Paul Feeley (July 27, 1910 − June 10, 1966) was an artist and director of the Art Department at

Bennington College Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...

during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Overview

Though Feeley was born in the same generation as the

Abstract Expressionists Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

, his mature style was hardly gestural; instead, according to Feeley, his paintings "just sat still and had a presence rather than some sort of an agitated fit." His greatest source of admiration was the

Great Pyramids The Giza pyramid complex ( ar, مجمع أهرامات الجيزة), also called the Giza necropolis, is the site on the Giza Plateau in Greater Cairo, Egypt that includes the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Men ...

in Egypt. Gene Baro stated that Feeley's mature style did not overtly depend on any contemporary art movements of the time. His paintings are best summarized as follows:

Biography

In 1931, Feeley moved to New York to pursue his studies. He studied portrait painting with

Cecilia Beaux Eliza Cecilia Beaux (May 1, 1855 – September 17, 1942) was an American society portraitist, whose subjects included First Lady Edith Roosevelt, Admiral Sir David Beatty and Georges Clemenceau. Trained in Philadelphia, she went on to study in ...

, figure painting with George Bridgeman and Thomas Hart Benton, and mural painting from 1931-1934. In fact, in 1934, Feeley joined the Mural Painters Society of New York and became increasingly engaged with mural projects. From 1934-1939, he would teach at the

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

, where he'd later become the head of industrial design. In 1940, he would join the staff at

, where he was fundamental in establishing its art department. Aside from a brief hiatus from 1943-1946, when he volunteered for service with the United States Marines, he remained committed to the art of his contemporaries, he exposed his students —

Helen Frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...

among them — to many of the most significant artists of his time. He helped to organize the first retrospective exhibition of

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

David Smith, in 1951 and helped with the 1955

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

and the 1952

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

retrospectives which were both organized by

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formal ...

. Feeley and Greenberg also organized a

Kenneth Noland Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...

Exhibition at Bennington in 1961. Feeley was also an important Color Field painter and in the early 1960s he was included in the catalog and exhibition called

Post-Painterly Abstraction Post-painterly abstraction is a term created by art critic Clement Greenberg as the title for an exhibit he curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964, which subsequently travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Art Gallery of Toront ...

organized by

in 1964. Feeley had his first full scale retrospective (held posthumously) at the

Matthew Marks Gallery Matthew Marks is an art gallery located in the New York City neighborhood of Chelsea and the Los Angeles neighborhood of West Hollywood. Founded in 1991 by Matthew Marks, it specializes in modern and contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, ...

, 2002 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In 2015 and 2016, the Albright Knox Art Gallery and

Columbus Museum of Art The Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Formed in 1878 as the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts (its name until 1978), it was the first art museum to register its charter with the state of Ohio. The museum collect ...

held his first museum retrospective, titled "Imperfections by Chance: Paul Feeley Retrospective, 1956-1966."

Artistic style

His paintings are characterized by bright colors; simple, abstract forms; and symmetrically arranged, but serene, compositions. Clement Greenberg included Feeley’s work in his exhibition Emerging Talent at the Kootz Gallery in 1954, alongside other Color-Field painters like

Morris Louis Morris Louis Bernstein (November 28, 1912 – September 7, 1962), known professionally as Morris Louis, was an American painter. During the 1950s he became one of the earliest exponents of Color Field painting. While living in Washington, D.C ...

and

. Critics have argued that his work is distinct from Color Field painting in its classical rigor and forms, whether derived from ancient Greek and Moorish decorative patterns or Cycladic and Egyptian statues.

Art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

Gene Baro argued that the Color Field classification was in certain ways inappropriate. He saw Feeley's work as something wholly independent and not dialectically related to the

Abstract Expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

legacy - "in the way that

Baroque art The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including th ...

is remote from

ancient Egyptian art Ancient Egyptian art refers to art produced in ancient Egypt between the 6th millennium BC and the 4th century AD, spanning from Prehistoric Egypt until the Christianization of Roman Egypt. It includes paintings, sculptu ...

and presumes different standards of value and habits of mind." Paul Feeley’s early style has been compared to that of the

