Harriet Korman (born 1947) is an American abstract painter based in New York City, who first gained attention in the early 1970s.Yau, John
"Harriet Korman's Formal Mastery,"
''Hyperallergic'', November 18, 2018. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Pincus-Witten, Robert
"Karl Schrag, Michael Goldberg, Jacqueline Gourevitch, Harriet Korman, Frank Lincoln Viner, Materials and Methods: A New View,"
''Artforum'', Summer 1972. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Smith, Roberta
"Harriet Korman,"
''Artforum'', September 1975, p. 73–4. Retrieved July 23, 2020. She is known for work that embraces improvisation and experimentation within a framework of self-imposed limitations that include simplicity of means, purity of color, and a strict rejection of allusion, illusion, naturalistic light and space, or other translations of reality.Yau, John
"One of New York's Purist Abstract Painters,"
''Hyperallergic'', May 23, 2020. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Cotter, Holland. "Harriet Korman at Sorkin," ''Art in America'', July 1990, p. 163.Johnson, Ken. "Harriet Korman at Lennon, Weinberg," ''Art in America'', November 1994. Writer

John Yau John Yau (born June 5, 1950) is an American poet and critic who lives in New York City. He received his B.A. from Bard College in 1972 and his M.F.A. from Brooklyn College in 1978. He has published over 50 books of poetry, artists' books, fiction ...

describes Korman as "a pure abstract artist, one who doesn’t rely on a visual hook, cultural association, or anything that smacks of essentialization or the spiritual," a position he suggests few post-

Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

painters have taken.Yau, John
"Harriet Korman, Recent Drawings and Paintings,"
''The Brooklyn Rail'', March 2008. Retrieved July 23, 2020. While Korman's work may suggest early twentieth-century abstraction, critics such as Roberta Smith locate its roots among a cohort of early-1970s women artists who sought to reinvent painting using strategies from Process Art, then most associated with sculpture,

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

and performance.Smith, Roberta
"Harriet Korman,"
''The New York Times'', December 25, 1992, p. C29. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Mueller, Stephen
Harriet Korman: New Paintings,"
''artcritical'', May 1, 2004. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Smith, Roberta

'The New York Times'', September 20, 2017. Retrieved July 23, 2020. Since the 1990s, critics and curators have championed this early work as unjustifiably neglected by a male-dominated 1970s art market and deserving of rediscovery.Kimmelman, Michael

''The New York Times'', March 24, 1995, p. C1, C32. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Smith, Roberta

''The New York Times'', June 2, 2004, p. E32. Retrieved July 23, 2020.''Artforum''
"One Collection, Three Museums,"
News, April 23, 2007. Retrieved July 23, 2020. Korman has exhibited at the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

Museo Rufino Tamayo Museo Rufino Tamayo is a public contemporary art museum located in Mexico City's Chapultepec Park, that produces contemporary art exhibitions, using its collection of modern and contemporary art, as well as artworks from the collection of its fo ...

and MoMA PS1, among other institutions.Kramer, Hilton
"Guggenheim Shows 10 Young Artists,"
''The New York Times'', September 25, 1971. P. 27. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Bankowsky, Jack
"The Art of the Matter: Curating the Whitney Biennial,"
''Artforum'', January 1995. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Richard, Frances
"High Times, Hard Times,"
''Artforum'', April 2007. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Butler, Sharon

''Two Coats of Paint'', April 15, 2013. Retrieved July 27, 2020. She has received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

.''Artforum''
"2013 Guggenheim Fellows Announced,"
News, April 11, 2013. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Pollock-Krasner Foundation
"Harriet Korman,"
Artists. Retrieved July 27, 2020.Art Students League of New York
"Visiting Artists."
Retrieved July 27, 2020.

Early life and career

Korman was born in 1947 in

Bridgeport, Connecticut Bridgeport is the List of municipalities in Connecticut, most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the List of cities by population in New England, fifth-most populous ...

.Maier Museum of Art
''Untitled (Abstraction with Yellows and Red-orange)'', Harriet Korman, 1990
Collections. Retrieved July 27, 2020. She studied art at the

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 t ...

and

Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...

