David Novros
Geometric Watercolor by David Novros, California School
1986

About the Item

David Novros (American, b. 1941) Untitled (Home Savings Study), 1986 Watercolor on paper Framed: 35 1/4 x 86 3/4 x 1 3/4 in. Each panel: 30 x 42 in. From Los Angeles and working from studios in New York City, David Novros is a painter and muralist of geometric abstraction, many of them large scale installations, and many of them known for the recurring motif of right-angled L shapes. He has held a Guggenheim Foundation Grant, and exhibited widely in contemporary art venues including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Corcoran Biennial. Novros earned a BFA degree in 1963 from the University of Southern California, and then served a year in the army in Europe. In 1966, when he was age 25, solo exhibitions were held for him at prestigious New York galleries beginning with the Dawn Gallery. He also started participating in important museum exhibitions such as the 1966 Guggenheim "Systemic Painting" and the Whitney's "Color as Structure", 1971. In the late 1960s, Novros began working with fresco including a commissioned work for painter, Donald Judd, from whom Novros also had studio space at 101 Spring in Manhattan. (He later took studio space on Broome Street.) Another fresco by Novros is Solar Triptych, installed at Union Station in Newark, New Jersey. This "radial triptych', installed since 1984 high above the main lobby and waiting room, "displays all the invisible elemental fury associated with the normal daily turning round of our planet. . . .an opportunity for commuters to glimpse a bigger picture, something they'll soon be deprived of once inside an office somewhere, in a city of compacting vision and outdoor enclosed spaces." (Brennan) One of his major projects, 1996-2003, is the Boat House for Austrian clients, the Liaunig family, living near Middleburg, New York. Novros designed the House and then installed his richly colored, 10 feet high, geometric paintings. His goal was to arrange them so that the color planes as forms had a presence and inter-relationships, "like a family portrait" with an "internal narrative . . . there is a drama that evolves, and I know who the players are and they are fixed in my mind." (Ostrow) Biography sourced from the Archives of AskArt

Creator:

David Novros (1941)

Creation Year:

1986

Dimensions:

Height: 34.25 in (87 cm)Width: 86.75 in (220.35 cm)Depth: 1.75 in (4.45 cm)

Medium:

Paper,Watercolor

Movement & Style:

Minimalist

Period:

1980-1989