. It was gestural, the painter’s hand was evident, many colors were present on the canvas at one time, and there was an overall abstraction of form. Lawrence Campbell, writing in 1955, described his paintings as “blobs elbowing each other and being rained on;” in one painting in particular Campbell described, “a strange red blob on a green ground successfully not looking like anything but itself.” This is his infamous “Red Blotch” from 1954. Feeley himself saw this painting as a breakthrough: “So I suppose the reason that I can see that red and green picture as significant has to do with the absence of all those textural variations and all that brush dynamism. I suppose in fact I just placed it, and didn’t do anything about the dynamic brush work, rather allowed the paint just to sit there. With the red and green picture, I think I just sensed the shape of the canvas as an event, as against the notion of the canvas creating an arena for events.” At this point, his focus shifts away from paintings that project themselves onto their viewers and towards paintings that bring you in. By 1960, Feeley was known for his use of unprimed canvas. His style had also tightened up significantly, favoring clean lines and geometric forms over the more popular Pollock-inspired gestural style. By this time, he had cut down on surface variations in his paintings to avoid light reflecting on different patches of paint. Lawrence Alloway, in an interview with Feeley, recollects how Feeley described this change as “getting away from the madness, too much dynamic energy, of the earlier style.” At the same time, his use of color was also simplified, favoring only two to three colors per canvas. Writing in 1960, Campbell explained the dichotomy present in Feeley’s paintings: “On the one hand, they are simple. On the other, they suggest complicated theories, ideas and emotions.” He also suggests that Feeley’s forms are biomorphic, suggestive of “tiny living things greatly magnified.”

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism (a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In ...

reviewed a Paul Feeley show at

Betty Parsons Betty Parsons (born Betty Bierne Pierson, January 31, 1900 – July 23, 1982) was an American artist, art dealer, and collector known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She is regarded as one of the most influential and dynamic f ...

Gallery in 1962. Judd noted how Feeley had improved his canvas staining technique: “Also, as before, both bright colors are stained into unprimed canvas. This time the colors are opaque, fully intense and definitely opposed, and the edges are unbled, harder and often stressed by a narrow line of canvas.” These improvements clearly impressed Judd, who stated “The paintings are stronger than before and thorough…The greater scale, not size, since the painting is smaller than several others, adds considerable force and abstraction…The new scale makes the forms and the rectangle of the work more nearly identical, makes the painting more autonomous and exclusive.” In the early to mid 1960s, Feeley continued to perfect his forms. He makes greater use of negative space, isolating his quatrefoil and dumbbell shaped forms in the center of the canvas. Judd explained how his paintings contained a “peculiar ornateness” that struck a balance between “being easily identified as ornate and Moorish and being thought something more new and interesting.” One of Feeley’s last developments before his untimely death, was his three dimensional wood structures.

Lucy R. Lippard Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. ...

wrote, “These works in painted plywood are all based on the round cornered square with curved-in sides that has been a familiar feature of his art for some time now. Interlocking multiples of this form severely order the space around them, engaging a far greater amount of surrounding territory than ought to be possible by the right-angled intersection of two thin planes.”

Exhibitions

Paul Feeley was a veteran of more than 18 solo exhibitions in important contemporary galleries and dozens of group exhibitions in important museums. During the late 1950s through the mid-1960s he was represented by the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, and then the

Gallery in

where he had nine solo exhibitions. He also had exhibitions of his paintings and sculpture in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

at the

Kasmin Gallery The Kasmin Gallery, formerly known as the Paul Kasmin Gallery, is a New York City fine art gallery, founded in SoHo in 1989. History The gallery was founded by its namesake as the Paul Kasmin Gallery in 1989 and was initially housed at 74 Grand S ...

and at the Nicholas Wilder Gallery in

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' ...

. Recently, he has been the feature of solo shows at the Jablonka Galerie, 2006; Lawrence Markey, 2007; the Bennington Museum, 2008; the

, 2008 and Garth Greenan Gallery, 2012 and 2016. In 2015 and 2016, the Albright Knox Art Gallery and

held his first museum retrospective, titled "Imperfections by Chance: Paul Feeley Retrospective, 1956-1966." Feeley’s work is held in major museum collections around the world including the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, the

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), ...

, and 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 ...

Solo exhibitions

1950 *Paul Feeley,

Stanford Research Institute SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...

