By Paul Maxwell
Located in Surfside, FL
Paul E. Maxwell (1925–2015)
This is a unique painting on either paper or canvas. It is framed in a gold toned metal frame
Framed 46 X 34 sheet 41 X 29 inches
Hand signed and dated.
This can be hung either horizontally or vertically.
Paul Maxwell was a modern artist and sculptor (known as both a Texas and a California artist) who developed a technique for using stencils to create thickly textured and layered surfaces, as well as objects he patented as “stencil casting” but that later became known as “Maxwell Pochoir.” He worked in numerous styles including Abstract Constructivist, Contemporary Modern and Abstract Expressionism. He was also known for creating the “Max Wall” in the West Atrium of the Dallas Apparel Mart; though demolished in 2006, it can be seen as a backdrop in the science-fiction movie Logan’s Run. His work is highly abstract and often consists of some kind of grid—a form that is non-hierarchical and illustrates a major theme of both his sculpture and his painting works. This piece is influenced by the Light and Space movement, a loosely affiliated art movement related to op art, minimalism and geometric abstraction originating in Southern California in the 1960s and influenced by John McLaughlin. Famous proponents included Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Bruce Nauman, Eric Orr and James Turrell. Paul Maxwell was born in Frost Prairie (Ashley County) on September 17, 1925, to the farm family of Willie F. and Robert M. Maxwell. The sixth of seven children, Maxwell considered himself an artist from an early age and recalled the landscape of Frost Prairie as “pure form—wide unbroken fields of tall grass which the slightest breeze could shape into waves and ripples of golden light.” He said that drawing in the exposed clay soil there may have been an early inspiration for the kind of textured, expressionist, surfaces he would later create.
When Maxwell was nine, the family moved to Bastrop, Louisiana, where he completed high school. Maxwell went on to graduate from Principia College in Elsah, Illinois, in 1950 with a BA in art, followed by graduate work at Claremont College in California. While at Claremont, Maxwell had his first museum show in Stockton, California. In 1951, Maxwell exhibited his work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in a show that included such artists as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, and Roberto Matta; also that year, he had his first commercial gallery exhibition.
From 1955 to 1958, Maxwell taught at the Houston Museum of Art and at the University of Houston. From 1959 to 1961, he lectured and exhibited his work in Europe under the sponsorship of the U.S. Information Agency while maintaining a gallery in Switzerland. During the rest of the 1960s and into the 1970s and 1980s, Maxwell lived and worked in Texas and Oklahoma, receiving commissions for works in public spaces such as a mid century mod wall hanging relief sculpture in the Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and the free-standing sculpture for the lobby of the Stark County Library in Canton, Ohio.
It was also during the 1970s that Maxwell developed and created pieces using his stencil-casting technique. similar in style to American Modernist Robert Natkin, In 1985, a twelve-minute documentary that dealt with Maxwell’s work was produced by Carol Schroeder and broadcast by PBS. The documentary, titled Paul Maxwell: Lines/Horizons, won the American Film Festival Red Ribbon Award for Best Short Documentary and the Mitchell Wilder Gold Medal Award given by the Texas Association of Museums, both in 1986. Maxwell was also the subject of the 2007 short film Through a Veil of Knowledge: The Legacy of Paul Maxwell, directed by Richard Balin.
Maxwell had exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the United States and in England, Switzerland, France, Canada, and Australia. The permanent collection at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock (Pulaski County) includes the Modernism masterpiece Regimenta (1980), an acrylic painting on paper.
Paul Maxwell was born in 1925 in Frost Prairie, Arkansas. After earning his bachelor’s degree in art from Principia College, he studied under Millard Sheets at Claremont Graduate School in California. While in Houston, Maxwell taught art and exhibited regularly and successfully in statewide competitions. He holds the patent for his own printmaking medium, a process he calls “stencil-casting". His work bears a style and color affinity to 1980's modernist art movements such as Memphis Milano, (Ettore Sottsass, Peter Shire, etc.) with the bold colors and geometric shapes that characterized the era. His earlier work was also associated with the Pop Art era artists.
Selected Exhibitions:
1948 10th Texas General Exhibition 1948–1949, circulated: Witte Museum, San Antonio; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas 1950 Scripps College, Claremont, California
1951 Solo, Pioneer Museum, Stockton, California
1951 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
1952 Solo, De Cordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts
1953 Solo, James Bute Gallery, Houston, Texas
Texas; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas
1959 Solo, Galerie du Colisée, Paris, France
1959 34th Annual Houston Artists Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
1959 Made in Texas by Texans, Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art
1959 21st Annual Texas Painting and Sculpture Exhibition, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Witte Museum, San Antonio; Beaumont Art Museum, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (purchase prize)
1959 Solo, Oklahoma Art...
Category
20th Century Abstract Expressionist Paul Maxwell Abstract Paintings
