Tony Greene (1955, San Francisco, CA - 1990, Los Angeles, CA) was a visual artist whose work combines photographic imagery with an overlay of thickly applied decorative patterns or calligraphic letterforms. Rarely exhibited during his lifetime (he died of AIDS-related illness at age 35), his work has subsequently staged what 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 ...

'' describes as "a remarkable posthumous comeback," including a mini-retrospective of Greene's work as part of the 2014

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 ...

exhibition, and additional exhibitions held in Chicago and Los Angeles during 2014, including the

UCLA Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

's biennial "Made in LA" exhibition. Greene was awarded an MFA degree from

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

in 1987. His classmates there included the artists

Richard Hawkins Admiral Sir Richard Hawkins (or Hawkyns) (c. 1562 – 17 April 1622) was a 17th-century English seaman, explorer and privateer. He was the son of Admiral Sir John Hawkins. Biography He was from his earlier days familiar with ships and the s ...

and

Catherine Opie Catherine Sue Opie (born 1961) is an American fine-art photographer and educator. She lives and works in Los Angeles, as a professor of photography at University of California at Los Angeles. Opie studies the connections between mainstream and i ...

, who jointly curated Greene's 2014 exhibition in the Whitney Biennial. David Evans Frantz, curator at

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California Libraries is the oldest existing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) organization in the United States and one of the largest repositories of LGBT materials ...

curated a "show within a show" in the

Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

's Made in LA Biennial, featuring Tony Greene's opulent paintings from 1987 to 1990, alongside queer and activist artists, documents, and ephemera in dialogue with his work.

References

1990 deaths 1955 births 20th-century American artists 20th-century American male artists Artists from San Francisco AIDS-related deaths in California California Institute of the Arts alumni American male artists {{US-artist-stub