, Menlo Park, California, March 1951 *Paul Feeley, Alexandre Rabow Galleries, San Francisco, August 1953 *Paul Feeley, Cummington School of the Arts, Cummington, Massachusetts, July–August *Paul Feeley,

Milton College Milton College was a private college located in Milton, Wisconsin. Founded in 1844 as the Milton Academy, it closed in 1982. Its campus is now part of the Milton Historic District. History The college was founded as the Milton Academy (high scho ...

, Milton, Wisconsin, October 9–11 1955 *Paul Feeley,

Tibor de Nagy Gallery The Tibor de Nagy Gallery is an art gallery located on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. History Tibor de Nagy Gallery is among the earliest modern art galleries in New York City. The gallery was founded by Ti ...

, New York, October 4–22 1957 *Paul Feeley,

Art Gallery, Bennington, Vermont, March 31–April 6 1958 *Paintings by Paul Feeley,

, New York, February 18–March 8 1960 *Paul Feeley: Paintings,

Gallery, New York, May 16–June 4 1962 *Paul Feeley: Paintings,

Gallery, New York, May 14–June 2 1963 *Paul Feeley: Paintings,

Gallery, New York, May 13–31 1964 *Paul Feeley: Paintings,

Gallery, New York, October 27–November 21 *Paul Feeley: Recent Paintings, Kasmin Gallery, London, October 30–November 28 1965 *Paul Feeley: Sculpture,

Gallery, New York, December 7–31 1966 *Paul Feeley, Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles, January 18–February 12 *Paul Feeley: Paintings and Sculpture Never Before Shown,

Gallery, New York, November 1–26 1968 *Paul Feeley (1910–1968): A Memorial Exhibition,

, New York, April 1–May 26 1968–1971 *Paul Feeley: Retrospective Exhibition of Drawings and Watercolors, 1927–1966, New Gallery,

, Bennington, Vermont, April 15–May 4, 1968; Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art,

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, Ithaca, New York, January 4–February 2, 1969;

Akron Art Institute The Akron Art Museum is an art museum in Akron, Ohio, United States. The museum first opened on February 1, 1922, as the Akron Art Institute. It was located in two borrowed rooms in the basement of the public library. The Institute offered clas ...

, February 22–May 11, 1969;

Saginaw Saginaw () is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Saginaw County. The city of Saginaw and Saginaw County are both in the area known as Mid-Michigan. Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township and considered part of Greater ...

Art Museum, Saginaw, Michigan, September 6–October 5, 1969; University Center,

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...

, Knoxville, October 25–November 23, 1969;

Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute The Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute (MWPAI) is a regional fine arts center founded in 1919 and located in Utica, New York. The institute has three program divisions: *Museum of art *Performing arts *School of art Museum of art The museum ...

, Utica, New York, December 14–January 11, 1970; Hunter Gallery of Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee, January 31–March 1, 1970; University Gallery,

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, March 21–April 19, 1970; Museum of Art,

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

, Iowa City, August 15–September 13, 1970; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, October 3–November 1, 1970; University Art Museum,

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

, Albuquerque, January 9– February 7, 1971; Kutztown State College, Kutztown, Pennsylvania, October 30–November 28, 1971 1970 *Paul Feeley: A Selection from the Late 1950s Paintings,

Gallery, New York, March 10–28 1971 *Paul Feeley: Drawings and Watercolors,

Gallery, New York, October 26–November 13 1973 *Paul Feeley, Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, August 15–September 15 1975 *Paul Feeley: Paintings, First Show of These Paintings in This Country,

Gallery, New York, January 7–25 1976 *Paul Feeley,

André Emmerich André Emmerich (October 11, 1924 – September 25, 2007) was a German-born American gallerist who specialized in the color field school and pre-Columbian art while also taking on artists such as David Hockney and John D. Graham. Early life and ...

Gallery, New York, February 21–March 11 1997 *Paul Feeley: Works on Paper, Lawrence Markey Gallery, New York, September 20–November 1 1999 *Paul Feeley: Paintings, Lawrence Markey Gallery, New York, April 20–May 29 2002 *Paul Feeley: Painting and Sculpture, Lawrence Markey Gallery and

, New York, October 5–November 23 2005–2006 *Paul Feeley: Paintings and Watercolors, Jablonka Galerie, Cologne, February 3, 2005 – March 18, 2006 2007 *Paul Feeley: Paintings, Lawrence Markey Gallery, San Antonio, November 6–December 14 2008 *Paul Feeley: Nine Paintings,

, New York, September 13–October 25 *Paul Feeley: Bennington College, 75 Years of Arts Education,

Bennington Museum The Bennington Museum is an accredited museum with notable collections of art and regional history. It is located at 75 Main Street, Bennington, Vermont, USA. The museum's history dates to 1852 when the Bennington Historical Association was first ...

