julian Eisenstein. Frank Getlein wrote about the opening for The Evening Star, “Like the museum, the exhibition, with a few reservations, was very well received by the invited audience of artists and arts writers. The artists easily outnumbered the writers. Among those present were David Smith, sculptor, and New York painters Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler and Barnett Newman, all exponents of the abstract expressionist manner in which Mr. Kline was an internationally recognized leader… Local artists at the opening included Robert Gates and James Twitty. Meeting the guests were the staff and many of the trustees of the new gallery.” The WGMA was founded as a home for new and adventurous artwork, and in its first year the gallery produced one of the earliest performance “happenings” in the region (by Robert Rauschenberg) and the influential exhibition of Van Gogh paintings that went on to form the core collection at the Van Gogh Museum (in Amsterdam.) From before the opening the WGMA forged connections to the Kennedy administration. -
SLT Artist Bios
Second Look, Twice Curated by Essence Harden, Emily Kuhlmann and Soleil Summer September 19th- December 16th, 2019 Louisiana Bendolph Louisiana Bendolph is among the younger generation of quilt makers whose work was included in the national touring exhibition Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt. She starts her process with a sketch and then moves into improvisation and innovation using bright, new fabrics. The resulting quilts are stunning abstractions. She has exhibited at the Addison Ripley Gallery in Washington D.C. and Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle, Washington. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the U.S. Department of State, and the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies. The artist is represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, Oregon. https://www.thebottcollection.com/gees-bend-quilter-louisiana-bendolph/ Loretta Bennett “I came to realize that my mother, her mother, my aunts, and all the others from Gee’s Bend had sewn the foundation, and all I had to do now was thread my own needle and piece a quilt together. ”—Loretta P. Bennett Loretta P. Bennett is the great-great-granddaughter of Dinah Miller, a woman who was brought to Alabama from Africa as a slave in 1859. As a child, Bennett picked cotton and other crops. She attended school in Gee’s Bend until seventh grade, when she was bussed to high schools that were a two-hour drive away. Bennett was introduced to sewing around age five by her mother, Qunnie, who worked at the Freedom Quilting Bee, a sewing cooperative established in 1966 in the nearby neighborhood of Rehoboth. -
The Barnett Aden Gallery: a Home For
The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Arts and Architecture THE BARNETT ADEN GALLERY: A HOME FOR DIVERSITY IN A SEGREGATED CITY A Dissertation in Art History by Janet Gail Abbott Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2008 ii The dissertation of Janet Gail Abbott was reviewed and approved* by the following: Joyce Henri Robinson Associate Professor of Art History Dissertation Advisor Co-Chair of Committee Sarah K. Rich Associate Professor of Art History Co-Chair of Committee Charlotte Houghton Associate Professor of Art History Joan Landes Ferree Professor of History and Women’s Studies Craig Zabel Associate Professor of Art History Head of the Department of Art History *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. iii ABSTRACT In 1943 Professor James V. Herring along with Alonzo J. Aden, his former student and colleague at Howard University, opened the Barnett Aden Gallery within the modest home they shared in Washington, D.C. As founders of one of the first black- owned galleries in the nation, their mission was to provide an exhibition space for talented artists without regard to ethnicity or national origin. During the next twenty-five years, the Barnett Aden Gallery became a unique site for cross-cultural exchange—where artists, writers, musicians, and politicians of all races met freely for social, professional, and aesthetic discourse—one of few such places in severely segregated Washington, D.C. The Barnett Aden performed the traditional gallery function of featuring talented emerging artists, but it provided a critical service for African American artists, who had few opportunities to show their work in parity with white artists or even to see evidence of their existence within established art institutions. -
Oral History Interview with Paul Allen Reed, 1994 Apr. 29
Oral history interview with Paul Allen Reed, 1994 Apr. 29 Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Paul Reed on April 29, 1994. The interview took place in Arlington, Virginia, and was conducted by Judith Zilczer for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. The sound quality for this interview is poor throughout, leading to an abnormally high number of inaudible sections. The Archives of American Art has reviewed the transcript and has made corrections and emendations. This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview JUDITH ZILCZER: This is track number one. Yeah, it's—it's going now. It's working. PAUL REED: [inaudible] not your equipment, mine. [They laugh.] That's [inaudible]. JUDITH ZILCZER: Thank you for checking. Today is Friday, April 29. I'm Judith Zilczer, and I'm here at—in Arlington, Virginia, at the home of Paul Reed. And we will be talking about his life and his career this morning. [Audio Break.] JUDITH ZILCZER: Alright, let's begin. Um, I thought we'd talk a little bit about your background and—native [ph] Washingtonian. PAUL REED: Yeah, yeah. -
Lunar Surface, 1970
2 THE LONG SIXTIES The Long Sixties Washington Paintings in the Watkins and Corcoran Legacy Collections, 1957 – 1982 February 16 – August 9, 2021 American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center Washington, DC The Long Sixties Washington Paintings in the Watkins and Corcoran Legacy Collections 1957 – 1982 INTRODUCTION The American University Museum recently acquired 9,000 works from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, a Washington institution that closed its doors to the public in 2014. Together with our Watkins Collection we have an especially strong cache of works by Wash- ington regional artists. While curating a show of Washington paintings drawn from our growing collections, I became inter- ested in how my memories of a formative time in my life might be affecting my choice of artwork for this exhibition. BY JACK RASMUSSEN Director and Curator American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center Washington, DC THE LONG SIXTIES 3 This most influential time for baby boomers like me has been referred to as “the long sixties” by both National Gallery of Art curator James Meyer, and sixties radical Tom Hayden.1 Meyer references Tom Hayden’s book, The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama (2011), as one source for his use of the term.2 I have identified my personal “long sixties” as the years between 1957 and 1982. My intention is to foreground the effect of my experiences and memories of this important time in my life in my selection and present interpretation of paintings from that period. I hope to add transparency to my curatorial process.