(BA, 1969), where she received a fairly traditional, observation-based education in painting.Korman, Harriet. ''Harriet Korman: Notes on Painting 1969–2019'', New York: Harriet Korman, 2020. In her final year, however, she encountered the contemporary work of artists such as Agnes Martin,

Robert Ryman Robert Ryman (May 30, 1930February 8, 2019) was an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He was best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lived and worked in New York C ...

and

Lee Lozano Lee Lozano (November 5, 1930 – October 2, 1999) was an American painter, and visual and conceptual artist. Biography Early years Born Lenore Knaster in Newark, New Jersey, she started to use the name "Lee" at the age of fourteen, often prefer ...

, which shifted her focus toward a new painting language based on process and untethered to realistic observation or tradition. After graduating, Korman shared a

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

studio space with artists

Gordon Matta-Clark Gordon Matta-Clark (born Gordon Roberto Matta-Echaurren; June 22, 1943 – August 27, 1978) was an American artist best known for site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He was also a pioneer in the field of socially engaged food art. ...

and Charles Simonds and soon received recognition through exhibitions at The Institute of Art and Urban Resources (now MoMA PS1) and Guggenheim Museum ("10 Young Artists – Theodoron Awards") in 1971, a Whitney Annual (1972) and Biennial (1973), and a one-person exhibition at LoGiudice Gallery (1972).Kramer, Hilton
"An Artist Emerging from the 60's Counterculture; Chicago,"
''The New York Times'', December 13, 1981, Sect. 2, p. 39. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Siegal, Jeanne. ''ARTnews'', November 1972.Boice, Bruce
"Harriet Korman,"
''Artforum'', December 1972. Retrieved July 23, 2020. In subsequent decades, Korman has had exhibitions at Galerie Ricke in Cologne; the

Willard Gallery The Willard Gallery was a contemporary art gallery operating in New York City from 1940 until 1987. It was founded by Marian Willard Johnson. History In 1936, Marian Guthrie Willard had founded the East River Gallery as an art rental gallery at ...

(1976–87), Lennon, Weinberg (1992–2019) and Thomas Erben Gallery in New York; Jancar Gallery (Los Angeles) and Daniel Weinberg Gallery (San Francisco and Los Angeles); Texas Gallery (Houston); and Häusler Contemporary (Munich), among others.Kramer, Hilton
"Harriet Korman,"
''The New York Times'', December 3, 1976. P. 67. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Westfall, Stephen. "Harriet Korman," ''Arts Magazine'', April 1984. She has also been included in the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...

1995, the international traveling exhibition, "High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975" (2006–8), and shows at the American Academy of Arts & Letters,

National Academy Museum The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fi ...

, and MoMA PS1.Avgikos, Jan
"1995 Biennial,"
''Artforum'', Summer 1995. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Siegel, Katy
''High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967 – 1975''
New York: Independent Curators International, 2006. Retrieved August 6, 2020. In addition to her art career, Korman has taught in the Fine Arts Department at the

Fashion Institute of Technology The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college in New York City. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It ...

since 1989; she has also served on the faculties at Queens College and

Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university in Richmond, Virginia. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virginia in 1854. In 1968, the Virgini ...

.Fashion Institute of Technology
"FIT Professor Harriet Korman Wins Guggenheim Fellowship,"
July 9, 2013. Retrieved July 23, 2020. Korman lives and works in New York City with her husband, artist John Mendelsohn.John Mendelsohn website
Bio
Retrieved July 27, 2020.

