Stanton MacDonald-Wright Art

Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890–1973) was a pioneering American modernist painter and co-founder of Synchromism, in 1912.

Synchromist paintings were some of the first abstract paintings created in America.  The theory of synchromism is based on the idea that color and sound are similar phenomena and that the colors in a painting can be orchestrated in the same harmonious way that a composer arranges notes in a symphony.  MacDonald-Wright once said, "Synchromy is to color what symphony is to sound.  ...It means everything is done with color."

Stanton MacDonald-Wright was born in Virginia, and moved to Santa Monica with his family at the age of ten.  He began studying art at the Art Students League in Los Angeles while in his teens, and in 1907 moved to Paris, studying at major institutions including the Sorbonne, Académie Julian, and Académie Colarossi.

Back in the United States in, he and fellow artist Morgan Russell developed Synchromism.  MacDonalnd-Wright and Russell held exhibitions in Paris and Munich in 1913, and MacDonald-Wright lived in New York City from 1914 to 1919 before returning to California.

MacDonald-Wright was instrumental in introducing modern art to Los Angeles, organizing the first exhibition of modernists there in 1920. He served as director of the Art Students League of Los Angeles in 1923 and taught art history and aesthetics at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1942 to 1954. During the 1930s he was a regional director for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) federal art project, creating notable murals in Santa Monica.

MacDonald-Wright spent the rest of his life in California.  His paintings are held in the permanent collection of many prestigious museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the National Portrait Gallery.