Alan Fenton
Untitled
ca. 1960

About the Item

Oil on canvas. Signed verso. Some scratched out, illegible writing in paint and graphite verso, which may have indicated the artist's original pricing, as well as a possible title. 50.25 x 36.25 in. 58 x 43.75 in. (framed) Custom framed in a solid hardwood tray frame with a matte off-white finish. Provenance Private Collection, Cleveland Private Collection, New York Alan Fenton was born on July 29, 1927 in Cleveland, Ohio. A middle child of three, he grew up during the Depression in the difficult "Kinsman" neighborhood. As a child, Alan was a poor student and a dreamer, spending much of his day drawing. His teachers repeatedly rapped his offending hand with a ruler, not to punish him for drawing, but to "cure" his left-handedness. When he was 17 years old, he joined the merchant marines and was stationed in Florida. Upon his discharge, he supported himself himself by boxing. In the interest of preserving his good looks and sharp mind, he hung up his gloves and returned to Cleveland to design the interior of a clothing store one of his high school buddies had just opened. By the time he was 22 years old, Fenton had a successful career as a commercial artist and designer. He had legally changed his birth surname of "Freedman" to Fenton, presumably to avert assumptions regarding his ethnic heritage. In 1955, he married fellow Clevelander Naomi Feigenbaum, and the two newlyweds moved to New York so that he could attend Pratt Institute. He studied privately with Jack Tworkov and Adolph Gottlieb, with both remaining lifelong friends and mentors. After the birth of his daughter Danielle, Fenton graduated with a degree in fine arts from Pratt at the age of 33. Instead of getting a job on Madison Avenue, he elected to become an abstract painter. During this period, he frequented Max's Kansas City, writing absurdist theater, poetry, and hanging with influential figures such as art dealer Dick Belamy, filmmaker/photographer Jerry Shatzberg, photographer Diane Arbus, and artists Mark Rothko, Paul Jenkins, Morris Louis, David Budd, Carl Holty, and Kyle Morris. In 1959, Morris invited Fenton to participate in a group show of the New York School in the March Gallery on 10th Street. Shortly after the March Gallery Invitational, Fenton met the well known collector Vincent Melzac, who would later become CEO of the Corcoran Gallery. By 1960, Fenton's work was included in the Melzac Collection, alongside names such as Jack Bush, Willem de Kooning, Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis, Franz Kline, and Jackson Pollock. In the 1960s, Fenton participated in group shows in New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Connecticut, including a well-received solo exhibition at Pace Gallery. His work throughout this decade was large in scale, shifting away from expressionistic brush strokes and into color field lines and squares. In 1966, he persuaded his real estate developer father-in-law to purchase the historic Tiffany factory at 333 Park Avenue South, and to convert into loft spaces for artists. Attracting an array of luminaries, Fenton created and managed one of Manhattan's first live/work buildings. This landmark building attracted many famous residents, visitors, and events, and became know as "Alan's factory." In 1968, Fenton's son David was born, and he began to teach at his alma mater, Pratt. In 1977, the Phillips Collection, in coordination with the University of Iowa Museum of Art, gave Fenton a solo exhibition entitled "Alan Fenton: Washes and Drawings." This significant show ran in Washington from August 6-28, before traveling to the Iowa Museum of Art, the North Carolina Art Museum, and finally the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. Since their introduction in 1959, Vincent Melzac was Fenton's collector, champion, dealer, and close personal friend. After Melzac passed away unexpectedly in 1989, the devastated Fenton sold his New York studio and returned to Cleveland to raise his family. He would spend the remainder of his life in his hometown, ultimately passing away on New Year's Day, 2000. Fenton's solo exhibitions included the Pace Gallery, Phillips Collection, Isetan Galleries (Tokyo), the New York Cultural Center Museum, Barbara Fiedler Gallery, and at several state, municipal, and university art museums. Selected group shows included the Corcoran Gallery, Aldrich Museum, Pace Galleries (Boston and New York), Cleveland Museum, and numerous other galleries throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. His work has been reviewed in Art News, Arts Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times, the New York Post, the Village Voice and Art International.‍ Source: Danielle Fenton (accessed via askART)

Creator:

Alan Fenton (1927 - 2000, American)

Creation Year:

ca. 1960

Dimensions:

Height: 50.25 in (127.64 cm)Width: 36.25 in (92.08 cm)

Medium:

Canvas,Oil

Movement & Style:

Abstract Expressionist

Period:

1960-1969

Condition:

Overall good and stable condition. No evidence of restoration. Not examined under UV light. Please contact for full condition report and additional photos.

Gallery Location:

Austin, TX

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU2287214215072

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Fenton's quiet and contemplative nonobjective paintings and drawings were widely recognized for their demanding yet understated means of revealing a serious and sober essence. He identified greatly with Mark Rothko, a friend, as well as Adolph Gottlieb and Jack Tworkov, with whom he had studied privately. Fenton painted in New York City in the late 50's as the explosion of Abstract Expressionism turned into a rebellion against gestural, emotional painting. More concerned about his art than his posture, he expanded upon a tradition in painting with influences as diverse as Whistler and Turner as well as Ad Reinhardt and Joseph Albers. Alan Fenton was born in Cleveland in 1927, studied at the Cleveland School of Art, The Arts Students League, The New School, and at NYU, earning his BFA at Pratt Institute, where he later taught painting for many years. At seventeen, Fenton served in the Merchant Marines where he began a career as a professional boxer, a skill he had honed on the streets. He moved successfully through the graphic design business en route to becoming a painter in New York at the height of the art revolution of the fifties and sixties. Fenton enjoyed success with his subtle washes and pencil drawings as well as large abstract canvases in acrylic, landing one-man shows at the prestigious Pace Gallery in New York, The New York Cultural Center Museum, The Barbara Fielder Gallery in Washington, et al. In his introduction to Fenton's exhibition catalogue for his one-man show at the Phillips Collection in Washington, Vincent Melzac wrote, ''Fenton is his own man, producing work that is uniquely his...in his work one feels that Fenton is testing the accepted and pushing for a newer and richer visual experience.'' In the late 60's he turned his artistic vision and business savvy towards developing creative environments where ''good and beautiful people'' could live and work together. His first endeavor was to turn the Tiffany Glass Building on lower Park Avenue into an artistic community where notable photographers, painters, and filmmakers moved in, setting the stage for a modern, hip, yet warm and friendly working space for the community which he had nurtured. He later developed the first live/work loft in Cleveland, where Fenton resided during his last years. Fenton said about his own work, ''All that happens in my work is natural and human, hard and soft, large and small, heaven and earth. All this with the image of man, (my glow) forms a system to attain the sublime. All of these paradoxes form a triad that is the way of everything. The line is the 'hard', the formless form and the imageless image is the 'soft'. They are inseparable, one cannot exist without the other.'' Fenton's work resides at The Hirschhorn Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Phillips Collection, the North Carolina Museum of Art, and The Cleveland Museum of Art, and countless others as well as in private collections.