Color-Field Art

Thomas Victor Downing (1928 - 1985) Nineteen, 1968 Acrylic on canvas 35 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches Signed on the reverse Provenance: Estate of the artist Henri Gallery, Washington, D.C. Private Collection, Washington, D.C. Thomas Downing was born in Suffolk, Virginia. In 1950, after graduating from Pratt Institute in New York City, he received a grant from the Virginia Museum of Fine Art to study in Europe. Upon returning from Europe, he settled in Washington, DC to teach at Catholic University. In 1954 Downing became a friend of Kenneth Noland, whose life drawing course he attended. From 1955 to 1956 Downing shared a studio with Howard Mehring, another artist who came to be identified with the Washington Color School. Downing had his first one-man show at the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts in 1959. That year, Downing, Mehring, and Betty Pajac founded Origio, a cooperative art gallery in Washington. In 1959 Downing first began using the small dot in his work, a motif he explored fully into the 1970s. In the early works colorful dots determined the structure of the painting in their size, position, and repetition within a grid. Often there was a sense of concentration and expansion of the composition from the center to the edge of the canvas, achieving a visual impression of expanding open space. Looking for the fusion between the grid and color, Downing eliminated overlapping dots in 1962. The dots arranged in grids seem to project from the canvas surface, giving the impression the color floats unrestricted by the square format of his paintings. Downing’s position in the Washington Color School came from his consistent approach to color. The canvas was the receptacle of color, on which Downing often worked in tonal modulations of a hue. Downing developed shaped canvases in 1966 as a structural solution to his deeper consideration of the “spatial definition” of color. After first working in a parallelogram shape, Downing next worked in chevron-shaped canvases that examined the illusionistic qualities of color. He exhibited these works in a solo exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery in 1966-1967 and later at the Allan Stone Gallery in New York in 1967. Downing’s second series of shaped canvases titled Folds were created in 1968. In the Fold series he discovered a new effect of relief and spatial depth within a flat work that could be enhanced by color. The projections and folding in the Fold paintings suggest the paintings exist in a world without gravity. Downing exhibited in a group show at Jefferson Place Gallery in 1960 and had his first solo exhibition there in the spring of 1961. Downing had solo exhibitions in New York at Allan Stone Gallery in 1962, 1967, and 1968. He also had solo exhibition in New York at Stable Gallery in September 1963 and January 1965. In the early 1970s Downing had regular solo exhibitions at the Pyramid Galleries in DC. In the 1960s Downing was included in important museum exhibitions, including: Post Painterly Abstraction at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1964 (Clement Greenberg curated and included three of Downing’s dial paintings); The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art, 1965; Colorists, 1950-1965 at the San Francisco Museum of Art, 1965; Systemic Painting at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1966; and Color Field Painting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1970. Thomas Downing: Recent Paintings was held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in December 1966 - January 1967. A solo exhibition of his paintings from 1962 to 1968 was held at the La Jolla Museum of Art then travelled to the Phoenix Art Museum in 1968. Downing had a solo exhibition at the Phillips Collection in 1985. Downing taught at the Corcoran School of Art and Design, Washington, DC from 1965 to 1968. There he was influential for the next generation of DC color...

We are pleased to offer this work by second generation AbEx painter Robert Natkin and painted in delicious colors of yellow, tangerine, blue, red and purple. It fits well within a variety of decor settings. Described as the "author of a dappled infinite," Natkin created some of the most innovative color abstractions of the late 20th century. Populated by stripes, dots, grids, and an array of free-floating forms, his light- filled canvases are sensuous, playful, and visually complex. While attending the school of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1948 to 1952, Natkin was afforded the opportunity to study the museum's world-class collection of French post-impressionist art and decided to turn his attention to painting instead. During these formative years, Natkin was inspired by the examples of Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse, who used decorative patterning and arbitrary color to evoke mood. Most importantly, he also discovered the work of Paul Klee, the Swiss-German artist whose whimsical, semi-abstract paintings reflected his belief that "art does not reproduce the visible but makes visible"--a credo that nurtured Natkin's burgeoning interest in emotional content. In 1952, he lived briefly in New York, where he saw and was influenced by the bold canvases of Willem de Kooning. In 1959, aware of the limited patronage for abstract art in Chicago, Natkin and Dolnick moved to New York, where Natkin joined the stable of artists associated with the Poindexter Gallery, known for its support of emerging painters and sculptors. Immersed in the dynamism of the New York art world, where Abstract Expressionism and Color-Field painting were the dominant styles of the day, Natkin's aesthetic approach continued to evolve. In 1961, he adopted a serial approach to painting, a practice he would adhere to throughout his career. Natkin began to develop a more intricate style (indebted to Klee), depicting diamonds, polygons, ovals, squiggles and other shapes against textured, delicately toned backgrounds interspersed with seemingly randomly placed dots and daubs of pigment and areas of crosshatching. This new style is evident in the "Intimate Lighting" series works. In 1970 Natkin put aside his brushes and began to use sponges...

