
"Untitled, " Alan Fenton, Abstract Expressionism, New York School, Color Field
View Similar Items
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 7
Alan Fenton"Untitled, " Alan Fenton, Abstract Expressionism, New York School, Color Field1962
1962
About the Item
- Creator:Alan Fenton (1927 - 2000, American)
- Creation Year:1962
- Dimensions:Height: 15 in (38.1 cm)Width: 15 in (38.1 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU1841210236302
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.
About the Seller
5.0
Platinum Seller
Premium sellers with a 4.7+ rating and 24-hour response times
Established in 2022
1stDibs seller since 2022
100 sales on 1stDibs
Authenticity Guarantee
In the unlikely event there’s an issue with an item’s authenticity, contact us within 1 year for a full refund. DetailsMoney-Back Guarantee
If your item is not as described, is damaged in transit, or does not arrive, contact us within 7 days for a full refund. Details24-Hour Cancellation
You have a 24-hour grace period in which to reconsider your purchase, with no questions asked.Vetted Professional Sellers
Our world-class sellers must adhere to strict standards for service and quality, maintaining the integrity of our listings.Price-Match Guarantee
If you find that a seller listed the same item for a lower price elsewhere, we’ll match it.Trusted Global Delivery
Our best-in-class carrier network provides specialized shipping options worldwide, including custom delivery.More From This Seller
View All"Untitled, " William Baziotes, Black Modern Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism
By William Baziotes
Located in New York, NY
William Baziotes (1912 - 1963)
Untitled, circa 1935-1940
Oil on board
14 x 19 3/4 inches
Illegible Inscription present to the verso
Provenance:
Previously from the estate of Consta...
Category
1930s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Oil, Board
"Study C60, " Ted Kurahara, Abstract Expressionism, Japanese-American Artist
By Ted Kurahara
Located in New York, NY
Ted N. Kurahara (b. 1925)
Study C60, 1960
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 inches
Signed and dated upper right corner
Artist label verso: TED N. KURAHARA STUDY C60, OIL PTG 1960 70” x 50” 800
Ted Kurahara works in a minimal style that transforms color planes into infinite depth. Following his upbringing Seattle and time spent in an Internment Camp before serving in the 442nd, a highly decorated Japanese American...
Category
1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
"Untitled" Edward Zutrau, 1963 Post-Painterly Abstract Expressionist Painting
Located in New York, NY
Edward Zutrau
Untitled, 1963
Signed and dated on stretcher verso "5/63"
Oil on canvas
8 3/4 x 10 3/4 inches
Edward Zutrau is among the American artists who worked within the whirlw...
Category
1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
"Stick Season" Sylvia Wald, 1948 Abstracted Wooded Landscape Painting
Located in New York, NY
Sylvia Wald
Stick Season, 1948
Signed and dated lower right
Oil on canvas
40 x 25 inches
Born in Philadelphia, Sylvia Wald studied at the Philadelphia Sc...
Category
1940s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
"Study for Blue and Gold III, " Matthew Radford, British Abstract Painting
Located in New York, NY
Matthew Radford (British, b. 1953)
Study for Blue and Gold III, 1989
Oil on canvas
30 x 10 inches
Signed on the reverse
Provenance:
Frank Bernarducci ...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
"Self-Portrait as Insect Greeting Another, " Conrad Fried, Modern Abstract
By Conrad Fried
Located in New York, NY
Conrad Fried (1918 - 2009)
Self-Portrait as Insect Greeting Another, 1994
Oil on canvas
27 3/4 x 22 inches
Signed, titled and dated on the reverse
Provenance:
Gift of the artist
Pri...
Category
1990s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$2,800 Sale Price
20% Off
You May Also Like
Charles Clough Picture Generation Abstract Expressionist Oil Enamel Painting
By Charles Clough
Located in Surfside, FL
This vibrant colorful painting is fully hand signed, dated and titled verso.
It might be acrylic but it looks like oil or enamel ad I have seen it described thusly.
This listing is...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Enamel
Lightness (Abstract Expressionist painting), Hand signed and Estate stamped
By Ben Wilson
Located in New York, NY
Ben WIlson
Lightness, ca. 1980
Oil on masonite board
21 × 25 × 3/10 inches
Stamped by artist's estate, Hand signed by the artist on the front AND stamped by the artist's estate on the back
Unframed
Hand signed by the artist on the front and stamped by the artist's estate on the back. Acquired from the Estate of Ben Wilson.
