Table of Contents

Process

Line, Form, Color

Color palette

Surface

Shaped canvas

Relationship to space

The Observer

River Seine

Shadows on stairs, La Combe

Boston Panels

Rocker sculpture

Revisited forms (Concorde; White Plaque: Bridge Arch and Reflection; Spectrum)

02 Early Years

Childhood

Birdwatching

First experiences with drawing

Teenage years, John Travolta’s mom, and color

Caricatures

American regionalism and Precisionist influence

Early watercolor explorations and first painting

Theater

3.

Pratt Institute

Munsell color charts and structural workbooks

Color preferences

4.

Ghost Army (camouflage engineer battalion)

Abstracting nature through camouflage

Sketches made during WWII

5.

Boston

Black Mountain College

Boston Museum School

Early self portraits

Ralph Coburn

GI Bill

Influence of Max Beckmann

03 Finding Abstraction

First works made in Paris

Figurative paintings

Abstract paintings

Window, Museum of Modern Art, Paris

Sketchbook pages

Experimentation and exploratory works in France

Experiments with chance and automatic drawing

First multi-panel work - Painting for a White Wall

Exploratory abstract paintings

First multi-panel paintings

3.

First solo show at Galerie Arnaud

4.

End of stay in Paris

Illness

Ad Reinhardt at Betty Parsons Gallery

Transporting artworks back to the US

5.

Returning to New York

Broad Street studio

Working nights for US Post Office

First curvilinear forms

Alexander (Sandy) Calder

Studio visits from museum directors

First solo show in New York at Betty Parsons Gallery

6.

Studio in Coenties Slip (The Slip)

Fellow Slip artists

Separation from Abstract Expressionism

Foraging for materials

First group show at MoMA: Recent Drawings U.S.A.

Influence of The Slip

7.

Breaking Ground

Young Americans Exhibition at Whitney Museum of Art

First museum purchase: Whitney acquires Atlantic

Sixteen Americans group exhibition at MoMA

04 Lifting Off

Public Recognition