Work and reception

Korman's work is consistent in terms of thought and inquiry rather than a signature style, motif, process or movement. She emerged in the wake of Minimalist and

Conceptualist In metaphysics, conceptualism is a theory that explains universality of particulars as conceptualized frameworks situated within the thinking mind. Intermediate between nominalism and realism, the conceptualist view approaches the metaphysical co ...

critiques of the painting tradition as "dead," but rejected them and embraced its legacy and limitations (e.g., the two-dimensional rectangle, flatness) as challenges. Her paintings employ frank, direct processes and often oscillate between fragmentation and wholeness, improvisation and structure.Fyfe, Joe. "Harriet Korman at Lennon, Weinberg," ''Art in America'', September 2001.Golden, Deven
"The Tremolo Effect: Harriet Korman at Lennon, Weinberg,"
''artcritical'', April 13, 2012. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Rubinstein, Raphael
"Harriet Korman: 'Permeable/Resistant'"
''The Brooklyn Rail'', December 2018. Retrieved July 23, 2020. In her early series, Korman—and others such as

Jennifer Bartlett Jennifer Bartlett ( Losch; March 14, 1941 – July 25, 2022) was an American artist. She was known for paintings and prints that combine the system-based aesthetic of conceptual art with the painterly approach of Neo-Expressionism. Many of her ...

Louise Fishman Louise Fishman (January 14, 1939 – July 26, 2021) was an American abstract painter from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For many years she lived and worked in New York City, where she died. Biography Louise Fishman was born in Philadelphia on Jan ...

Mary Heilmann Mary Heilmann is an American painter based in New York City and Bridgehampton, NY. She has had solo shows and travelling exhibitions at galleries such as 303 Gallery (NY, NY) and Hauser & Wirth Hauser & Wirth is a Swiss contemporary and modern a ...

and

Joan Snyder Joan Snyder (born April 16, 1940) is an American Painting, painter from New York City, New York. She is a MacArthur Fellows Program, MacArthur Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellow, and a National Endowment for the Arts, National End ...

—sought to reduce mark-making and gesture to the essential in deceptively simple works.Smith, Roberta
"Building on the Bare, Bare Bones,"
''The New York Times'', August 12, 1994, p. C22. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Schapiro, Miriam (ed)
''Art: A Woman's Sensibility''
Valencia, CA: California Institute of the Arts, Feminist Art Program, 1975. Retrieved August 6, 2020. In subsequent work, she has experimented with livelier color, loose grids, geometries of interlocking shapes, and canvases with symmetrical subdivided formats, often based on drawings.Corn, Alfred. "Harriet Korman at Lennon, Weinberg," ''Art in America'', April 1997.Hirsch, Faye. "Harriet Korman at Lennon, Weinberg," ''Art in America'', October 2004.

Early process paintings

Korman's early paintings (1969–75) investigate subtle gestural problems and compositional means that break with modernist tradition, using predetermined processes of addition and subtraction and loose grid structures.Smith, Roberta
"Harriet Korman,"
''The New York Times'', March 2, 1990, p. C30. Retrieved July 23, 2020. Her first three New York solo exhibitions (1972–6) largely featured paintings in which she drew parallel lines, dots, dashes or numbers in crayon (sometimes forming shapes), covered them over with a layer of white gesso, and then scraped with emphatic, varying marks using a palette knife to bring together the two layers. Reviewers described the resulting work as surprisingly compelling given her easily comprehended, simple method; in conceptual terms, they noted Korman's emphasis on arbitrariness and seeming nonchalance about the end product, which ran counter to the more heroic narratives of minimalism.

Hilton Kramer Hilton Kramer (March 25, 1928 – March 27, 2012) was an American art critic and essayist. Biography Early life Kramer was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and was educated at Syracuse University, receiving a bachelor's degree in English; Col ...

described both an "appealing delicacy and purity" and pictorial insistency in Korman's spare forms (like stems and stitches) and pale, close-value colors, which recalled work by Agnes Martin and

Eva Hesse Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 – May 29, 1970) was a German-born American sculptor known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. She is one of the artists who ushered in the postminimal art movement in the 196 ...

; Roberta Smith wrote that Korman's work—denser, less taut, and more confident and inattentive—advanced Martin's, yielding "quietly radiant surfaces" that pulsate between fragility and robustness like breathing.

Painting (1976–1996)

In 1976, Korman shifted to oil paints for greater flexibility and experimented with radically different directions, sometimes at the same time. Overall, her work of this period features livelier color, looser wet-on-wet brushwork and more raucous rhythms, which take forms ranging from uneven bands of color and free-form shapes to buckling grid patterns and loosely geometric shapes to gestural lines and scribbles.Whelan, Richard. "Harriet Korman," ''ARTnews'', May 1980.Smith, Roberta. "Harriet Korman," ''The Village Voice'', June 8, 1982.