This poignant painting is done by the second generation Abstract Expressionist artist Ben Wilson - one of the youngest artists to be given a show at prestigious ACA Gallery in 1940.
Ben Wilson was born in Philadelphia in 1913 to Jewish parents who had emigrated from Kiev and settled in New York City. He was educated in Manhattan public schools and graduated from City College in 1935. To gain exposure to a wider range of styles, he also studied at the National Academy of Design and at the Educational Alliance.
Admired by critics throughout his long career, Wilson was singled out as a “discovery” by the New York Times art critic Edward Alden Jewel even before his first one-man show at the Galerie Neuf in 1946. His paintings of the ’30s and ’40s were expressionistically rendered, often Biblical parables, filled with what he called “the grief of the intolerable” and reflecting an acute awareness of the agony of the time, from the Holocaust to the Spanish Civil War. A WPA artist who identified strongly with the plight of the Jews in Europe, he relentlessly explored themes of war, torment, and futility in his early decades of painting.
When times changed and social pressures subsided, Wilson’s mood lifted. He spent 1952-54 in Paris working at the Academie Julien. During the ’50s his involvement with specific imagery persisted but became more psychological and mythic in orientation. Influenced by Cubism, he created a vocabulary of interlocking shapes and bold, sweeping gestures that served as a transition between his early figurative expressionism and his later abstract constructivist concerns. Towards the end of the decade Wilson reached a crossroads, moving towards abstraction and searching for what he called “a scaffolding under the externals.”
By 1960, influenced by the Russian Constructivists, Mondrian, and Abstract Expressionism, Wilson turned to abstraction. Reexamining the basic elements of painting, he evolved his own personal vocabulary and structure, fusing the cerebral and the emotive. He became increasingly experimental, using house paint, sand, and other unorthodox materials in paintings that he worked from all directions, dripping, spraying, stenciling, and collaging. He employed elements of disjunction, repetitions of geometric motifs, linear networks, and complex overlays to create the transparent, multi-layer development of space that characterizes his later paintings. A consummate draftsman, Wilson filled notebook after notebook with drawings that he amplified in his paintings.
Eschewing popular movements, Wilson was always one to pursue a personal aesthetic. Despite more than 30 one-man shows and 50 years of teaching, he increasingly withdrew from the gallery scene but continued to paint daily until his death at age 88 in 2001 in Blairstown, New Jersey, where he and his sculptor wife Evelyn...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Oil, Board
Two Figures No. 7
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell
Two Figures No.7
1958
Oil on paperboard mounted on board
18.9 x 23.9 cms (7 7/16 x 9 7/16 ins)
RM14236
W36
Motherwell painted this work in Saint-Jean-de-Luz during...
Category
1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Oil, Board
Price Upon Request
Two Figures No. 12
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell
Two Figures No. 12
1958
Oil on paperboard
19.1 x 24.1 cms (7 1/2 x 9 1/2 ins)
RM12376
W41
Motherwell painted this work in Saint-Jean-de-Luz during the summer of 19...
Category
1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Oil, Board
Price Upon Request
"Resilient" (2024) By Dan McCaw, Original Abstract Portrait Oil Painting
Located in Denver, CO
Dan McCaw's "Resilient" created in 2024, is a striking oil painting measuring 22 x 18 inches. This original artwork features an abstract composition of a figure, rendered with rich t...
Category
2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Oil, Board
"Sisters" Interior Oil Painting
Located in Denver, CO
Dan McCaw's (US based) "Sisters" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts two abstracted feminine figures sitting together as sunlight streams through a window as the rest ...
Category
2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
Materials
Oil, Board
Recently Viewed
View AllMore Ways To Browse
Jack Phillips
Albers 1962
Vintage Fenton
Art Glass Fenton
1960 Fenton
Fenton Painted Glass
Tiffany Whistle
Pratt Fenton
Alan Fenton
Abstract Painting 1971
Streeter And Co
Fragment Artwork
House Plant Art
Music Figure
American Abstract 1970s Paintings
Bold Minimalist Art
Abstract Modern Art Buildings
Feminine Artwork