Erik Johnsen

Cubes

Signed lower right. A major exponent of non-objective painting, Rolph Scarlett's career and artistic philosophy is closely linked with the early history of the Solomon R. Guggenhei...

Signed & dated Verso. 1965 Paul Reed in 1970. He favored “staining” untreated canvas. Paul Reed, the last surviving member of the Washington Color School, who explored the complexities of color and form in vibrant bio-morphic and hard-edge abstract paintings, died on Sept. 26 at his home in Phoenix. He was 96. His death was confirmed by his daughter, Jean Reed Roberts. Mr. Reed acquired his public identity as an artist when he was included, along with Gene Davis, Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis, Thomas Downing and Howard Mehring, in “The Washington Color Painters,” a landmark traveling exhibition that began at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art in 1965. All of the other painters had been shown, the year before, in “Post-Painterly Abstraction,” a 31-artist exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art organized by the critic Clement Greenberg in an effort to write a new chapter in the historic march of abstract art. Like his fellow Washington artists, Mr. Reed rejected the hot, gestural approach of Abstract Expressionism and explored color and abstract forms in a cooler mode. Working with diluted acrylic paint, in discrete series that methodically explored formal issues, he created luminous fields of color by letting the paint bleed into, or stain, untreated canvas. “I have a saying: Pollock dripped, Frankenthaler poured,” he told The Washington Post in 2011, referring to the artist Helen Frankenthaler. “Morris Louis poured. Howard Mehring sprinkled. I blot.” In his first stained series, “Mandala,” color radiated from a circular central image. The nearly 100 paintings in his “Disk” series, which he called “a matrix for exploiting color,” consisted of a central circle and two triangles positioned at the corners of the canvas. Over the next decade he moved to hard-edge geometric zigzags and stripes in the vertical “Upstart” series, color grids and shaped canvases that allowed for more complex experiments in form and color relations. He also made welded steel sculptures and, in the “Quad” series of the 1980s, collaged photographs. “Reed was, in a sense, the ‘little master’ of that first batch of Washington colorists,” the critic Benjamin Forgey wrote in The Washington Post in 1997. “He was a latecomer — he didn’t turn seriously to painting until he was in his mid-30s — but he never considered becoming anything other than an abstract painter. And when he was ready to show, in his early 40s, he was a very good abstract painter indeed.” Mr. Reed gave himself a more modest assessment in an interview with NPR last year. “I’m sort of low man on the totem pole of that group of six,” he said. Paul Allen...

Rolph Scarlett (Canadian/American, 1889 - 1984) “Geometric Composition” Signed lower right, circa late 1930’s early 1940’s 19 ½ x 26 inches Mixed media, Price on request About Rolph Scarlett was a painter of geometric and linear forms, an industrial designer, and a pioneer in helping establish non-objective art as an aesthetic in America. He also worked in an abstract art style during the American avant-garde movement which extended into the 1940s. He was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada and travelled to New York City as an 18-year-old. By 1924 he made New York City his home. In 1939, Scarlett was one of the founding members and forces which steered the development of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting in New York. (later, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum). Guggenheim was the sponsor behind the Avant Garde and pioneering, philosophy of Baroness Hilla Rebay who founded the early museum. She was both the founding curator and director of the museum, as well as an abstract artist. She encouraged and worked with Scarlett in the early museum years, together promoting the concepts of non-objective painting. In Scarlett’s aesthetic these where geometric elements intuitively placed in non-descript flat and three-dimensional space. Any discussion of the history of the Guggenheim Museum must include four key figures: Hilla Rebay (1890-1967), Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Rudolf Bauer (1889-1953), and Rolf Scarlett...

Rande Barke (American -20th/21st Century )  “Spinal Sea” Acrylic on wood 48 x 48 inches, “49 ½ x 49 ½ inches framed size Gallery sticker on back is from G...

SIGNATURE AND TITLE ON VERSO b. 1968 Elkhart, IN Travis Rice is an artist currently residing in Phoenix, AZ where he teaches within the Fine Arts Department at Phoenix College. Ori...

This piece depicts an abstract composition with the use of mixed media and bold patterns producing a work that is visually textured and rich with layers, as Owen creates an intricate geometric minimalistic composition. Even though this work has a rustic and heavily textured quality, the final result is intended to appear quiet to reflect a more minimal outlook on life and art. Creating a piece that allows us to escape the technological realm, contemplate modern living and nature and then communicate how each domain influences another. Her piece aims to engage the viewer with an emotional and environmental disposition that evokes a sense of balance and tranquility in the modern world. This unique work is executed on 2.5 depth baltic birch...

"Ab-scrap" - Abstract Geometric Composition in Acrylic on Wood Panel Dynamic abstract composition by Sam Dantone (American, b. 1971). This piece was created as a part of the "Ab-scrap" series, where Dantone uses excess paint from his sign painting business to create new compositions. Whenever there is a little extra paint on a brush, Dantone would add it to a panel, slowly creating a new composition out of the leftovers from his other work. Thus, each piece contains a wide variety of colors and brushstrokes, and the echoes of other compositions. Signed "Sam Dantone" on verso. No frame. Board size: 20.75"H x 8.75"W Sam Dantone (American, b. 1971) is an artist from Oregon who works as a sign painter, designer, and sculptor. Artist’s Statement: “Not once in my life do I know a time when I have not been an artist. My father tells that I once copied the Kleenex logo from the side of the box, at age three. I tribute my abilities to naïve confidence and other’s positive attention. As a kid, drawing was magical . . . Though my art stylings vary widely, one thread stitches all of my work together, (my art) is my critique on man’s apparent love for life and his constant destruction of it.” Exhibitions: 2015 - FoundSpace, Jackson, WY 2013 - Pacific Park Gallery, Coos Bay...

This abstract statement painting by Roger Mudre features a warm red and yellow palette and light layers of circular shapes arranged in a larger circle at the center of the compositio...