ROOM 13
1 Lászlo Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Construction, 1923, stainless steel, Plexiglas and painted Vulcanfiber
CRP146
A painter, photographer and art teacher, born in Bacsbarsod (Hungary). His vision of a non-figurative art composed of purely visual principles (colour, texture, light and balance of forms) exerted an enormous influence on fine and applied arts in the first half of the 20th century. He studied law in Budapest; he published Cubist-inspired woodcuts in the avant-garde magazine Ma. He moved to Berlin in 1921; from 1923 to 1929 he headed the metal workshop of the Bauhaus, the famous avant-garde school of design. As a painter and photographer he worked primarily with light; his “stills” are composed directly on film, and his “light modulators”, oil paints on transparent or polished surfaces, include moving light effects. In 1935, fleeing Nazi Germany, he moved to London; in 1937 he went to Chicago, where he organised and directed the New Bauhaus. His work can be found at the Guggenheim (New York), MoMA, the Metropolitan, the Tate Gallery, the National Gallery of Scotland, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco museums, and the Norton Simon Collection, among others.
Plexiglas replaced glass as soon as it was commercially available, after 1936.
2 Thomas Downing (American, 1928-1985)
Quilt, 1963, acrilic on canvas
CRP222
Born in Suffolk, Virginia (USA). In 1948 he received a Bachelor of Arts from Randolph-Macon College in Virginia and then studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn until 1950. He briefly attended Académie Julian in Paris. After serving in the military, he moved to Washington; in 1954 he enrolled at Catholic University, where he met Kenneth Noland, a member of the Washington Color School. He shared a studio with another representative of the movement, Howard Mehring, and in 1959 both of them along with Betty Pajac founded the Origo Gallery (Washington). In 1964, the critic Clement Greenberg included him in the famous exhibition Post-Painterly Abstraction. In 1965 his paintings were presented in the exhibition The Washington Color Painters, curated by Gerald Nordland. He was known as the “pioneer of the dot”: his compositions feature circles of different tones and sizes, seeming to float in an undefined space. Until 1975 he combined creation with teaching; in 1979 and 1980 he held exhibitions at the Osuna Gallery (Washington), and in the year of his death, another at the Phillips Collection. His work can be found in the Smithsonian Institution, the Phillips and Norton Simon collections, and the North Carolina Museum.
3 Thomas Downing (American, 1928-1985)
Phased Red, 1968, acrilic on canvas
CRP223
4 Erich Röhle (German, 1903-1991)
Marine, c. 1925, watercolour on paper
CRP168
Abstract painter born in Glauchau (Saxony).
5 Xavier Noiret-Thomé (French, 1971)
Coins Painting X, 2014, acrylic, coins and collage on canvas
CRP307
Born in Charleville-Mezières (France). He lives and works in Brussels. He studied at the Regional School of Fine Arts in Rennes and since 1995 as an artist-in-residence at the Domaine in Kerguéhennec contemporary art centre and at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. His work moves between the figurative and the abstract and is characterised by diversity, the mixing of influences and research into genres and styles. In 2001 he was awarded the Belgian Young Painting Prize and in 2005 he began a residency in Villa Medici, after winning an award at the French Academy in Rome. In 2011 he designed the stained glass windows for the church of Saint Thomas in Vaulx-en-Velin (France). His most recent solo exhibitions include La parade des cannibales (Les filles du Calvaire gallery, Paris, 2009); Bloated faces & Pop-up (AD, Athens, 2013); Cosmogony (Museum van Deinze en Leiestreek, Deinze, 2015) and The quiet struggle (Roberto Polo Gallery, Brussels). He participated in Painting after postmodernism. Belgium-USA, in the Vanderborght of Brussels(2016) and the Episcopal Palace of Malaga and the Reggia di Caserta (2017).
