Art of Central Asia
34-548: The Washington Color School , also known as the Washington, D.C., Color School , was an art movement starting during the 1950s–1970s in Washington, D.C. , in the United States, built of abstract expressionist artists. The movement emerged during a time when society, the arts, and people were changing quickly. The founders of this movement are Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland , however four more artists were part of
68-624: A boxer. Kainen would go on to become an expert in the classics and quite a skilled amateur prizefighter. Kainen was finally granted admittance to Pratt in the fall of 1927. Though he had a deep interest and appreciation for the old masters during this period of his life, he quickly found the Pratt curriculum backward, too anti- modernist , and dogmatic. Upon entering school his portraits and color choices remained warm in tone, but as he progressed they became brighter and more reminiscent of Cézanne 's palette. In Kainen's final year of school, Pratt instituted
102-487: A curriculum that focused more on commercial art and commercialized drawing styles. This catalyzed Kainen into a rebellion that resulted in his expulsion from the institute three weeks before graduation, and subjected him to further scorn from many of those associated with Pratt. This event proved monumental in Kainen's conceptual and artistic development. After his expulsion, Kainen sought out other avant-garde artists in
136-682: A dominant presence in the Washington, D.C., visual art community through the 1960s into the 1970s. During spring and summer 2007, arts institutions in Washington, D.C., staged a citywide celebration of color field painting , including exhibitions at galleries and museums of works by members of the Washington Color School. In 2011, a group of Washington art collectors began the Washington Color School Project , to gather and publish information about
170-485: A highly regarded and informative essay on the WPA Graphic Arts Division in a collection of essays called The New Deal Art Projects: An Anthology of Memoirs. Kainen also frequented cafeterias that had become the places where urban artists met to debate and develop ideas, both social and aesthetic. Kainen and Arshile Gorky became acquainted during a particular exchange in which they both defended
204-731: A period when: "I begin with the aesthetic balancing of forms but these psychological ghosts take over." Soon after his clearance by the Civil Services board, Kainen shifted from abstraction to elegant figurative work. As evidence of fervent independence, Kainen rejected the popularity of Abstract Expressionism for a return to the figure. Kainen began to participate in substantially more exhibitions in Washington after he met his wife, Ruth Cole, in 1968. Prior to their marriage Kainen painted nightly after his workday, at his unheated studio, until ten or eleven o'clock at night, then returned home to do writing or museum research until 2 a.m. because he
238-428: A term with a broader connotation. As the names of many art movements use the -ism suffix (for example cubism and futurism ), they are sometimes referred to as isms . Jacob Kainen Jacob Kainen (December 7, 1909 – March 19, 2001) was an American painter and printmaker. He is also known as an art historian, writing books on John Baptist Jackson (US Government Printing Office , Washington, DC, 1962) and
272-419: Is a tendency or style in art with a specific art philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years. Art movements were especially important in modern art , when each consecutive movement was considered a new avant-garde movement. Western art had been, from
306-528: The Victorian skyline and architecture that defined the buildings surrounding his studio in Dupont Circle . In the 1940s he was one of the first abstract artists working in the city, and produced abstract compositions of symbols and forms that resounded with both his physical surroundings and personal experiences. In 1949 Kainen's national loyalty was questioned and he was placed under investigation by
340-425: The "modern" period called contemporary art. The postmodern period began during late modernism (which is a contemporary continuation of modernism), and according to some theorists postmodernism ended in the 21st century. During the period of time corresponding to "modern art" each consecutive movement was often considered a new avant-garde . Also during the period of time referred to as "modern art" each movement
374-494: The Adjacent Area at The Corcoran Gallery of Art from November 12 to December 19, 1965. The Eighteenth Area Exhibition at The Corcoran from November 18 to December 31, 1967 again featured artists including de Looper, Corkery, Downing, Gilliam and Kainen. The six artists participating in the exhibition, Washington Color Painters (1965) were called the first generation. The group is thought to have expanded as it achieved
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#1732798591068408-723: The Civil Services loyalty board. During the 1930s, and the time spent in New York after his expulsion from Pratt, Kainen had written art reviews for the Daily Worker and signed legal petitions that attempted to institute social change. Such activities later put his job in jeopardy when he was being considered an "enemy of the state". Kainen was not cleared of formal charges until 1954. The psychological strain and anxiety of this period became evident in his vivid abstractions with titles like Exorcist (1952), Unmoored #2 (1952) and The Listener (1952). Kainen later remembered this time as
