Jim DeFrance (born, 1940

Alliance, Nebraska Alliance is a city and the county seat of Box Butte County, in the western part of the state of Nebraska, in the Great Plains region of the United States. Its population was 8,151 at the 2020 census. Alliance is the home to Carhenge, a replica o ...

; died 2014 Los Angeles, California) was a West Coast artist known for his abstract, shaped panel paintings and meticulous constructions. He utilized a reductive process while incorporating architectural references, geometric foundations, and fine carpentry into his work. He was most known for his “Slot” paintings, where he developed a surface structure of trapezoids on top of a bold color field.

Career

DeFrance was born in Alliance, Nebraska in 1940. His father was a cabinetmaker and this influence led him to study architecture before deciding to be a fine artist. In 1961 at the age of 21, DeFrance attended the

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Summer School of Music and Art in Norfolk, Connecticut before moving to Colorado, where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Art at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado syst ...

. He kept moving west and finished his Master of Arts at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

in 1965 where he met classmates

Vija Celmins Vija Celmins (pronounced VEE-ya SELL-muns;Hilarie M. Sheets and Randy Kennedy (September 24, 2015)''New York Times''. lv, Vija Celmiņa, pronounced TSEL-meen-ya) is a Latvian American visual artist best known for photo-realistic paintings and dr ...

and

Allan McCollum Allan McCollum (born 1944) is a contemporary American artist who lives and works in New York City. In 1975, his work was included in the Whitney Biennial, and he moved to New York City the same year. In the late 1970s he became especially well kn ...

. He was also closely aligned with artists Roland Reiss,

Peter Plagens Peter Plagens (born 1941) is an American artist, art critic, and novelist based in New York City.Online Archive of CaliforniaPeter Plagens papers, 1938-2014 Retrieved January 18, 2018.Smith, Roberta''The New York Times'', February 7, 2018. Retrie ...

, Ron Linden, and

Gary Lloyd Gary Lloyd (born 1965) is a Canadian-born British composer and producer. He has composed music for productions in theatre, contemporary dance, television drama and documentary, film, art installation, ''son et lumière (show), son et lumiere'', n ...

. In the 1970s and 1980s, DeFrance taught in the art departments at

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

and

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

. DeFrance started exhibiting his work in 1965. His work has been exhibited at the following institutions and more Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles Institute for Contemporary Art (LAICA), Newport Harbor Art Museum (now the Orange County Museum of Art),

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art art gallery, museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one ...

, La Jolla Art Museum (now the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego), and Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. He was also affiliated with the following galleries in Los Angeles and New York: Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Jan Baum Gallery, Rolf Nelson Gallery,

Sonnabend Gallery Ileana Sonnabend (née Schapira, October 29, 1914 – October 21, 2007) was a Romanian-American art dealer of 20th-century art. The Sonnabend Gallery opened in Paris in 1962 and was instrumental in making American art of the 1960s known in Europe, ...

, Charles Cowles Gallery, and

Leo Castelli Gallery Leo Castelli (born Leo Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which ...

. A major retrospective of DeFrance's work was curated by Tom Dowling and Trevor Norris for the Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion, Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, CA. “Jim DeFrance: A Retrospective” was on view February 8-April 7, 2019. The monograph “Jim DeFrance: Light, Space, Materials,” accompanying the exhibition features essays by the curators and art critic

.Dowling, Tom and Trevor Norris (2018). “Jim DeFrance: Light, Space, Materials,” Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion, Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, CA. .

Collections

DeFrance has work in the following public collections:

Cedars-Sinai Hospital Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a nonprofit, tertiary, 886-bed teaching hospital and multi-specialty academic health science center located in Los Angeles, California. Part of the Cedars-Sinai Health System, the hospital employs a staff of over 2 ...

, Los Angeles, CA;

Laguna Art Museum The Laguna Art Museum (LAM) is a museum located in Laguna Beach, California, on Pacific Coast Highway. LAM exclusively features California art and is the oldest cultural institution in the area. It has been known as the Laguna Beach Art Associati ...

, Laguna Beach, CA; La Jolla Museum of Fine Arts, La Jolla, CA; Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA; Bank of America, Tokyo, Japan; and Frederick R. Weisman Collection, Santa Monica, CA.

References

External links

*http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-jim-defrance-review-20180224-htmlstory.html *https://artandcakela.com/2018/03/08/jim-defrance-and-eric-johnson-at-orange-coast-college/ *https://artillerymag.com/doyle-arts-pavilion-jim-defrance/ *http://www.coastreportonline.com/arts_and_culture/article_312b96d4-10e8-11e8-8e9c-274fb4b42423.html *https://www.ocweekly.com/occs-jim-defrance-a-retrospective-is-a-graceful-ode-to-lifes-release/ *https://patch.com/california/newportbeach/first-retrospective-l-artist-jim-defrance-opens-occ *https://www.ocregister.com/2018/01/26/orange-coast-college-to-showcase-artwork-by-artist-jim-defrance/ {{DEFAULTSORT:DeFrance, Jim 1940 births 2014 deaths People from Alliance, Nebraska American male artists University of Colorado Boulder alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of California, Irvine faculty University of Southern California faculty