Synchromy, Blue-Green

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Synchromy, Blue-Green

Artist Stanton Macdonald-Wright (American, 1890-1973)

Date1916

DimensionsFrame: 40 1/4 × 32 1/4 × 2 1/4 in. (102.2 × 81.9 × 5.7 cm)
Painting: 36 1/16 × 28 1/16 in. (91.6 × 71.3 cm)

MediumOil on canvas.

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1996.19

On View

External Site Address (External address), On Loan

Label TextI strive to divest my art of all anecdote and illustrations and to purify it so that the emotions of the spectator can become entirely ‘aesthetic,’ as in listening to music. Synchromy Blue-Green encapsulates Stanton MacDonald-Wright’s interest in color theory and pure abstraction. MacDonald-Wright and a fellow American artist, Morgan Russell, founded an art movement called Synchromy (meaning “with color”) in 1913. Drawing on color theories, the movement was to be the next logical progression from Cubism. The artists strove to move beyond mere abstraction of figures and objects to arrive at a purified expression of ideas through color. In spite of its pure abstraction, Synchromy Blue-Green draws us to the focal point in the upper center of the composition. The burst of warm orange and red seems to be a beacon of light or a musical crescendo rising from the shadows of the neighboring planes of cooler colors. The flat, satiny paint hardly reveals the work of the artist’s hand, which allows us to concentrate purely on our aesthetic and emotional response to this symphony of color.Exhibition HistoryNew York, Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession ("291 Gallery"), Paintings and Sculptures by Stanton Macdonald-Wright, 1917.

New York, Grand Central Palace, First Annual Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, 1917.

Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ferdinand Howald: The Art of the Collector, 1969.

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts; Des Moines Art Center; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Syracuse, Everson Museum of Art; Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts; Synchronism and American Color Abstraction 1910-1925, 1978-1979, p. 140, pl. 108 [exhibited in New York only].

Washington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, "The Noble Buyer:" John Quinn, Patron of the Avant-Garde, 1978, no. 43, repr. (col.) p. 113.

New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., The Eye of Stieglitz, 1978, no. 36, repr. p. 37.

Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art; Washington, D.C, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Visual Music: Synaesthesia in Art and Music Since 1900, February 6 - September 11, 2005, p. 232, repr. (col.) p. 48.