ROOM 14
6 Walter Darby Bannard (American, 1934-2016)
Alby’s Burgundy, 1959, oil on canvas
CRP206
Born in New Haven, Connecticut (USA). After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy, he studied philosophy at Princeton University. He struck up a friendship with artist Frank Stella, who, like him, was interested in Minimalist Abstraction. In 1964 he was included in the historic Post-painterly abstraction exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and in 1965 in Responsive eye at the MoMA. That same year he held one of his first solo exhibitions at the Tibor gallery in Nagy (New York). In 1968 he received a Guggenheim scholarship. Associated with the Color Field, his style evolved from the simplicity typical of his early years, a single band painted around a colour field, to somewhat more complex geometric shapes. As a critic and commentator, he wrote for publications such as Art in America and Art International. In 1989 he became head of the Art Department at the University of Miami. In the later stage of his life, interest in his work was revived. The Berry Campbell Gallery in New York held exhibitions that reviewed and vindicated his career. In the year of his death, his work was presented in the exhibition Painting after postmodernism. Belgium-USA, curated by Barbara Rose, at the Vanderborght in Brussels, the Episcopal Palace in Malaga and the Reggia di Caserta. His work can be found at the MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, American Art Museum in Whitney, Solomon R. Guggenheim, Centre Pompidou in Paris and Victoria National Gallery (Australia).
7 Jo Delahaut (Belgian, 1911-1992)
Parcours, 1954, oil on canvas
CRP213
Born in Vottem (Belgium). An outstanding figure of Belgian geometric abstraction, he studied at the Liège Academy and received his doctorate in Art History in 1939. In 1940 he began to paint Expressionist figures, but, influenced by Auguste Herbin, he evolved towards abstraction and created static geometries where colour played an essential role. His work later became simpler and moved towards a minimalism that sought to stimulate the intellect. As he explained: “Signs, colours, rhythms and their infinite combinations are means that mysteriously touch the unexplained springs of consciousness”. In 1942, he joined the Young Belgian Painting group, and in 1946, he was a member of the Salon de Réalités Nouvelles in Paris. In 1952 he founded the Belgian group Art Abstrait together with Pol Bury, Jean Milo, Georges Collignon, Albert Saverys and others. He later promoted the creation of Abstract Art-Shapes (1956) and Art Built (1960). In 1980 a retrospective of his work was presented at the Museum of Art in Wallonia (Liège). He exhibited at the Wilhelm Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen (Germany) in 1981 and at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Belgium (Brussels) in 1982. In 1985 he participated in the Sao Paulo Biennial; other exhibitions were organised at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, the Leopold Hoesch in Düren (Germany) and the Provincial Museum for Modern Art in Ostend (1989). In 1990 his last major exhibition was held at the Museum of Art in Wallonia (Liège).
8 Walter Darby Bannard (American, 1934-2016)
Tuscan Air, 1972, acrylic and alkyd resin on canvas
CRP210
9 Walter Darby Bannard (American, 1934-2016)
Carrot Mountain, 1973, acrylic and alkyd resin on canvas
CRP211
10 Howard Mehring (American, 1931-1978)
Equa, 1961, acrilic on canvas
CRP220
Born in Washington (USA). He studied art at Wilson Teachers College with Leon Berkowitz. In 1955 he obtained a Master of Fine Arts at the Catholic University of America, where he met Kenneth Noland. Both are part of the Washington Color School, an abstract movement that explored vast fields of colour, along with Morris Louis, Paul Reed and Gene Davis. His work was distinguished by the use of geometric shapes in his innovative compositions of intense and vivid tonalities. He exhibited for the first time in 1959 at the Origo Gallery (Washington), of which he was a founding member. In the 1960s he also showed his work at the Jefferson Place and the Adams-Morgan. In 1964 several of his works were included in the exhibition Post-painterly abstraction, curated by the critic Clement Greenberg at the County Art Museum in Los Angeles. In 1965 he participated in The Washington Color Painters, at the Modern Art Gallery in Washington. In 1968 he stopped painting and focused on drawing. In 1977 a retrospective was held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, along with an exhibition of his drawings at the Phillips Collection, both in Washington. His work can be found at the Whitney Museum, the MoMA, the National Gallery of Art (Washington) and the Tate Gallery in London.