Stephen Westfall Stephen Westfall (born 1953 Schenectady, New York) is an American painter, critic, and professor at Rutgers University and Bard College. Biography When Stephen Westfall was an adolescent, he was fascinated by the social spaces created by archi ...

commended her experimentation in a review of her 1984 exhibition (Willard Gallery), which he described as a "surprisingly warm combination" of witty, slightly ragged touch, rigorous planarity and vivid, emotionally colored ideas. Critics suggest Korman's late-1980s-to-early-1990s paintings circle back in style to refigure her past by turning the signature Minimalist grid into something loose and tactile, like textile design.Zimmer, William
"Abstract Expressionism Is Alive and Well,"
''The New York Times'', November 27, 1994, Sect. 13WC, p. 18. Retrieved July 23, 2020. She retained certain aspects—loose organizing principles and frankly evident processes—while introducing a vibrant palette, fleet paint application, and greater movement among styles.Cotter, Holland

''The New York Times'', June 26, 1992, p. C24. Retrieved July 23, 2020. The paintings generally emerge from monochromatic grounds built of layered color, onto which Korman painted notational dashes, squares and wavy strokes of contrasting color that suggest gently disintegrating grids or plaids, thatches of grass or abstract calligraphy. Reviews most consistently commented on the work's controlled spontaneity, which Ken Johnson described as "operat ngin the gap between painterly hedonism and formal puritanism";

Holland Cotter Holland Cotter is an art critic with ''The New York Times''. In 2009, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Life and work Cotter was born in Connecticut and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned his A.B. from Harvard College in 1970, wh ...

compared the work to "a good dance performance" combining "skill with an instinctive grace." Between 1993 and 1996, Korman turned to mostly black, white and gray canvasses with askew grids and irregular, geometric "compartments" containing densely worked, calligraphic circles, diamonds, stripes, figure-eight and pretzel-like forms, and emblems.Smith, Roberta
"Harriet Korman,"
''The New York Times'', November 8, 1996, p. C23. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Perl, Jed. "The Age of Recovery," ''The New Republic'', February 17, 1997, p. 28–31.

Painting (1997–present)

Korman's black-and-white series provided insights that she applied to her next, color series: she would paint without white, which can create illusions of light and space.Smith, Roberta