Jules Olitski (1922-1977) is one of the most collected and accomplished artists associated with the color-field movement, if not 20th-century American abstraction. Created in the m...

Larry Zox Dexter's Choice, State II, ca. 1990 Mixed media, Watercolor pochoir, and Oil stick Wax, Water-Based Crayons, on heavy Arches museum watercolor rag paper with deckled edges ...

This stunning serigraph, "Untitled" (Diagonal Composition) was realized by the esteemed American color field artist Larry Zox (American, 1936-2006) circa 1965. It features a dynamic ...

This large color photograph by Chris Pulitzer Leidy is the essence of underwater sea life in vibrant blues and pinks. Printed on pigment matte paper. Framed in a 2" wide white maple wood frame. Perfect beach house photograph...

Memory is at its most magical when it conjures up not the event, but its surrounding perceptual and emotional space. Flashes of reflected light, movement seen out of the corner of eye, bits of sound or feeling – these are what ignite memory, giving it form and bringing it to life. Light both beams into and envelops you. Carol Salmanson started working with it in 2003 after painting for many years because of these singular spatial qualities. They enable herto build whole worlds with color and shape, ones that resonate with memory and experience. Painters have often talked about depicting light. Today’s technology allows me to use light as medium as well as subject. Double Diamond is made with layers of light that beam onto reflective material; its two different configurations of diamonds are mounted on a strip that also layers light. The location in the beams creates a glowing frieze that radiates outwards, giving the viewer a first a sense of surprise, and then wonder. Carol Salmanson is an artist working with light and reflective materials to create installations, sculptures, and wall pieces. She received a B.S. in Biological Psychology from Carnegie-Mellon University and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. She attended the Arts Students League, the School of Visual Arts as a Public Art Resident, and the National Academy of Fine Arts as an Abbey Mural Workshop Fellow. Public art projects include Water Bubbles, an installation in twenty windows of the abandoned landmark Constructivist White Tower in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Other window installations include the venues Station Independent Projects, Time Equities’ Art-in-Buildings program, OK Harris Works of Art, 254 Park Avenue South, and Mixed Greens Gallery, all in New York. Her outdoor sculptures include Tri-Quadular Cone in Summit, NJ, and Lot’s Ex-Wife in Brooklyn. She will have an installation, Crown Colony, in the window at 266 W. 37th St, in September of this year. Solo and two-person exhibition venues include SL Gallery (NY), Slag Contemporary (Brooklyn), Station Independent Projects (NY), Brian Morris...

Piero Dorazio Lot of 2 (two) Lithographs - "Night Circles" & "Morning Circles" Color Lithographs Year: 1992 "Night Circles" Size: 27.56 x 19.68 in (70 x 50 cm) "Morning Circles" Siz...

Agent X Chorioferol mRNA (black) (Pop Art, Street Art, Urban Art) Digital Print on Archival Paper Year: 2021 Edition: 70 Size: 35 x 35 inch Signed COA provided Ref.: 924802-855 ---...

Fragments Of Poetry And Silence No. 39 (Abstract Painting) Oil on canvas - Unframed Informed by a variety of different cultures, Ostovany feels a connection to multiple separate an...

Agent X Alfuderm mRNA (white) (Pop Art, Street Art, Urban Art) Digital Print on Archival Paper Year: 2021 Edition: 70 Size: 37 x 35 inches Signed COA provided Ref.: 924802-854 -----...

Original Salamanca Ferias y Fiestas vintage Spanish poster. Lithograph archival linen backed and ready to frame. Artist: Ramon Melero. Very good condition. No tears, no stains, no damage. Fine condition This image has two piñata style faces. The woman has a flower in her hair and a veil and the man is just wearing a small Swiss hat. On the left side, there is a cow handing off a string that also has flowers. A city seal is in the upper left corner. The festival is in honor of la Virgen de la Vega...

Piero Dorazio Night Circles (Cercles De Nuit) Color Lithograph Year: 1992 Size: 27.56 x 19.68 in (70 x 50 cm) Signed, dated and numbered by hand Edition: 90 Publisher: Erker Presse,...

