James Brooks - part 2

This is part two of a two-part post on the works of American abstract expressionist James Brooks. For biographical information and works created up to 1962, see part one below. Part two shows Brooks' works from 1962 onwards:

1962 Maruga

1963 Ealand II

1965-68 Irridon

1968 Merrygandering

1968-69 Jire

1969 Untitled

1971 Avery

1972 Runge

1973 Obbie

1974 Cillburn

1974 Fonteel

1974 Leen

1975 Apthorp

1975 Concord

1977 Path

1979 Devon

1980 Euclo

1980 Lahr

1981 Aamo

1981 Barnegat

1981 Mantra

1982 Nallard

1983 Geomundo

James Brooks - part 1

Back after a working break, and taking a two-part look at the work of American abstract expressionist James Brooks (1906 – 1992). Part one features Brook's works made between 1940 and 1962. Part two from 1962 onwards.

Brooks was also a muralist, and winner of the Logan Medal of the Arts. Between 1923 and 1925 Brooks studied at the Southern Methodist Univesity in Dallas, Texas. In 1926 he moved to New York and between 1927 and 1930 he attended the Arts Student League. Brooks became a friend of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner on Eastern Long Island. In 1947 he married artist Charlotte Park.

Considered a first generation abstract expressionist painter, Brooks was amongst the first abstract expressionists to use staining as an important technique. According to Carter Ratcliff: "His concern has always been to create painterly accidents of the kind that allow buried personal meanings to take on visibility."

In his paintings from the late 1940s Brooks began to dilute his oil paint in order to stain the mostly raw canvas. These works often combined calligraphy and abstract shapes. Brooks had his first one-man exhibition of his abstract expressionist paintings in 1949 at the Peridot Gallery in New York. He died in 1992 in East Hampton, New York.

Among the public collections holding work by James Brooks are: The Courtauld Institute of Art (London), the Dallas Museum of Art, the Harvard University Art Museums, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Sheldon Art Gallery (Lincoln, Nebraska), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington D.C.), the Tate Gallery (London) and the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota).

1940 Bad Intentions

1942 '6'

1946 Composition

1947 Sailor's Horn Pipe

1948 Figure

1948 Maine Caper

1950 #10

1950 #23

1950 Untitled

1952 F

1952 K

1953 F

1953 H

1953 L

1953 U

1954 Santini

1954 Z

1955 Quatic

1956 #3

1956 Karrig

1957 Boon

1957 Teetole

1960 Flintro

1962 Dwar

Robert Indiana - part 2

Part 1 of these posts (see previous post below) on the work of Robert Indiana looks at his iconic LOVE series. Today I am taking a look at his graphical works.

Robert Indiana, an American painter, sculptor and graphic artist was born Robert Clark in New Castle, Indiana in 1928. He graduated from Arsenal Technical High School, Indianapolis in 1942 and had his first one-man show of watercolours – works that bear the influence of Reginald Marsh, Edward Hopper and Charles Sheeler.

In 1945 he attended Saturday classes at the John Herron Art Institute, studying under Edwin Fulwinder. Though he received a scholarship to this institution in 1946, he entered the Army Air Corps instead. While serving in the Army he attended classes at Syracuse University and studied under Oscar Weissbuch at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute.

From 1949 to 1953 he attended the School of the Art Institute, Chicago. He then completed his BFA requirements at the university of Edinburgh while on a travel fellowship, and later moved to New York
.

In the mid 1950s he was living near Ellsworth Kelly, Jack Youngerman, James Rosenquist, Charles Hinnman and other artists on Coenties Slip in New York. It was at this time that he began doing hard-edged paintings; the first ones based on the doubled form of the ginkgo leaf, a motif that continued for several years. In the early 1960s he did his first constructions of junk wood and weathered iron. These works, at first severely geometric, combine metal and wood with gesso. 

 

In the early 1960s several of his works were purchased by major museums and collectors and his pieces were included in many exhibitions, including his first one-man show in 1962 at the Stable Gallery, New York. 

A 1964 poster for a Stable Gallery exhibition

In 1964 he collaborated with Andy Warhol on the film EAT and in the same year received his first public commission, a work for the exterior of the New York State Pavilion at the New York World's Fair – a 20-foot EAT Sign.

In 1967 he exhibited one of his few figurative works, Mother and Father (1963-67, collection of the artist), at the Ninth Sao Paulo Bienal, Brazil. He was represented at Documents IV, Kassel, Germany by some fifteen pieces and did a serigraph, Die Deutsche Vier, for this exhibition.

Die Deutsche Vier

Indiana's work evolved into hard-edged graphic images of words, logos and typographic forms, earning him a reputation as one of America’s leading contemporary artists.

1968 Nine (The Numbers Portfolio) 
serigraph

1968 One (The Numbers Portfolio) 
serigraph

1969 Monarchy 
oil on canvas

1971 The Figure Five 
silkscreen

Indiana was a great fan of the work of artist Charles Demuth, and did several works based on Demuth's series "The Figure Five in Gold" carried out between 1924 and 1929:

Charles Demuth The Figure 5 in Gold 1928 
oil on cardboard

1971 Wabash 40 - Terre Haute from Decade 
serigraph

1973 Decade, Autoportrait 1969

1976 Poster 'Liberty'

1976 The Golden Future of America 
serigraph

1976 Poster 'The Santa Fe Opera' 
serigraph

1982 V/H (9) 
serigraph

1990 The Hartley Elegies, The Berlin Series - KvFI 
serigraph

1990 The Hartley Elegies, The Berlin Series - KvFIV 
serigraph

1991 The Hartley Elegies, The Berlin Series - KvFVIII 
serigraph

1997 'Picasso' The American Dream Portfolio 
serigraph

2001 Marylin 
serigraph

2001 Number 5 (Demuth)