Untitled

Francis had wanted to become a physician, but when he dropped out of college to enter the Army Air Corps, fate intervened and his dream of becoming a physician was never realized. During his brief military career, Francis survived a training crash in Arizona but later developed spinal tuberculosis. While recuperating, he began painting. After a few years he recovered and studied painting with David Park. He completed a bachelor?s degree and master?s degree in fine arts and art history from the University of California in Berkeley. After graduating, he moved to Paris like so many other American artists and writers of that period. His first exhibition took place in Paris and was the first of many he would have throughout the world. After living abroad for more than a decade, Francis returned to California and opened his own lithography workshop in 1962. Francis is known for his white backgrounds. This untitled work consists of spontaneous splatters and a linear grid. At first glance this particular grid pattern looks similar to a game of tic tac toe. The black splatters in the background of the formally constructed grid appear nearly translucent.

from the Men in the City Series (Eric)

In 1975, Longo received his Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from State University College in Buffalo, New York. He has had solo exhibitions throughout the world, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Stededlijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His works are represented in the permanent collections of a number of museums including the Tate Gallery in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Longo has also directed films and music videos including the popular movie, Johnny Mnemonic, and REM?s music video, The One I Love. This work, titled Eric from Longo?s Men in the City Series, challenges the viewer to decide if the subject is exuberant in his erratic movements or if he is traumatized by some unseen event taking place out of the spectator?s range. Longo is known for his large, theatrical figures which relate directly to the effect that television, billboards, and movies had on the artist during his childhood. This series began as a solo exhibition in 1981 at Metro Pictures in New York. The success of this exhibition brought Longo international attention.

from the Men in the City Series (Sandy)

In 1975, Longo received his Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from State University College in Buffalo, New York. He has had solo exhibitions throughout the world, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Stededlijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His works are represented in the permanent collections of a number of museums including the Tate Gallery in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Longo has also directed films and music videos including the popular movie, Johnny Mnemonic, and REM?s music video, The One I Love.

Adrift

Stackhouse grew up in the New York metropolitan area, but his summers were spent at his grandparents lake home in Peach Lake, New York. At the age of twelve he moved to Florida and continued to enjoy the adventures and pleasures of living near water. His experiences of growing up around water have directly influenced his work. All his works of art have a nautical or architectural reference even though they are intrinsically abstract. He was fortunate to have studied painting at the University of South Florida at a time when the Graphic Studio was founded. The appeal of the Graphic Studio lured artists to Tampa. Working artists who came there discussed art and passed along bits of advice to the students. Friedel Dzubas who had been associated with the New York School artists, also known as the Abstract Expressionists, was one of the visiting artists that left a big impression on the young Stackhouse. Dzubas allowed the students to watch him paint and shared stories of living in New York and his student days at the Bauhaus where he was taught by Paul Klee. Dzubas gave the young Stackhouse a piece of advice he never forgot. He told him that ?in a painting sometimes the most important activity took place right on the edge.? Stackhouse still takes the borders of his paintings very seriously. In order to prolong the life of his large temporal outdoor sculptures Stackhouse records the process of making these pieces on paper. He also documents completed works this way.

Red Apples, Black Eggs

Since 1977 Sultan has had an extensive number of solo exhibitions in cities around the world including Paris, Tokyo, Rome, London, Switzerland, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. He was the recipient of the Creative Artists Public Service Grant in New York in 1978-79 and the National Endowment for the Arts in 1980-81. His works are in the public collections of such prominent museums as The Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Sultan executes the traditional still-life in such an extraordinary manner that the viewer is forced to challenge his preconceived notions about it. Sultan has taken the traditional still-life to new heights and moved it into the next century.

Low and Narrow

Salle received his BFA and MFA from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California in 1973 and 1975 respectively. His work is amongst the museum collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, New York; the Guggenheim Museum, New York City, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, New York and the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Reviews of his work have been in many prestigious magazines including Art in America, Arts Magazine, Art Monthly and Artforum. Low and Narrow exhibits the layering of images so commonly found in Salle?s works. His method of combining high art and low art imagery lends ambiguity to his pieces. One can recognize the influence that Robert Rauschenberg has had on David Salle when you consider the layering of images and subject matter in this work.

Empress of India I

Stella is one of the fortunate living artists to have had two retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, New York, one in 1970 and another in 1987. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the world including faraway places such as the Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, Japan; Hypo Bank, Luxemborg; Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Hotel, Pontiac Marina Project, mural Singapore; and Gas Company Tower, Pacific Bell Building, mural, Los Angeles. Empress of India I harks from Stella?s early years when he was often quoted saying, ?What you see is what you see.? The chevron design in this work indicates nothing more than what the viewer sees. The artist often expressed his own desire to have the viewer react to shape, balance, line, and color. This formalist approach to looking at works of art was popularized by art critic, Clement Greenberg.

Elegy Black Black

The Abstract Expressionist artists preferred to be called the New York School artists. Motherwell, the youngest of the New York School artists received a bachelor?s degree in philosophy before deciding to become a painter. He was also the most affluent and educated of this group. The bohemian lifestyle of the others hardly resembled the wealthy trappings Motherwell was accustomed to. These differences in wealth and education didn?t seem to matter. Meyer Schapiro, his art history instructor introduced the European Surrealists to him and he became fast friends with most of them as well. Motherwell?s fascination with their use of automatism (the suspension of consciousness which allows one the freedom to uncover the ideas and images in the subconscious) led him to his experimentations with it. Surrealists employed conventional means when describing their findings but Motherwell believed automatism should be taken a step further than that. He felt that in the process of searching the unconscious and making discoveries about yourself, you must also retain the excitement of those moments as they become known.