Gritty working class truck driver with tiger painting on truck door, is rendered in a flat and quick style with rapid brushstrokes defining the trucker. The tiger is painted in a t...

New York Photographer Mithcell Funk creates an image with a broad expanse of mostly flat magenta. His representation of space is flat and simplified. In the center of the picture pla...

Conference of the birds no 28 (Abstract Painting) Oil on panel. Natural and mystical processes inspire Ostovany. Informed by a variety of different cultures, Ostovany feels a conne...

Artist: Jay Rosenblum, American (1933-1989 Title: Cycle 2 Year: 1979 Medium: Silkscreen, signed and numbered in pencil Edition size: 250 Size: 25 in. x 34.5 in. (63.5 cm x 87.63 cm)

"Layered Curvilinear Forms" is an abstract painting diptych by Spanish artist Natalia Roman. It is a beautiful series of rhythmic brushstrokes and shapes combined with subtle tones a...

Watercolor by Willem De Looper (1932-2009). Painting is signed "de Looper" and dated 76' lower right. Painting measures 20" x 8". Willem De Looper was a Washington D.C. abstract...

"At Sea between Fossils and Satellites 7" is a textural and elemental abstract painting on canvas. It explores the hybridization of chance-derived color-fields with art deco aestheti...

Fragments Of Poetry And Silence No. 39 (Abstract Painting) Oil on canvas - Unframed Informed by a variety of different cultures, Ostovany feels a connection to multiple separate an...

Colors within a witch hazel blossom 2 (Abstract painting) Acrylic on polyester film - Unframed This work is part of a series whose inspiration comes from Witch Hazel, a deciduous s...

Photographer Mitchell Funk celebrates color with this magical moment of the stairs that lead to Bethesda Fountain. To a casual passerby, this image as it appears would not register....

"Blue and Green Abstract" by Claudia Sisemore, acylic on canvas, 43.5 x 46 inches, $4,800. "I have a vague idea of what I am going to paint. I...

Apple in 13 colors (Abstract painting) Acrylic on Dura-Lar - Unframed Ramsay’s process engages a systematic, mathematical approach heavily influenced by color. She interacts with n...

"Untitled, 1974" by Claudia Sisemore, acylic on canvas, 58 x 56 inches, $7,200. Unframed. "I have a vague idea of what I am going to paint. I read that many artists are inspired by an idea before they begin their work and plan their approach and process based on that idea or muse. Others become inspired after they have begun working and watching colors, shapes and designs form. I basically belong the second group. Usually, after painting begins in a loose, free manner, I become excited by certain colors and patterns and continue from there." -Claudia Sisemore -- Caudia Sisemore says she was teaching English when artist David Chaplin (an equally popular and influential teacher) was at Weber and initially got her into landscape painting. “Then he took me to a show at the Art Barn and Lee [Deffebach] was showing there [with Don Olsen...

Exceptional and large painting by French artist Christian Gardair (French, b.1938). Painting is acrylic on polyester paper. Signed and titled "Oceano Graphie" dated 1983. Painting me...

Here is where we meet (for John Berger) (Abstract Painting) Oil on canvas. Informed by a variety of different cultures, Ostovany feels a connection to mu...

Conceived of as one half of a diptych, together with Twelfth Night Red, the title of this painting suggest a reference to William Shakespeare’s play Twel...

Kenneth Lochhead (1926-2006) was a prolific Canadian painter (and educator) who made an important contribution to abstraction both nationally and beyond. After studying at the Penn...

A striking contemporary two-toned colorfield abstract by Bay Area artist Michael Pauker (American, b. 1957). A large neutral textured section in cream sits atop a wavy abstraction in...

Conference of the birds no 28 (Abstract Painting) Oil on panel. Natural and mystical processes inspire Ostovany. Informed by a variety of different cultures, Ostovany feels a conne...

"Untitled, 1975" by Claudia Sisemore, acylic on canvas, 41.5 x 50 inches, $4,800. "I have a vague idea of what I am going to paint. I read that many artists are inspired by an idea before they begin their work and plan their approach and process based on that idea or muse. Others become inspired after they have begun working and watching colors, shapes and designs form. I basically belong the second group. Usually, after painting begins in a loose, free manner, I become excited by certain colors and patterns and continue from there." -Claudia Sisemore -- Caudia Sisemore says she was teaching English when artist David Chaplin (an equally popular and influential teacher) was at Weber and initially got her into landscape painting. “Then he took me to a show at the Art Barn and Lee [Deffebach] was showing there [with Don Olsen...