, Bennington, Vermont, February 2–March 25 2013 *Paul Feeley: Paintings, Lawrence Markey Gallery, San Antonio, April 5–May 10 *Paul Feeley: 1957–1962, Garth Greenan Gallery, New York, September 5–October 12 2014–2016 *Imperfections by Chance: Paul Feeley Retrospective, 1954–1966,

Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...

, Buffalo, November 9, 2014 – February 15, 2015;

, October 25, 2015—January 10, 2016 2016 *Paul Feeley: An Artist's Game with Jacks, Garth Greenan Gallery, New York, April 7−May 14

Group exhibitions

1949 *New England Painting and Sculpture, 1949,

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is an art museum and exhibition space located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. The museum was founded as the Boston Museum of Modern Art in 1936. Since then it has gone through multiple na ...

, May 4–28 1950 *Art Faculty Exhibition,

Art Gallery, Bennington, Vermont, November 13–27 1951 *Paintings by Ellwood Graham, Watercolors by Paul Feeley, San Francisco Museum of Art, February 6–25 *Art Faculty Exhibition,

Art Gallery, Bennington, Vermont, October 1952 *Art Faculty Exhibition,

Art Gallery, Bennington, Vermont, June 1954 *Emerging Talent, Kootz Gallery, New York, January 11–30 1955 *Vanguard 1955: A Painter’s Selection of New American Paintings,

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...

, Minneapolis, October 23–December 5 1957 *Bennington College Art Faculty Exhibition, Robert Hull Fleming Museum, Burlington, Vermont, January 1959 *Group Show, Section Eleven, New York, March 31– April 6 1961 *Exhibition of Work by the Art Faculty,

Art Gallery, Bennington, Vermont, October 6–28 *64th American Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture,

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, January 6–February 5 1962 *Four American Painters, Molton Gallery, London, April 26–May 19 *Painting and Sculpture, Wolfson Studio, Salt Point, New York, August 19–September 21 *A Selection of American Abstract Paintings, 1948–1962,

Newton College of the Sacred Heart Newton College of the Sacred Heart was a small women's liberal arts college in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. It opened in 1946 and merged with Boston College in June 1974. The college was highly regarded during its time, and in 1971 founded the ...

, Newton, Massachusetts, November 1963 *New Experiments in Art, De Cordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, March 23–April 28 *First Annual Retrospective Exhibition—The Art Dealers Association of America,

Parke-Bernet Galleries Parke-Bernet Galleries was an American auction house, active from 1937 to 1964, when Sotheby's purchased it. The company was founded by a group of employees of the American Art Association, including Otto Bernet, Hiram H. Parke, Leslie A. Hyam, L ...

, New York, June 18–July 29 *Forty-Six Works from New York, Dilexi Gallery, San Francisco, November 12–December 7 1964 *Art for Art Collectors,

Toledo Museum of Art The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio. It houses a collection of more than 30,000 objects. With 45 galleries, it covers 280,000 square feet and is currently in th ...

, February 6–March 8 *The Painter’s Eye,

Gallery, New York, March 3–28 *American Painting III,

Cincinnati Art Museum The Cincinnati Art Museum is an art museum in the Eden Park neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies, and is one of the oldest in the United States. Its collection of ov ...

, April 2–28 *Seventy-Second Annual Exhibition,

Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery The Sheldon Museum of Art is an art museum in the city of Lincoln, in the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. Its collection focuses on 19th- and 20th-century art. History Sheldon Art Association In 1888, The Sheldon Art Assoc ...

, Lincoln, Nebraska, April 8–May 10 *Post Painterly Abstraction,

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

, April 23–June 7; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, July 13–August 16; Art Gallery of Toronto, November 20–December 20 *World House International, 1964, World House Galleries, New York, June 9–September 25 *118 Show, Kasmin Gallery, London, July 30– September 19 *Color Dynamics, Katonah Gallery, Katonah, New York, September 20–November 3 *Paintings and Constructions of the 1960s Selected from the Richard Brown Baker Collection, Museum of Art,

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

, Providence, October 2–25 *American Drawings,

, New York, September 17–October 28 1964–1965 *Dealer’s Choice: An Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings, Drawings, and Prints,

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is a not-for-profit institution in the Museum District, Houston, Texas, founded in 1948, dedicated to presenting contemporary art to the public. As a non-collecting museum, it strives to provide a forum for visual ...

