Washington Color School
Encyclopedia
Washington Gallery of Modern Art
The Washington Gallery of Modern Art was a short-lived gallery promoting contemporary art near Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, USA, during the 1960s. Its collection of 153 works was purchased by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art in 1968 for $110,000...
in Washington, DC from June 25-September 5, 1965. The exhibition subsequently traveled to several other venues in the United States, including the Walker Art Center
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
. The exhibition's organizer was Gerald "Gerry" Nordland and the painters included Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
, Gene Davis
Gene Davis (painter)
Gene Davis was an American painter known especially for his paintings of vertical stripes of color, and was a member of the group of abstract painters in Washington DC during the 1960s known as the Washington Color School....
, Howard Mehring
Howard Mehring
Howard Mehring was a twentieth century painter born in Washington, D.C.Howard Mehring is associated with Color Field painting and the Washington Color School and the artists at Jefferson Place Gallery. Mehring and Robert Gates both received grants from THE Woodward Foundation to travel in Europe...
, Thomas "Tom" Downing, and Paul Reed
Paul Reed (artist)
Paul Reed is an American artist most associated with the Washington Color School and Color Field Painting.Reed was born in Washington DC and currently resides in the Virginia suburbs outside of DC. He attended and graduated from both San Diego State College in San Diego, CA and the Corcoran...
.
The Washington Color School artists painted largely abstract
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
works, and were central to the larger color field
Color Field
Color Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
movement. Though not generally considered abstract expressionists
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
, in so far as much of their work is more orderly than—and not apparently motivated by the philosophy behind—abstract expressionism, there are parallels between the Washington Color School and the abstract expressionists largely to their north in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Minimally, the use of stripes, washes, and fields of single colors of paint on canvas were common to most artists in both groups.
After their initial, benchmark exhibition, Davis, Mehring, Downing, and Reed exhibited at various times at Jefferson Place Gallery
Jefferson Place Gallery
The Jefferson Place Gallery was an art gallery in Washington, DC. It was founded in 1957 as a coalition of American University artists and others: Robert "Bob" Gates, Helene Herzbrun, and Ben "Joe" Summerford. Helene Herzbrun was a partner until 1961. Alice Denney was the first director...
, which was originally directed by Alice Denney
Alice Denney
Alice Denney is a curator and arts administrator. To some, she is considered to be the grande dame of the Washington, D.C. avant-garde and the mentor to a number of Washington's artists and arts administrators...
and later owned and directed by Nesta Dorrance. Other artists associated with the group include Sam Gilliam
Sam Gilliam
Sam Gilliam is internationally recognized as one of America's foremost Color Field Painter and Lyrical Abstractionist artists....
, Anne Truitt
Anne Truitt
Anne Truitt was a major American artist of the mid-20th century; she is associated with both minimalism and Color Field artists like Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland....
, Mary Pinchot Meyer
Mary Pinchot Meyer
Mary Eno Pinchot Meyer was an American socialite, painter, former wife of Central Intelligence Agency official Cord Meyer and intimate friend of United States president John F. Kennedy, who was often noted for her desirable physique and social skills...
, Leon Berkowitz, Jacob Kainen
Jacob Kainen
Jacob Kainen was an American painter and printmaker. He is also known as an art historian, writingbooks on John Baptist Jackson and the etchings of Canaletto...
Alma Thomas, and James Hilleary among others. The group is sometimes thought to have expanded as it achieved a dominant presence in the Washington DC visual art community through the 1960s and into the 1970s. Along with the original Washington Color School painters, a second generation also exhibited at Jefferson Place Gallery. The movement remained influential even as some of its members dispersed elsewhere.
During Spring and Summer 2007, arts institutions in Washington, DC staged a city-wide celebration of Color Field painting, including exhibitions at galleries and museums of works by members of the Washington Color School.http://www.washington.org/colorfieldremix/index.cfm In 2011, a group of Washington art collectors began the Washington Color School Project, to gather and publish information about the history of the Color Painters and abstract art in Washington. http://www.washingtoncolorschool.com
See also
- Modern artModern artModern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
- Western paintingWestern paintingThe history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production, after which time more modern, abstract and conceptual forms gained favor.Developments...
- Abstract artAbstract artAbstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
- Hard-edge paintingHard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
- Lyrical AbstractionLyrical AbstractionLyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
- Color FieldColor FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
- Post-painterly abstractionPost-painterly AbstractionPost-painterly abstraction is a term created by art critic Clement Greenberg as the title for an exhibit he curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964, which subsequently travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Art Gallery of Toronto....
- Vincent MelzacVincent MelzacVincent Melzac was an American business executive and art collector, best known as one of the earliest and most daring collectors of paintings of the Washington Color School. Melzac, often described as a larger than life figure, was briefly chief executive officer of the Corcoran Gallery of Art...
Sources
- Gene Davis Catalog
- J. D. Serwer. 1987. Gene Davis, A Memorial Exhibition. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 0-87474-854-2
- Introduction & Text by Roy Slade, "The Corcoran & Washington Art" Copyright 1976 The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.: 2000 copies printed by Garamond Press, Baltimore, MD LCCC# 76-42098
- Smithsonian Archives of American Art,Interview with Gerald Nordland Conducted by Susan Larsen, Chicago, Illinois May 25-26, 2004 http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/nordla04.htm
- Washington Art, catalog of exhibitions at State University College at Potsdam, NY & State University of New York at Albany, 1971 [no copyright or LCCC # listed], Introduction by Renato G. Danese, printed by Regal Art Press, Troy NY.
- The Vincent MelzacVincent MelzacVincent Melzac was an American business executive and art collector, best known as one of the earliest and most daring collectors of paintings of the Washington Color School. Melzac, often described as a larger than life figure, was briefly chief executive officer of the Corcoran Gallery of Art...
Collection, Forward by Walter HoppsWalter HoppsWalter Hopps was an American museum director and curator of contemporary art. His obituary in the Washington Post described him as a "sort of a gonzo museum director -- elusive, unpredictable, outlandish in his range, jagged in his vision, heedless of rules."Hopps was born in Eagle Rock, Los...
, Introduction by Ellen Gross Landau, Retrospective Notes on the Washington Color School by Barbara Rose, Copyright 1971 The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.: printed by Garamond/Pridemark Press, Baltimore, MD LCCC#75-153646