Colorfield #410 is a wonderful example of American modernist Leonard Nelson's color field compositions and expression. The unframed, abstract oil on canvas measures 52" x 60" and is ...

Observing shifting color is an ecstatic experience for the artist. She is intrigued by transitions from one color to the next and the way the eye and brain process these transitions,...

The crown of the Empire State Building is illuminated with bright yellows, oranges and blues. The appeal of this work lies not in the World's Most Iconic Building being lit in dramat...

Cleve Gray (1918-2004) was admired for his large-scale, vividly colorful and lyrically gestural abstract compositions and achieved his greatest critical recognition in the late 1960's and 70's after working for many years in a comparatively conservative late-Cubist style. Inspired in the 1960's by artists like Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko and Helen Frankenthaler, Gray began to produce large paintings using...

Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...

Brodsky was a "romantic" painter, although he painted abstractly, and a master colorist. His abstract works are not "action paintings" in the sense of De Kooning or Pollock, but expl...

American, b. 1948 Artist Statement: My paintings are intuitive responses to the myriad forces that shape my life—emotions that translate into color, visual memories of forms and col...

Houses of town. 1972, watercolor on paper, 55x75,5 cm Olgerts Jaunarajs (1907-2003) He was so-called legend of abstract expressionism in the Latvia...

Exceptional wood sculpture by Andrea De Zerega (1916-1990). Titled "Homage to Noland." Signed and dated 1968. Base is weighted for stability. Exhibit...

Artist: Gene Davis, American (1920 - 1985) Title: Banjo Year: 1981 Medium: Lithograph on Arches Paper, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 250 Size: 21.25 x 28.5 in. (53.98 x 7...

David Einstein's gestural abstraction has a semiotic quality to it. It is a study of how meaning is created, not what is. Indeed, the artist calls himself "a mark maker," as much as ...

LIFE FORCE is a limited edition color lithograph printed using traditional lithography techniques on archival Arches paper by Lamar Briggs (1935-2015) American painter and Texas arti...

"At Sea between Fossils and Satellites 7" is a textural and elemental abstract painting on canvas. It explores the hybridization of chance-derived color-fields with art deco aestheti...

Kenneth Noland (1924 – 2010) is one of the most important contributors to the evolution of American abstraction, specifically as a leading figure in the Color-Field movement. Unlik...

Like many of her compatriots, Agnes Hart first began to paint in a social realist, or WPA, style. Later in her career, after WWII, she moved to abstraction and created vibrant, impactful works culminating in a series of oil and sand paintings...

TIVA LANDSCAPE is a limited edition color lithograph printed on archival Arches paper, 100% acid free by Lamar Briggs (1935-2015) American painter and Texas artist who was born in La...

Acrylic on Dura-Lar - Unframed Ramsay’s process engages a systematic, mathematical approach heavily influenced by color. She interacts with nature, documents the shifting colors of ...

A blue and orange abstract color field abstract monotype on a soft grey background. Includes a label from the gallery it was once sold from that includes the artist's name, title, size, and medium. Dimensions Without Frame: H 29.5 in. x W 22 in. Artist Biography: Born in Cozad, Nebraska, in 1942, the son of a farmer and truck driver, Dan Christensen chose to become an artist when, as a teenager, he saw the work of Jackson Pollock on a trip to Denver. After receiving his B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute, Missouri, in 1964, he moved to New York City. His “spray loop” paintings, produced by using a spray paint gun...

"At Sea between Fossils and Satellites 7" is a textural and elemental abstract painting on canvas. It explores the hybridization of chance-derived color-fields with art deco aestheti...

Washes of sun yellow are edged in dashes of bright colors - mauve, cerise, lime and rust -- in this monumental color-field canvas by Milly Ristvedt. "Summer Window" from 1973 was cr...

American, b. 1948 My paintings are intuitive responses to the myriad forces that shape my life—emotions that translate into color, visual memories of forms and color relationships f...

American, b. 1948 My paintings are intuitive responses to the myriad forces that shape my life—emotions that translate into color, visual memories of forms and color relationships f...

Acrylic on polyester film - Unframed This work is part of a series whose inspiration comes from Witch Hazel, a deciduous shrub in New York City. It blooms in January with bright yel...

"At Sea between Fossils and Satellites 7" is a textural and elemental abstract painting on canvas. It explores the hybridization of chance-derived color-fields with art deco aestheti...

San Francisco Victorians Painted Ladies explode with color and charm in this graphic depiction. Direction light enhances the ornate details and heightens the color saturation whil...