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"The color is magic, and i want the work to be magic."
– stanley whitney
Stanley Whitney, an iconic figure in American contemporary art, has dedicated himself to exploring the infinite possibilities of color and its interplay within abstract painting.
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Stanley Whitney. Stay Song #24, 2018 (detail) © Gary Tatintsian Gallery and the artist -
His distinctive style features loosely structured, shifting grids comprised of variedly marked and hued rectangles—a singular fusion of carefully chosen elements from Minimalism and Colour Field Painting intertwined with his personal artistic influences. Inspired by the artistic expressions of Matisse, Cézanne, Rothko, Mondrian, and Morandi, Whitney adeptly amalgamated these influences with a broad cultural spectrum encompassing references from art history, such as Roman architecture, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Gee's Bend quilts.
1. Stanley Whitney. Stay Song #24, 2018 © Gary Tatintsian Gallery and the artist. 2. Jasper Johns. Target, 1974 © Sotheby's.
3. Wayne Thiebaud. Pop Bottles,1970 © Sotheby's. 4. Ellsworth Kelly. Spectrum II, 1966–67 © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery
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Whitney often acknowledges the impact of experimental jazz music on his artistic process. Within his emblematic paintings, each square is approached with a unique rhythm and technique, embracing surprise and spontaneity at every stage of creation. He effortlessly juxtaposes warm and cool tones, loud and soft elements, resulting in works characterized by captivating chromatic complexity. His solid grids reflect stable structures while maintaining a rhythmic, spontaneous, and unpredictable essence akin to jazz compositions. Rather than being rigid confines, these grids act as a liberating visual mechanism, enabling improvisation with color, texture, and chromatic intensity.
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Beginning always at the top left corner of the canvas, Whitney applies areas of oil paint and works to the right, then down, taking time to see how each block of color reacts with the next. The results are sumptuous and lyrical hymns to the art of painting and speak to the medium's history as a field of multisensory or synesthetic possibilities.
– The Metropolitan Museum of Art -
"Creating space within color involves experiments with density, vibrancy, saturation, and even with matteness. It is not just formal for me—color has great depth; it can bring up great emotion and immense feeling."
– Stanley Whitney
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Find out more
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Stanley Whitney
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Stanley Whitney | Dance with Me Henri
November 20, 2022 – April 23, 2023 | The Baltimore Museum of Art, BaltimoreThis exhibition will highlight Stanley Whitney’s recently commissioned stained-glass windows in the Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies. Whitney has selected a group of works on paper by Henri... -
Stanley Whitney | The Italian Paintings
April 23 – November 27, 2022 | Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, VeniceThe exhibition ‘Stanley Whitney: The Italian Paintings’, at Palazzo Tiepolo Passi in Venice, which opened alongside the 59th Venice Biennale is a look at Whitney’s practice over the last three...
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Viewing Rooms
Viewing Room | Stanley Whitney. Stay Song #24, 2018
Past viewing_room
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