MODERN ART WEST

Drawing on the general currency of contemporary culture at certain points, and ignoring or obstinately resisting it at others, Bay Area artists have created a major body of American painting and sculpture that reflects certain recurring attitudes. Independence, bluntness of speech, a stern austerity or elemental rawness, and a dedication to the vernacular are some of them. Others are an affinity for the mystical expressions of non-Western religions. In the dialectical tug-of-war that are always straining the seams of contemporary art, Bay area artists have generally favored home-grown elements over imported ones, personal experience over the supposed imperatives of art history, and a conception of art as vision, process, and act of communication rather than as a matter of pure form.
- Thomas Albright, Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-1980, University of California Press.


	BAY AREA SCHOOL ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
	John Emmett Gerrity	James Grant	Harvey Leepa
	Grady McDonald	Richard Nelson	Jerry O'Day
	Irene Pattinson	Clayton Pinkerton	Ruth Wall
	Drawing on the general currency of contemporary culture at certain points, and ignoring or obstinately resisting it at others, Bay Area artists have created a major body of American painting and sculpture that reflects certain recurring attitudes. Independence, bluntness of speech, a stern austerity or elemental rawness, and a dedication to the vernacular are some of them. Others are an affinity for the mystical expressions of non-Western religions. In the dialectical tug-of-war that are always straining the seams of contemporary art, Bay area artists have generally favored home-grown elements over imported ones, personal experience over the supposed imperatives of art history, and a conception of art as vision, process, and act of communication rather than as a matter of pure form. - Thomas Albright, Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-1980, University of California Press.
© Modern Art West