Jack Reilly (born 1950) is an American (

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

) artist known for his complex

shaped canvas Shaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the '' tondo'', a painting on a round p ...

paintings. His work is widely exhibited and included in public and private collections internationally.

Work

Reilly's early abstract paintings reflected various influences of prominent artists of the time including

Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (born May 12, 1936) is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella lives and works in New York City. Biography Frank Stella was born in M ...

Ellsworth Kelly Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, c ...

Ronald Davis Ronald "Ron" Davis (born 1937) is an American painter whose work is associated with geometric abstraction, abstract illusionism, lyrical abstraction, hard-edge painting, shaped canvas painting, color field painting, and 3D computer graphics ...

Jules Olitski Jevel Demikovski (March 27, 1922 – February 4, 2007), known professionally as Jules Olitski, was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. Early life Olitski was born Jevel Demikovsky in Snovsk, in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( ...

, and Trevor Bell. Each of these abstract painters dealt with structure, color, atmosphere, light and ambiguous space; elements that would eventually converge in Reilly's

abstract painting Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...

s. Shortly after moving to Los Angeles in 1978, Reilly's

geometric abstraction Geometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective (non-representational) compositions. Although the genre was popu ...

emerged, extracting and redefining elements prevalent in contemporary abstract painting. His work commented on numerous formal and pictorial issues of the era, and by combining illusionary space with color field painting, Reilly created a synthesis of geometric abstraction and pictorial depth, which is also referred to as

Abstract Illusionism Abstract illusionism, a name coined by art historian and critic Barbara Rose in 1967. Louis K. Meisel independently coined the term to define an artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the mid-1970s. History The wo ...

. In 1979 Reilly's work was exhibited in his first solo show in Los Angeles at the Molly Barnes Gallery. That same year, curator Donald Brewer included Reilly's painting in a major museum exhibition entitled "The Reality of Illusion," an international survey of painting and sculpture that explored ''

trompe-l'œil ''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...

'' in both abstract and representational art. The exhibition opened at the

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between t ...

and traveled throughout the United States for two years. By 1980, Reilly's paintings were represented by galleries in major American cities including the Molly Barnes Gallery in Los Angeles, Aaron Berman Gallery in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, Foster Goldstrom Fine Arts in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and Marilyn Butler Gallery in Scottsdale. Articles and reviews on Reilly's

paintings were subsequently published in Arts Magazine, Art Week, and the

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

, and in books including ''Inside the L.A. Artist'' (1988) by Marva Morrow, ''American Art Now'' (1985) by

Edward Lucie-Smith John Edward McKenzie Lucie-Smith (born 27 February 1933), known as Edward Lucie-Smith, is a Jamaican-born English writer, poet, art critic, curator and broadcaster. He has been highly prolific in these fields, writing or editing over a hundred ...

, and ''Introduction to Design'' (1983) by Robin Landa. The 1990s yielded large-scale

public art Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...

and corporate commissions for Reilly with the County of

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

Public Arts Program and

American Airlines American Airlines is a major airlines of the United States, major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the world when measured ...

Los Angeles International Airport Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the W ...

. In the late 1990s, his paintings evolved in scope as he introduced elements of

figure painting A figure painting is a work of fine art in any of the Painting#Painting media, painting media with the primary subject being the human figure, whether clothed or Nude (art), nude. Figure painting may also refer to the activity of creating such ...

and

mixed media In visual art, mixed media describes artwork in which more than one medium or material has been employed. Assemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different media. Materials used to create mixed media art incl ...

into his signature

artworks. In addition to his work as a contemporary painter, Reilly maintained an active academic career, having taught as professor of art at

California State University, Northridge California State University, Northridge (CSUN or Cal State Northridge) is a public university in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. With a total enrollment of 38,551 students (as of Fall 2021), it has the second largest un ...

from 1985 to 2001, followed by

California State University Channel Islands California State University Channel Islands (CSUCI, CSU Channel Islands) is a public university in Camarillo, California. It opened in 2002 as the 23rd campus in the California State University system. CSUCI is located on the Central Coast of Ca ...

2001–2015, where he developed the university's art department and served as department chair and professor of art. In 2016 he was awarded Professor Emeritus. Reilly's paintings were included in a 2012 solo exhibition as part of the

Getty Foundation The Getty Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California at the Getty Center, awards grants for "the understanding and preservation of the visual arts".Getty FoundationAbout the Foundation. Retrieved September 18, 2008. In the past, it funded the ...

initiative, Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945-1980, which documented the contributions to Los Angeles contemporary art by artists, curators and critics. In 2016 his work was the subject of a solo retrospective at the California Museum of Art (CMATO)

Thousand Oaks, California Thousand Oaks is the second-largest city in Ventura County, California, United States. It is in the northwestern part of Greater Los Angeles, approximately from the city of Los Angeles and from Downtown Los Angeles, Downtown. It is named af ...

. Throughout the years, Reilly has mounted over fifty solo exhibitions and remains an extremely prolific painter. His work is included in public collections of the

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

Art Museum, the

Oakland Museum of California The Oakland Museum of California or OMCA (formerly the Oakland Museum) is an interdisciplinary museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California, located adjacent to Oak Street, 10th Street, and 11th Street in Oakland, Cali ...

and numerous corporate collections including

Atlantic Richfield ARCO ( ) is a brand of gasoline stations currently owned by Marathon Petroleum after BP sold its rights. BP commercializes the brand in Northern California, Oregon and Washington, while Marathon has rights for the rest of the United States and ...

(ARCO) and

Verizon Communications Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas i ...

among others. Jack reilly fidelity

References

*Lucie-Smith, Edward. ''American Art Now'', New York: William Morrow Co. pp. 139–140, 1985 (Color Reproduction). *Marrow, Marva. ''Inside the L.A. Artist'', Salt Lake City, UT: Peregine Smith Books. p. 78, 1988 (Color Reproduction). *Landa, Robin. ''An Introduction to Design'', Englewood, NJ: Prentis Hall, p. 21, 1983 (B&W Reproduction). *Brewer, Donald. ''Reality of Illusion'', American Art Review Press, 1979, (Color Reproduction).

External links

Focus on the MastersBG Gallery Artist ProfileCalifornia State University FacultyCalifornia Museum of Art Thousand Oaks (CMATO)Askart.com pages on Jack ReillyJack Reilly - Painting in Progress (Video)

Artist Profile - Florida State University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reilly, Jack 1950 births 20th-century American painters 20th-century American male artists American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists American contemporary painters Living people Painters from Los Angeles California State University Channel Islands faculty Clearwater High School alumni

Work

See also

References

External links