442-491: The Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality ( figurative art ). By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new style which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy ( abstract art ). According to theories associated with modernism and also
476-526: The Washington Color School artists, including Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Howard Mehring , Thomas Downing , and Gene Davis . Berkowitz did not like the label "Washington Color School" and often rejected it for his own work. Many of the Washington Color School artists exhibited at the Jefferson Place Gallery in Washington, D.C., originally directed by Alice Denney starting in 1957 (later owned and directed by Nesta Dorrance). Along with
510-686: The artist would pour a thinned painting medium onto canvas and let it sit over time. The result would be a stain in the canvas with no visible traces of conventional application, such as brush strokes. In 1954, art critic Clement Greenberg introduced Morris Louis to painter Helen Frankenthaler , who was working in as a, "proto–color field painter". Her painting, Mountains and Sea (1952) had an impact on Louis and many other painters in Washington, D.C., and they borrowed Frankenthaler's process of staining raw canvas with color. In 1960, Clement Greenberg wrote in Art International magazine about
544-590: The city, especially those who shared his institutional disdain. It led him to begin to engage with the emotive palette and gestures of German Expressionism and the social awareness and ferocity of social realism during the 1930s. He became a part of the New York Group, "interested in those aspects of contemporary life which reflect the deepest feelings of the people; their poverty, their surroundings, their desire for peace, their fight for life." His expressionist and social leanings began to definitively merge in
578-424: The concept of postmodernism , art movements are especially important during the period of time corresponding to modern art . The period of time called "modern art" is posited to have changed approximately halfway through the 20th century and art made afterward is generally called contemporary art . Postmodernism in visual art begins and functions as a parallel to late modernism and refers to that period after
612-724: The etchings of Canaletto (Smithsonian Press, Washington, DC, 1967). In addition, Kainen was a collector of German Expressionist art , and he and his second wife, Ruth, donated a collection of this work to the National Gallery of Art in 1985. Jacob Kainen was born in Waterbury, Connecticut , in 1909. As the second of three sons born to Russian immigrants, Kainen grew up in a family that appreciated culture and talent. His father's artistry as an inventor and his mother's love for music and literature undoubtedly fostered in Kainen an insatiable interest in art. Even at age ten, Kainen
646-584: The forms and colors seem, they should somehow give off an aura of human experience." When opportunities in New York for work with the WPA ran low, Kainen moved to Washington, DC in 1942. From 1942 to 1970 Kainen was curator of the Division of Graphic Arts at the Smithsonian's U. S. National Museum . Though jarred by the elementary state of Washington's then slow-paced art scene, Kainen found inspiration in
680-545: The fundamental notion of Washington Color Field Painting , and a groundbreaking technique with many influential practitioners, although Kainen did not consider himself to be a member of the Washington Color School. After his departure from the Smithsonian Institution in 1970, Kainen's work shifted back to pure abstraction. Jacob Kainen died in his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, at the age of 91 as he
714-483: The history of the color painters and abstract art in Washington. Though some of them were not born in Washington, D.C., the artists exhibited together and represent Washington as a new hub for the visual arts. Art movement Art of East Asia Art of South Asia Art of Southeast Asia Art of Europe Art of Africa Art of the Americas Art of Oceania An art movement
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#1732798591068748-521: The importance of copying master works and admitted to lurking in museums. The friendship with Gorky and his influence that resulted from their meeting would prove to be a lifelong one. Kainen was an active participant in the WPA 's graphic arts program during the second half of the decade, but he eventually parted with the aesthetics of social realism in favor of abstraction . Yet his work would never lose its humanism or its concern for history: "However abstract
782-479: The initial art exhibition in 1965. The Washington Color School, a visual art movement, describes a form of image making concerned primarily with color field painting , a form of non-objective or non-representational art that explored ways to use large solid areas of paint. The Washington Color School artists painted largely non-representational works, and were central to the larger color field movement. Though not generally considered abstract expressionists due to
