Color Field Shindig in DC

Detail Red Hill
Casey Klahn

Washington DC (the other Washington, as I call it) is celebrating Color Field painting, which is a subset of the Abstract Expressionist movement. The event is titled ColorField.remix, and came to my attention via Martha Marshall's blogsite. Thanks, Martha!

The remix site offers this definition of Color Field art:

Color Field painting, an abstract style that emerged in the 1950s following Abstract Expressionism, is characterized by canvases painted primarily with stripes, washes and fields of solid color. The first serious and critically acclaimed art movement to originate in the nation’s capital, Washington Color School was central to the larger Color Field movement. Its roots were with painters who showed their work at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art, a short-lived museum promoting contemporary art during the 1960s. Its 1965 “Washington Color Painters” show formalized recognition of the Washington Color School of painters “More than 40 years after that historic D.C. exhibition, their paintings reveal not just a shared passion for color but highly individualistic visions,” writes Jean Lawlor Cohen, guest co-curator at The Kreeger Museum. “They represent a moment when Washington heeded Willem de Kooning’s call for ‘hallelujah painting.’”

Among the best known Color Field artists are Leon Berkowitz, Helen Frankenthaler, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jules Olitski, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Frank Stella and Alma Thomas and Larry Zox. Among the best known Washington Color School artists are Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Howard Mehring and Paul Reed.

Link:

http://www.washington.org/colorfieldremix/