''The New York Times'', October 30, 2014, p. C24. Retrieved July 23, 2020. She presented the resulting paintings in exhibitions in 2001 and 2004 ("Line or Shape, Curved or Straight"), which feature richly hued, interlocking eccentric forms and unpredictable rhythmic patterns emerging from geometric swoops, curves and grids (e.g., ''Untitled'', 2004; ''Can Be Joined Any Way'', 2002).Naves, Mario
"Origami-like Paintings that are like Watching Pinball,"
''The New York Observer'', March 5, 2001. Retrieved July 27, 2020. These paintings explore the way color and abstract images convey meaning. Critics described the work as "curiously out of time"Siegel, Katy
"Best of 2001,"
''Artforum'', December 2001. Retrieved July 23, 2020.—contemporary yet lightly echoing Miró, Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Tantric Art—and independent of nostalgia and ongoing discourses reviving or rejecting modernism.Johnson, Ken
"Harriet Korman at Lennon, Weinberg,"
''The New York Times'', March 9, 2001, p. E36. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Naves, Mario. "Spinning a Color Wheel," ''The New York Observer'', May 10, 2004. Retrieved July 27, 2020. In her subsequent exhibition (Lennon, Weinberg, 2008) Korman exhibited paintings alongside the (black-and-white) line drawings that generated them for the first time. These paintings introduced wavering patches of grids and parallel lines—harkening back to early work—into her interlocking shapes, creating a sense of shifting configurations, like a kaleidoscope. John Yau wrote that this work upended two distinct strains of postwar abstraction by conflating "all-over" abstraction and a figure-ground approach, demonstrating continuing life in painting. Korman's next paintings—exhibited in 2012—were geometrically divided by diagonals, horizontals and verticals, the shapes then filled with unadulterated color, forming unexpected patterns and configurations. Deadpan compositions of triangles within grids of rectangles, they exposed intrinsic qualities of hue, brightness and transparency through color juxtapositions (e.g., ''Quadrant'', 2012; ''Focus'', 2011); ''artcriticals Deven Golden described them as purely objective works with luminous, subtly fluctuating surfaces and patterns that resembled a child's geometric coloring book. In her next two exhibitions, Korman contemplated a basic problem—the division of a painting surface—finding freedom within the limitations of largely fixed, simple formats. For her 2014 show, "Line or Edge, Line or Color," she exhibited a suite of ten oil-stick drawings and ten paintings, built around the symmetrical format of a central diamond subdivided into rectangles or triangles and then complicated through her use of color.Nathanson, Jill
"Jewel-Pure Color: Harriet Korman at Lennon, Weinberg,"
''artcritical'', October 31, 2014. Retrieved July 23, 2020.Yau, John
"Harriet Korman's Chromatic and Linear Improvisations,"
''Hyperallergic'', September 21, 2014. Retrieved July 23, 2020. The paintings differ from preceding work by including areas of plain white paint and colored lines and outlines of varying width. A 2018 exhibition at Thomas Erben featured quadrant-based paintings with a central cross of colored lines and right-angled bands of chromatically rich color that suggest an update of Albers' '' Homage to the Square'' series. Critics such as Raphael Rubenstein describe an "emphatically handmade" geometry of wavering edges, tapering bands and irregularities in these works, which pulls what appears to be strict modular abstraction (e.g., Albers or early

Stella Stella or STELLA may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media Comedy *Stella (comedy group), a comedy troupe consisting of Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black and David Wain Characters *Stella (given name), including a list of characters with th ...

) into the realm of

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

and Mary Heilmann. Other reviews attend to the improvisations, subtle shifts and unexpected jumps in this work—for example, variations between quadrants in the latter series, which disrupt the cruciform symmetry and resolution of the compositions as wholes; Roberta Smith wrote that the casually painted compositions "attest to the inexhaustibility of both color and geometry."

Awards and public collections

Korman has been recognized with a

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...

Fellowship in Painting (2013) and grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2008), National Endowment for the Arts (1993, 1987, 1974), and New York Foundation for the Arts (1991).John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
"Harriet Korman,"
Fellows. Retrieved July 27, 2020. She has been awarded purchase prizes from the

, where she was elected to membership in 2006, the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2003), and the

(1971). She has also received artist residencies from the Edward F. Albee Foundation (1997) and

Yaddo Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March ...

(1996).The Edward F. Albee Foundation
Albee Fellows: 1967
Visual Artists. Retrieved July 27, 2020.Yaddo
Visual Artists
Retrieved July 27, 2020. Korman's work belongs to the public collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
''Ten Young Artists: Theodoron Awards''
New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1971. Retrieved July 27, 2020. Museum for Modern Art (MMK) in Frankfort, Germany,

Blanton Museum of Art The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent coll ...

,Blanton Museum of Art
Harriet Korman
Collection. Retrieved July 27, 2020. Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art, Joslyn Art Museum,

Maier Museum of Art Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College features works by American artists from the 19th through 21st centuries. Randolph College (founded at Randolph-Macon Women's College) has been collecting American art since 1907 and the Maier Museum of Art n ...

, McNay Art Museum,McNay Art Museum
''untitled'', Harriet Korman, 2007
Collection. Retrieved July 27, 2020. Orange County Museum of Art, Museum Pfalzgalerie (Germany), Tang Museum, and

Weatherspoon Art Museum The Weatherspoon Art Museum is located at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is one of the largest collections of modern and contemporary art in the southeast with a focus on American art. Its programming includes fifteen or more e ...

,Weatherspoon Art Museum
Harriet Korman
Artist. Retrieved July 27, 2020. among others.