11 Walter Dexel (German, 1890-1973)
Komposition Serie XXVII Nr. 4, 1968, oil on canvas
CRP227
Born in Munich (Germany). He studied Art History under Heinrich Wölfflin and Fritz Burger in his home town and took private drawing lessons with the landscape painter H. Gröber; in 1916 he completed his doctorate at the University of Jena. A painter, typographer, and designer, he was an outstanding figure in 1920s Constructivism. Cézanne inspired him in his early days; he would later move towards Cubism and Expressionism. In 1914 he presented his first solo exhibition at the Dietzel Gallery (Munich). He then directed the exhibitions of the Jena Art Association (Campendonk, Moholy-Nagy and other Bauhaus members), and met Van Doesburg. Already immersed in abstract-constructive imagery, he held several solo exhibitions in the Berlin gallery of Herwarth Walden. In 1926 he moved to Frankfurt, where he designed neon signs, advertisements for clocks, and even telephone booths. He worked as a professor of graphic design at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Magdeburg until he was dismissed by the Nazis in 1935; two of his works were included in the exhibition Degenerate Art . From 1936 to 1942 he taught at the National School of Art in Berlin-Schöneberg. The Stadtmuseum Braunschweig dedicated a retrospective to him in 1962; his work can be found in the MoMA, the Metropolitan, the National Gallery of Art (Washington), the LACMA and the Harvard Art Museum, among others.
12 Howard Mehring (American, 1931-1978)
Rhytming II, 1966, acrilic on canvas
CRP221
13 Walter Darby Bannard (American, 1934-2016)
11.7.59 #7, 1959, spray acrylic on paper
CRP207
14 Jo Delahaut (Belgian, 1911-1992)
Méditation N° 16, 1961, oil on wood
CRP214
15 Walter Darby Bannard (American, 1934-2016)
Ivory Parlour II, 1964, alkyd resina on sized cotton duck canvas
CRP208
16 Karel Maes (Belgian, 1900-1974)
Untitled, década de 1950/1950s, oil on wood panel
CRP136
Born in Mol (Belgium), painter and designer of applied arts, he belongs to the first generation of Belgian abstract artists. He attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, where he met Flouquet, Magritte and Servranckx. Once the war was over, he experimented with Neo-Impressionism, Futurism and Post-Cubism; he soon rejected figuration in favour of geometric and biomorphic art. In 1920 he joined the avant-garde group Art Centre in Antwerp; that year he took part in the Exposition Internationale d’Art Moderne in Geneva with Cockx, Magritte and Peeters, in 1923 in Les arts belges d’esprit nouveau, at the Palais d’Egmont in Brussels, and in 1925 in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Arts in Monza. In 1922 he signed (as the only Belgian) the De Stijl manifesto. He was co-founder of the revolutionary group 7 Arts. In 1927, an article in the eponymous magazine described his work as la plastique pure, a categorically concrete art, an extreme evolution of Cubism. At that time he was teaching at the Bauhaus. Retrospectives have been dedicated to him: Antwerp 1992, Brussels 2007. He has work in the Archives of Modern Architecture in Brussels, the MoMA in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent, and in the Lakenhal Museum in Leiden, the Tate Modern in London and many others.
17 Tom McGlynn (American, 1958)
Station 1, 2012, acrylic and gouache on cradled wood panel
CRP354
Artist, writer and independent exhibition organiser, he was born, lives and works in the New York area. He studied International Relations and Diplomacy, but chose to pursue a career in creation and earned two Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degrees: at Ramapo College (New Jersey) and Hunter College (City University of New York). He was known for his minimalist planning of abstraction and for using monochrome and contrasting colours; as a writer, he has been publishing in Brooklyn Railway since 2012. Currently a visiting professor at the Parson School for Design, he has also been an assistant professor at Castleton State College (Vermont) and a visiting professor at the Mason Gross School of Fine Arts, Rutgers University (New Jersey). His work is represented in many national and international collections, including the MoMA, the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (Smithsonian Institution).
18 Tom McGlynn (American, 1958)
Large Survey (Mana), 2015, acrylic on cradled wood panel
CRP355
19 Tom McGlynn (American, 1958)
Large Blue Survey, 2018, acrylic on cradled wood panel
CRP356
20 Tom McGlynn (American, 1958)
Three Roses, 2018, acrylic on cradled wood panel
CRP357
21 Italian anonymous
Futurist lamp
CRP404