Exhibitions

Color as Field: American Painting, 1950-1975

February 29, 2008 – May 26, 2008

Smithsonian American Art Museum
8th and G Streets, NW
Washington, DC

3rd Floor, North

See on Map Floor Plan

This first full-scale examination of the Color Field Movement—which emerged in the U.S. in the 1950s—features approximately 40 paintings by such major figures as Gene Davis, Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Larry Poons, and Frank Stella. A Color Field painting is characterized by pouring, staining, spraying, or painting thinned paint onto raw canvas to create vast chromatic expanses. The movement constitutes one of the crowning achievements of postwar American abstract art.

Catalogue

Organized by and traveling under the auspices of the American Federation of Arts.