Hard-edge painting
The Hard-edge painting style can be considered a subdivision of Post-Painterly Abstraction, which in turn emerged from Color Field painting. The term was coined by writer, curator and Los Angeles Times art critic Jules Langsner in 1959 to describe the work of painters from California, who—in their reaction to the more painterly or gestural forms of Abstract Expressionism—adopted a knowingly impersonal paint application and delineated areas of color with particular sharpness and clarity. This approach to abstract painting became widespread in the 1960s, though California was its creative center.
In the late 1950s, Langsner and Peter Selz, then professor at the Claremont Colleges, observed a common link among the recent work of John McLaughlin, Lorser Feitelson, Karl Benjamin, Frederick Hammersley and Feitelson's wife Helen Lundeberg. The group of seven gathered at the Feitelson's home to discuss a group exhibition of this nonfigurative painting style. Curated by Langsner, "Four Abstract Classicists" opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1959. Helen Lundberg was not included in the exhibit.
"Four Abstract Classicists" was subtitled "California Hard Edge" by British art critic and curator Lawrence Alloway when it traveled to England and Ireland. The term came into broader use after Alloway used it to describe contemporary American geometric abstract painting featuring "economy of form," "fullness of color," "neatness of surface," and the nonrelational arrangement of forms on the canvas.
In 2000, Tobey C. Moss curated "Four Abstract Classicists Plus One" at his gallery in Los Angeles. The exhibit again featured Feitelson, McLaughlin, Hammersley, and Benjamin, and added Lundeberg as the fifth of the original Hard-edge painters.
This style of geometric abstraction recalls the earlier work of Josef Albers and Piet Mondrian. Other artists associated with Hard-edge painting include June Harwood, Al Held, Ellsworth Kelly, Alexander Liberman, Morris Louis, Brice Marden, Kenneth Noland, Ad Reinhardt, Frank Stella, Leon Polk Smith, and Jack Youngerman.
References
- Moss, Tobey C. (2000). "Four Abstract Classicists Plus One" exhibition catalogue.
- Nittve, et al. (1998). Sunshine & Noir: Art in LA 1960-1997. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.