Summer Seizure

Known as one of the Colorfield painters, Olitski developed his own unique method of this style of painting. First, he saturated an unprimed canvas with paint by dragging it through a trough of acrylic paint. The next step involved spraying paint on the already wet canvas. Sometimes this step involved one spray gun and other times Olitski would use as many as three at once. This spray gun method allowed him to achieve differences in the densities of color. Summer Seizure exemplifies this technique employed by Olitski. He abandoned this method upon discovering how dangerous the fumes were that were emitted while spraying with the Magna acrylic paint. He wisely decided to change to the water-based Aqua-tec. Once he changed paints he started working with a variety of nozzles for better control and no longer needed to use more than one spray gun at once. Olitski has written on the back side of this canvas ?To Clem?. Also found on the back is a sticker printed ?Collection of Clement Greenberg.