Spring
1986
Encaustic on canvas
190.5 x 127 cm (75 x 50")
Private collection
Born in 1930 at Augusta, Georgia. He grew up in South
Carolina. He was drafted into the army and stationed in Japan.
Between 1949 and 1951 he studied at the University of South
Carolina, Columbia. From 1952 to 1958 he worked in a bookshop in
New York. He also did display work with
Robert Rauschenberg for
Bonwit Teller and Tiffany. In 1954 he painted his first flag
picture. He had his first one-man exhibition in 1958 at the Leo
Castelli Gallery, New York. He was represented at the Venice
Biennale during the same year. His picture Grey Numbers
also won the International Prize at the Pittsburgh Biennale. In
1959 he took part with Rauschenberg in Allan Kaprow's Happening
Eighteen Happenings in Six Parts. He was included in the
collective exhibition Sixteen Americans in the same year
at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1960 he began working with
lithographs. In 1961 he did his first large map picture and
travelled to Paris for an exhibition at the Galerie Rive Droite.
In 1964 he was given a comprehensive retrospective at the Jewish
Museum, New York. The catalog included texts by John Cage and
Alan Solomon. He was represented at the Venice Biennale in the
same year. In 1965 he had a retrospective at the Passadena Art
Museum, organized by Walter Hopps. During the same year he saw a
Duchamp exhibition and won a prize at the 6th International
Exhibition of Graphic Art, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia. In 1966 he had
a one-man exhibition of drawings at the National Collection of
Fine Arts, Washington. In 1967 he rented a loft in Canal Street
and painted Harlem Light using a tile motif. He also
illustrated Frank O'Hara's book of poems "In Memory of My
Feelings". He was Artistic Adviser for the composer John
Cage and Merce Cunningham's Dance Company until 1972,
collaborating with Robert Morris, Frank Stella,
Andy Warhol and
Bruce Naumann. In that year he was represented at the documenta
"4", Kassel, designed costumes for Merce Cunningham's
"Walkaround Time" and spent seven weeks at the
printers Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles. In 1973 he met Samuel
Beckett in Paris. He moved to Stony Point, N.Y. He was given a
comprehensive retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American
Art, New York, in 1977, shown in 1978 at the Museum Ludwig,
Cologne, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, Hayward
Gallery, London, and Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo. He was
represented at the Venice Biennale in 1978. In 1979 the
Kunstmuseum Basle put on an exhibition of his graphic work which
toured Europe. In 1988 he was awarded the Grand Prix at the
Venice Biennale.
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