, December 3, 1964 – January 3, 1965 *The Shaped Canvas,

, New York, December 5, 1964 – January 31, 1965 1965 *Optical Painting, Philadelphia Art Alliance, February 17–March 21 *Art of the 50s and 60s: Selections from the Richard Brown Baker Collection, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut, April 25–July 5 *40 Key Artists of the Mid-20th Century: Paintings and Sculpture,

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the list of largest art museums, largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation a ...

, May 4–29 *118 Show, Kasmin Gallery, London, August 12– September 18 *Artists Against Racialism, Savage Gallery and Cassel Gallery, London, October 7–27 *Colorists, 1950–1965, San Francisco Museum of Art, October 15–November 21 *25 Paintings ’65,

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the su ...

, Richmond, June 17–August 31 1965–1966 *The Responsive Eye,

, New York, February 25–April 25, 1965; City Art Museum of St. Louis, May 20–June 20, 1965;

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...

, July 15–August 23, 1965;

Pasadena Art Museum The Norton Simon Museum is an art museum located in Pasadena, California, United States. It was previously known as the Pasadena Art Institute and the Pasadena Art Museum and displays numerous sculptures on its grounds. Overview The Norton Sim ...

, September 25–November 27, 1965; Baltimore Museum of Art, December 14, 1965– November 23, 1966 *1965 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting,

, New York, December 8, 1965–January 30, 1966 *Exhibition for the Benefit of the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, December 14, 1965–January 30, 1966 1966 *Multiplicity,

, April 16–June 5 *Seven Decades, 1895–1966: Crosscurrents in Modern Art, Cordier & Eckstrom, Inc., New York, April 26– May 21 *Whence Op,

Heckscher Museum of Art The Heckscher Museum of Art is named after its benefactor, August Heckscher, who in 1920 donated 185 works of art to be housed in a new Beaux-Arts building located in Heckscher Park, in Huntington, New York. The museum has over 2000 works of art ...

, Huntington, New York, May 14–June 26 *Systemic Painting,

, New York, September 22–November 27 *Pattern Art,

Gallery, New York, October 4–29 1966–1967 *Vormen van de Kleur,

Stedelijk Museum The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

, Amsterdam, November 20, 1966–January 15, 1967 1967 *Formen der Farbe, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, February 2–March 26; Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, April 14–May 21 *The 1960s: Painting & Sculpture from the Museum Collection,

, New York, June 28–September 24 *Seven Decades: A Selection,

, July–October *Color, Image, Form,

, April 11– May 21 *Artists/Bennington, Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, December 6–31 1968 *Betty Parsons’ Personal Collection,

Finch College Finch College was an undergraduate women's college in Manhattan, New York City. The Finch School opened as a private secondary school for girls in 1900 and became a liberal arts college in 1952. It closed in 1976. Founding Finch was founded in ...

Museum of Art, New York, March 13–May 29 *Opening Exhibition,

National Collection of Fine Arts The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

, Washington, DC, May 3–September 1 1968–1969 *The Art of the Real: USA, 1948–1968,

, New York, June 30–September 15, 1968;

Grand Palais The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées ( en, Great Palace of the Elysian Fields), commonly known as the Grand Palais (English: Great Palace), is a historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arro ...

, Paris, November 14–December 28, 1968; Kunsthaus, Zürich, January 17–February 16, 1969;

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, London, April 24–June 1, 1969 1971 *Recent Acquisitions: American,

, New York, February 11–March 11 1972 *Selections from the

Collection,

Montclair Art Museum The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) is located in Montclair, New Jersey, United States, a few miles west of New York City. Since it opened in 1914 as the first museum in New Jersey that granted access to the public and the first dedicated solely to a ...