816-454: The meaning of the new art then being produced. In the visual arts , many artists, theorists, art critics, art collectors, art dealers and others mindful of the unbroken continuation of modernism and the continuation of modern art even into the contemporary era, ascribe to and welcome new philosophies of art as they appear. Postmodernist theorists posit that the idea of art movements are no longer as applicable, or no longer as discernible, as
850-511: The mid-1930s in works such as Tenement Fire (1934) and The Flood (1936). Kainen found interest in stylistic experimentation meant to convey expressive meaning. He was a member of "The Ten", which was a group of artists who promoted Expressionist art, exhibiting together from 1935 to 1939. The group had "three goals: they sought to represent the rawest human emotions, to use paint expressively rather than descriptively, and to focus on internal experience rather than external facts". Kainen's wrote
884-402: The notion of art movements had been before the postmodern era. There are many theorists however who doubt as to whether or not such an era was actually a fact; or just a passing fad. The term refers to tendencies in visual art , novel ideas and architecture , and sometimes literature . In music it is more common to speak about genres and styles instead. See also cultural movement ,
918-400: The orderliness of their works and differing motivating philosophies, many parallels can be drawn between the Washington Color School and the abstract expressionists. Minimally, the use of stripes, washes, and fields of single colors of paint on canvas were common to most artists in both groups. A common technique used in the Washington Color School was "soak staining" or just "staining", in which
952-513: The original Washington Color School painters, a second generation also exhibited at Jefferson Place Gallery. (6/69, “Four Minds With It” Wash Star; Benjamin) The Washington Color School originally consisted of a group of painters who showed works in an exhibit called the Washington Color Painters at the now-defunct Washington Gallery of Modern Art in Washington, from June 25 to September 5, 1965. The exhibition's organizer
986-628: The two local Washington, D.C., artists, Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. In his writing he labeled them as "color painters". Around 1945, painter Leon Berkowitz , poet Ida Fox Berkowitz , and artist Helmut Kern [ Wikidata ] founded the Washington Workshop Center (also known as the Workshop Art Center or Washington Workshop Center for the Arts). The center became a key gathering place and gallery for
1020-738: Was Gerald "Gerry" Nordland and the painters who exhibited were Gene Davis, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Howard Mehring, Thomas Downing, and Paul Reed . This exhibition, which subsequently traveled to several other venues in the United States, including the Walker Art Center , solidified Washington's place in the national movement and defined what is considered the city's signature art movement, according to art historians and journalists alike. After their initial benchmark exhibition, Davis, Mehring, and Reed were joined by Timothy Corkery, Willem de Looper , Sam Gilliam , and Jacob Kainen at The Seventeenth Area Exhibition of Artists of Washington and
1054-539: Was eager to study master works, including clippings of art reproductions from The Jewish Daily Forward in his scrapbooks. In 1918, the family moved to New York City, where Kainen's budding passion would further advance with trips to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library . Poetry and literature became major components of his artistic study during high school. When Kainen graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School at sixteen, he
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1088-599: Was not allowed to do scholarly writing on government time. He retired from the Smithsonian in 1970 in order to paint full-time. Kainen taught evening classes in painting and printmaking at the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts, and was instrumental in introducing Morris Louis to Kenneth Noland and hiring Louis to teach painting at the Workshop. Shortly thereafter, Louis and Noland began collaborating on "staining",
1122-437: Was seen corresponding to a somewhat grandiose rethinking of all that came before it, concerning the visual arts. Generally there was a commonality of visual style linking the works and artists included in an art movement. Verbal expression and explanation of movements has come from the artists themselves, sometimes in the form of an art manifesto , and sometimes from art critics and others who may explain their understanding of
1156-587: Was too young to be admitted to the Pratt Institute . In the meantime he took drawing classes at the Art Students League , where Kimon Nicolaides taught him to "trust in the freedom and sureness of his hand". It was during this period that Kainen made his first prints, drypoint etchings . Kainen used this time to further exercise his interests by working in the classics department of Brentano's bookstore, as well as developing his skills as
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