2010.26.2 Epsilon Group 1 | DMA Staging Content Management System

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Jack Whitten’s experiments with painting date to the 1960s. Inspired by abstract expressionism, he created dynamic works noted for their raucous colors and density of gesture combined with topical content—meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, Whitten’s experimentation turned toward abstraction, when he developed a method of painting he related to photographic technology and printmaking traditions. He abandoned handmade gesture and brushstroke; rather, paint and canvas were “processed” through an inventive technique in which the artist dragged the canvas across large troughs of paint and used sticks, rakes, and Afro-combs to create surface texture, line, and voids. Epsilon Group I, contains the language of geometric elements Whitten introduced into his work in the latter half of the 1970s, which emerged out of a renewed interest in imposing order, which he likens to a renewed interest in controlling the "drawn" element in his painting.

Adapted from

Jeffrey Grove, Variations on a Theme: Contemporary Art 1950s-Present, Label text, 2012.
Jeffrey Grove, DMA unpublished material, 2010.

NOTES

Exhibitions: Variations on Theme: Contemporary Art 1950s-Present; ID: 11837; TMS ID: 3008

Bold Abstractions: Selections from the DMA's Collection 1966-1976 (no ID yet)

Catalogue essays

Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art

Artist/designers

Whitten, Jack (American, b. 1939)

Cultures

Geography

Process/materials

Historical periods

1960-1969, United States, "1960s America"

1970-1979, United States, "1970s America"

Individuals

Subject terms

Abstract art

Abstract expressionism

RELATED OBJECTS

PROVENANCE

Until 2010: Jack Whitten (b. 1932)

2010: Dallas Museum of Art and The Rachofsky Collection (owned jointly), purchased through Alexander Gray Associates, New York [1][2]

[1] See the copy of the Co-Tenancy Agreement in the Collections Records object file.

[2] See the copy of the invoice from Alexander Gray Associates dated September 2, 2010 in the Collections Records object file.

AUDIO ASSETS

VIDEO ASSETS

IMAGE ASSETS

WEB RESOURCES

ARCHIVAL RESOURCES

FUN FACTS

TEACHING IDEAS

RULES

Apply to objects where number equals 2010.26.2

General Description

Jack Whitten’s experiments with painting date to the 1960s. Inspired by abstract expressionism, he created dynamic works noted for their raucous colors and density of gesture combined with topical content—meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, Whitten’s experimentation turned toward abstraction, when he developed a method of painting he related to photographic technology and printmaking traditions. He abandoned handmade gesture and brushstroke; rather, paint and canvas were “processed” through an inventive technique in which the artist dragged the canvas across large troughs of paint and used sticks, rakes, and Afro-combs to create surface texture, line, and voids. Epsilon Group I, contains the language of geometric elements Whitten introduced into his work in the latter half of the 1970s, which emerged out of a renewed interest in imposing order, which he likens to a renewed interest in controlling the "drawn" element in his painting.

Adapted from