OKCMOA members are invited to preview Paul Reed: A Retrospective before it opens to the public!
5 pm | Reception in the Museum Lobby
6 pm | The Washington Color School: A Time, a Place, a Legacy in the Noble Theater
8 pm | Galleries close
Please note: Seating for the lecture is limited. To reserve your spot, select the lecture option when registering. Present your confirmation email at the Noble Theater entrance for admission.
ABOUT THE LECTURE | The Washington Color School: A Time, a Place, a Legacy
By the end of the 1950s, New York Abstract Expressionism had begun to wane. Painters adopted the large scale and rich palette of artists like Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko but with new processes and goals in mind. Many of these painters lived in Washington, DC, where their originality earned them the name Washington Color School. Morris Louis, Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, Howard Mehring, Kenneth Noland, and Paul Reed were important innovators in new working methods based on staining unprimed canvas to create paintings that appeared both optical and physical. David Gariff, PhD, senior lecturer and guest curator of the Paul Reed retrospective, examines this golden age in the history of modern art in Washington, DC.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
David Gariff, PhD | Curator of Paul Reed: A Retrospective
David Gariff, PhD, is Senior Lecturer at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. A specialist in modern art, the history of film, and the art of the Italian Renaissance, he has taught art history at The Catholic University of America, the University of Wisconsin, Cleveland State University, Trinity Washington University, and the University of Maryland, College Park. David has held fellowships in Italy at the University of Florence, the University of Pisa, and the Institute for the History of Lombard Art in Milan. He lectures and writes widely on topics related to modern art, film, and Italian culture.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
This major retrospective, the first devoted to the artist, will present a survey of Paul Reed’s art and accomplishments from his early days as a graphic designer in 1950s New York to his success as one of the founding artists of the Washington Color School in the 1960s to the aesthetic reinventions of his later work. Reed’s life was devoted to art and endless exploration of the many and varied properties of and approaches to form, color, and light. Throughout his career spanning more than six decades, Reed worked in a wide variety of mediums, including painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, collage, graphic design, and computer-generated and enhanced imagery. His lifetime achievement as an artist, prolific production, and the variety of materials, techniques, and strategies explored in his art rank him as one of America’s most significant painters active in the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Paul Reed: A Retrospective is guest curated by David Gariff, PhD, senior lecturer at the National Gallery of Art, and will consist of over one hundred paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. The checklist is drawn primarily from OKCMOA’s permanent collection with additional loans from important museum and private collections. The exhibition will include a catalogue, published by Marquand Books, featuring essays by the exhibition’s curator and other art historians exploring the life, art, and legacy of Paul Reed, as well as the 1960s cultural history of Washington, DC, and new perspectives on some of the lesser-known aspects of the Washington Color School and its members.