, New Jersey 1974 *Drawings Old, Drawings New, Parsons-Truman Gallery, New York, December 3–21 1976 *Artists at Bennington: Visual Arts Faculty, 1932–1976, Usdan Gallery,

, Bennington, Vermont, May 20–June 2 1984 *Art as Personal Relation: The Collection of Lionel and Laura Nowak, Usdan Gallery,

, Bennington, Vermont, November 20–December 14 1987–1988 *Fifty Years of Collecting: An Anniversary Selection,

, New York, November 13, 1987 – March 13, 1988 1988 *Made in the Sixties: Painting and Sculpture from the Permanent Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art,

, New York, April 18–July 13 1991–1992 *Stubborn Painting, Now and Then, Max Protech Gallery, New York, December 19, 1991 – January 25, 1992 1997 *Works on Paper, Lawrence Markey Gallery, New York, September–October 1998 *The Green Mountain Boys: Caro, Feeley, Noland, and Olitski at Bennington in the 1960s, André Emmerich Gallery, New York, January 8–February 28, 1998; Usdan Gallery,

, Bennington, Vermont, March 10–April 4 *Painting: Now and Forever, Part I,

, New York, June 25–July 31 1999 *Shaping a Generation: The Art and Artists of

, Huntington, New York, February 27–April 18 2001 *Kasmin’s Sixties, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, April 26–May 26 *Clement Greenberg: A Critic’s Collection,

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum becam ...

, Portland, Oregon, July 14–September 16 *Tenth Anniversary Exhibition: 100 Drawings and Photographs,

, New York, November 3–December 22 2008 *Painting: Now and Forever, Part II,

, New York, July 3–August 15 2010–2011 *Color Fields, Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, October 22, 2010 – January 10, 2011 2014 *Pop Abstraction, Fredericks & Freiser and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York, January 18–February 14 *Starting Out: 9 Abstract Painters, 1958–1971,

, New York, June 5–August 1 *Contemporary Highlights: Abstraction and Form, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, May 24–October 19 *A Drawing Show,

, October 4–November 29 2014– *Bennington Modernism, Bennington Museum, Vermont, July 2014– 2016 *The Congregation, Jack Hanley Gallery, New York, September 8–October 9 2017 *Colour Is, Waddington Custot, London, March 1–April 22

Collections

Feeley's work can be found in prominent collections in America and elsewhere, including the following: *

, Buffalo *

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...

*Broad Art Museum,

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

East Lansing East Lansing is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. Most of the city lies within Ingham County with a smaller portion extending north into Clinton County. At the 2020 Census the population was 47,741. Located directly east of the state capital ...

Carnegie Museum of Art The Carnegie Museum of Art, is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was at what is now the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsbur ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, Ohio *

Fogg Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, Cambridge, Massachusetts *

High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Kemper Art Museum The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum is an art museum located on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, within the university's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Founded in 1881 as the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts, it w ...

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

Madison Museum of Contemporary Art The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA), formerly known as the Madison Art Center, is an independent, non-profit art museum located in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. MMoCA is dedicated to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving modern and co ...

, Wisconsin *

McNay Art Museum The McNay Art Museum, founded in 1954 in San Antonio, is the first modern art museum in the U.S. state of Texas. The museum was created by Marion Koogler McNay's original bequest of most of her fortune, her important art collection and her 24-roo ...

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , s ...

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York * *

, New York *

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, Washington, DC *

Newark Museum The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Af ...

, New Jersey *

Neuberger Museum of Art Neuberger Museum of Art is located in Purchase, New York, United States. It is affiliated with Purchase College, part of the State University of New York system. It is the nation's tenth-largest university museum. The museum is one of 14 sites on ...

State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY, , ) is a system of public colleges and universities in the State of New York. It is one of the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States. Led by c ...

, Purchase *

, Portland, Oregon *

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

, Washington, DC *

, New York *

Wadsworth Atheneum The Wadsworth Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wadsworth is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, ancient Egyptian and Classical bronzes, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School lands ...

, Hartford, Connecticut *

, New York *

Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...

, New Haven, Connecticut

References

External links

Paul Feeley websitePaul Feeley at Garth Greenan GalleryPaul Feeley on Artsy.netPaul Feeley on Artnet.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Feeley, Paul 1910 births 1966 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters American contemporary painters Abstract painters 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American male artists American male sculptors Bennington College faculty Artists from Des Moines, Iowa Painters from Iowa Sculptors from Iowa

Overview

Biography

Artistic style

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Collections

See also

References

External links