Nassos Daphnis
1-90
1990

Name: 1-90
Brand: Nassos Daphnis
Price: 45000 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

1986-1992 PIXEL FIELD In 1986, Nassos Daphnis was 71 years old when he booted up the computer for the first time and he was soon conversant enough with the machine’s capacity to use it fluently in his work. He was launched as a pioneer — one of the very first artist to adopt the resources of the new technology into the hitherto slow developing processes of paintings. It was the winter of 1985. Nassos Daphnis was getting an idea down on paper for a new abstract work in his West Broadway studio. The idea was burning bright, but his work processes were painstaking, indeed finicky. He complained to his son, Demetri, about the endless frustration of being unable to render this Eureka! moment as swiftly as required. The son introduced the father to an Atari ST computer. Call this Eureka moment, Part II. Daphnis was seventy-one years old when he booted up a computer for the first time and he was soon conversant enough with the machine’s capacities to use it fluently in his work. He was launched as a pioneer — one of the veryfirst artists to adapt the resources of the new technology into the hitherto slow-developing processes of painting. Pixel Fields, a show of a body of work made between 1987 and 1992, which marks the repre-sentation of the Estate of Nassos Daphnis by the Richard Taittinger Gallery, is unique within his oeuvre and reveals him as a precursor to today’s New Media artists. These twenty-two paintings are remarkably diverse in their pictorial organization, but are alike in exploring the brave new world of computer-generated graphics. THE EXPLOSION 6-87 (1987), for instance, an image of expanding circles and radiating spokes, painted in enamel on canvas, explores the architectonics of the circle. 3-89 (1989) features bent lines and jagged contours suggesting the pixilation that is a feature of low-resolution screens. The final sequence interlocks oblongs to bring to birth what can be read as multiple cityscapes within an in finite, virtual world. Daphnis was born in 1914 in Krockeai, near Sparta, the Greek city historically famous for its powerful military, its rigorous perfectionism, and its proverbial austerity. Growing up, he drew compulsively but had no exposure to art whatsoever, aside from church icons. He immigrated to New York with his family in 1930 when he was sixteen. Daphnis received no formal training in art, apart from random lessons, but began painting folksy canvases, based on scenes of his youth, and exhibited before serving in World War II. Upon his return, his style began to evolve. From outsiderish realism he moved into a biomorphic abstraction with a Surrealist inflection. Then came his return to Greece in 1952. His re-experience of the stark, clear Greek light was a revelation. “The glare of the sunlight against a certain form eliminated all surface anomalies — I could see everything as one form.” “In Greece you have this dry landscape...I would see everything flat, for instance, because the dazzling quality that everything had and the form would just disappear.”

Creator:

Nassos Daphnis (1914, American)

Creation Year:

1990

Dimensions:

Height: 36.13 in (91.78 cm)Width: 44.13 in (112.1 cm)

More Editions & Sizes:

UniquePrice: $45,000

Medium:

Canvas,Oil

Movement & Style:

Abstract Geometric

Period:

Late 20th Century

Framing:

Framing Options Available

Condition:

Gallery Location:

New York, NY

Reference Number:

Seller: ND-15-0121stDibs: LU2683213565762

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Nassos Daphnis

The Greek-born American artist Nassos Daphnis was a major figure in the 20th Century art world and is recognized for his mastery of geometric abstraction and his evolution into what became known as Hard-Edge Painting. Daphnis was actively supported by the Leo Castelli Gallery for 39 years, who placed his work in some of the best museum collections around the world. He also gave him 17 solo shows, making him the 3rd most exhibited artist of the Gallery, right after Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. In addition to these exhibitions at Leo Castelli Gallery, Daphnis was featured in 23 group shows alongside John Chamberlain, Ellsworth Kelly, Edward Ruscha, Richard Serra, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly, among others. In describing the work of Nassos Daphnis, Leo Castelli has said, “His paintings were more rigorous than the other geometric painters. From the day I saw his first slides I recognized this, and that he differed also because there was no hint of anything that should suggest sentiment. Sentimentality of any type was ruled out.” Daphnis was one of the pioneers of the Minimalist school of New York. New York art critic April Kingsley wrote, “Some of Daphnis’ paintings from the later 50s are so radical you’d assume they’d been painted at least 10 to 15 years later. His devotion to purity predicts 60s minimalism; his systemic approach predates systemic painting.” In the 1950’s when Barnett Newman was doing his stripe paintings with traditional brush strokes, Daphnis had already introduced the roller in order to erase the human touch and reached the perfection he always strived for. In 1958, Daphnis developed his Color & Plane Theory to liberate color from the restriction of form. In doing so, he used multiple planes of solid color to create the illusion of depth, space, and movement amid smooth, uninterrupted surface textures. Nassos Daphnis remained outside recognized schools and moved fluidly among emerging styles, with one goal — perfection. He remains a pioneer of the Hard-Edge Geometric abstraction and managed through his colossal work to overcome all the most difficult techniques and challenges by pioneering: magna painting (1958), Plexiglas sculpture (1962), epoxy painting (1966), giant-scale murals (1969), Gestält Arc Series (1976), and computer-generated works (1985). In 1967, Nassos Daphnis was one of the co-founders of City Walls Inc. together with Richard Anuszkiewicz, Jason Crum, Knox Martin, Mel Pekarsky, Tania, Robert Wiegand, and other notable painters of the period. Daphnis has been the recipient of numerous prestigious art awards. He was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1977 and received the Francis J. Greenburger Foundation Award and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award in 1986. Daphnis’ works are in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Museum of Modern Art, NY; Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Tel Aviv Museum, Israel; Basil Goulandris Museum, Greece. Daphnis had 123 exhibitions during his lifetime, both domestic and international: 90 group shows and 33 solo shows, including four retrospective museum exhibitions.