While New York was producing Abstract Expressionist artists during the 1940’s, California was also producing an exceptional group of artists. One of these artists was Diebenkorn who studied at The California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Some of the painters he studied with during the 1940’s were Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko. These artists also shared his highly personal approach to painting. This style has often been referred to as a painterly abstraction. In Large Bright Blue, Diebenkorn translates his well-known Ocean Park series he did on canvas to this beautiful work on paper. He was able to achieve the linear quality he is famous for by using aquatint. His work has often been said to possess what he called ?the tension beneath the calm.? The dramatic results created in this painting attest to Diebenkorn?s ability to actually create within the viewer a sense of ?the tension beneath the calm.? The artist accomplishes this by pushing us to understand a deeper meaning in his work.
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Francis had wanted to become a physician, but when he dropped out of college to enter the Army Air Corps, fate intervened and his dream of becoming a physician was never realized. During his brief military career, Francis survived a training crash in Arizona but later developed spinal tuberculosis. While recuperating, he began painting. After a few years he recovered and studied painting with David Park. He completed a bachelor?s degree and master?s degree in fine arts and art history from the University of California in Berkeley. After graduating, he moved to Paris like so many other American artists and writers of that period. His first exhibition took place in Paris and was the first of many he would have throughout the world. After living abroad for more than a decade, Francis returned to California and opened his own lithography workshop in 1962. Francis is known for his white backgrounds. This untitled work consists of spontaneous splatters and a linear grid. At first glance this particular grid pattern looks similar to a game of tic tac toe. The black splatters in the background of the formally constructed grid appear nearly translucent.
Ben II
Sam Gilliam is a leader of the 1970’s school of color-field painting. He has works in most major American art museums. Public collections with his work are the Art Institute of Chicago; The High Museum of Art, Atlanta; The Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; The Rockerfeller Collection, New York, NY; as well as international collections such as the Tate Gallery, London, England and Le Musee d’Art de Ville, Paris.
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Kit Keith is a resident of St. Louis . Ms. Keith’s work addresses issues of gender and class. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Exit Art New York, Jadite Galleries, 450 Broadway Gallery, and many others. Ms. Keith’s art has been reviewed in Art Papers, Downtown Press and the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
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Another postwar veteran amongst the colorfield painters, Kelly lived in Paris after the war and studied art courtesy of the G.I. Bill. While living in Paris, he was inspired by the reflection of an arched bridge in water. This inspiration led to his now familiar hard-edge painting style that is about pure form and undetailed color. Kelly combined his interest in nature with the Constructivist tradition of mathematical principles. The result is a sort of visual shorthand that comments on our surroundings through abstract shapes. Kelly has received numerous awards for his work and recently had a retrospective of his work in well-known museums in New York, Los Angeles, London and Munich. His works are included in private collections and museums throughout the world. One of his most recent awards was the 1998 New York Governor?s Arts Award. In this 1970 silkscreen work titled Yellow/Black, Kelly uses shapes in bold colors to enclose in a rectangular format. At the time that he produced these works, the critics expressed their view that Kelly was introducing a sensuousness into contemporary art. Some observers are able to feel the unrelenting sexual tension lying beneath the surface of these rectangularly formatted works.
from the Men in the City Series (Eric)
In 1975, Longo received his Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from State University College in Buffalo, New York. He has had solo exhibitions throughout the world, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Stededlijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His works are represented in the permanent collections of a number of museums including the Tate Gallery in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Longo has also directed films and music videos including the popular movie, Johnny Mnemonic, and REM?s music video, The One I Love. This work, titled Eric from Longo?s Men in the City Series, challenges the viewer to decide if the subject is exuberant in his erratic movements or if he is traumatized by some unseen event taking place out of the spectator?s range. Longo is known for his large, theatrical figures which relate directly to the effect that television, billboards, and movies had on the artist during his childhood. This series began as a solo exhibition in 1981 at Metro Pictures in New York. The success of this exhibition brought Longo international attention.
from the Men in the City Series (Sandy)
In 1975, Longo received his Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from State University College in Buffalo, New York. He has had solo exhibitions throughout the world, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Stededlijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His works are represented in the permanent collections of a number of museums including the Tate Gallery in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Longo has also directed films and music videos including the popular movie, Johnny Mnemonic, and REM?s music video, The One I Love.
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Known as one of the Colorfield painters, Olitski developed his own unique method of this style of painting. First, he saturated an unprimed canvas with paint by dragging it through a trough of acrylic paint. The next step involved spraying paint on the already wet canvas. Sometimes this step involved one spray gun and other times Olitski would use as many as three at once. This spray gun method allowed him to achieve differences in the densities of color. Summer Seizure exemplifies this technique employed by Olitski. He abandoned this method upon discovering how dangerous the fumes were that were emitted while spraying with the Magna acrylic paint. He wisely decided to change to the water-based Aqua-tec. Once he changed paints he started working with a variety of nozzles for better control and no longer needed to use more than one spray gun at once.
Natural Bridge Road
Adrift
Stackhouse grew up in the New York metropolitan area, but his summers were spent at his grandparents lake home in Peach Lake, New York. At the age of twelve he moved to Florida and continued to enjoy the adventures and pleasures of living near water. His experiences of growing up around water have directly influenced his work. All his works of art have a nautical or architectural reference even though they are intrinsically abstract. He was fortunate to have studied painting at the University of South Florida at a time when the Graphic Studio was founded. The appeal of the Graphic Studio lured artists to Tampa. Working artists who came there discussed art and passed along bits of advice to the students. Friedel Dzubas who had been associated with the New York School artists, also known as the Abstract Expressionists, was one of the visiting artists that left a big impression on the young Stackhouse. Dzubas allowed the students to watch him paint and shared stories of living in New York and his student days at the Bauhaus where he was taught by Paul Klee. Dzubas gave the young Stackhouse a piece of advice he never forgot. He told him that ?in a painting sometimes the most important activity took place right on the edge.? Stackhouse still takes the borders of his paintings very seriously. In order to prolong the life of his large temporal outdoor sculptures Stackhouse records the process of making these pieces on paper. He also documents completed works this way.