Biografie von Stanton MACDONALD-WRIGHT (1890-1973)

Birth place: Charlottesville, VA

Death place: Pacific Palisades, CA

Addresses: Pacific Palisades, 1973

Profession: Painter, writer, lecturer, teacher

Studied: Joseph Greenbau, ASL, Los Angeles,1904-05; Sorbonne, Paris, 1907-09, with Focillon; Académie Julian, Paris, 1907; …cole Beaux-Arts, Acad. Colarossi, and Acad. de la Grande Chaumière, Paris, c.1909-12

Exhibited: with Morgan Russell, he mounted the first major Synchromist exhibits in 1913, in Munich (Der Neue Kunstsalon) and in Paris; Armory Show, 1913; Carrol Gal., NYC, 1914; "Forum Exhibition of Modern American Painters," Anderson Gal., NYC, 1916; "291," Photosecession Gal., NYC, 1917 (solo); S. Indp. A., 1917; Oakland Art Gal., 1927 (with Morgan Russell); LACMA, 1927, 1932, 1956 (retrospective); An American Place, NYC, 1932 (solo); Stendahl Gal., Los Angeles, 1942-43, 1945 (solos); "Pioneers of Modern Art in America," WMAA, 1946; AIC, 1947; Corcoran Gal. biennials, 1949, 1957; "III Bienal," Museu de Arte Moderna, S„o Paulo, Brazil, 1955; La Gal. Arnaud, Paris, 1956 (solo); "The New Tradition: Modern Americans Before 1940," Corcoran Gal., 1963; "Roots of Abstract Art in America, 1910-1930, NMAA, 1965, 1967 (retrospective); PAFA Ann., 1966 "

Work: NMAA; Detroit Inst. Art; PMA; Grand Rapids Art Gal.; LACMA; San Diego FA Soc.; DMA; MoMA; WMAA; Santa Barbara Mus. A.; museums in England, France, Poland, Italy, Japan & others Commissions: murals for many schools, libraries & public bldgs.: Pub. Lib., City Hall, High School, all in Santa Monica.

Comments: Pioneer American modernist. With Morgan Russell in Paris, 1913, invented Synchromism," a style in which form was generated by color. Returned to East Coast in 1916 and was active in NYC until moving to Santa Monica, CA, in 1919, where he began teaching at the ASL (Los Angeles) and became interested in Oriental philosophy and approaches to art. Moved back and forth between pure abstraction and figuration throughout his career. Achievements and positions: produced the first full-length stop-motion film ever made in full color; regional advisor, WPA, for seven states, 1930s. Teaching: ASL, Los Angeles (director, 1922-30); professor, Oriental art & Iconography, UCLA (1942-52), Scripps College, Univ. Southern Calif., Univ. Hawaii, ASL & others. On retirement, he split his time between Santa Monica, CA, and Kyoto, Japan. Publications: auth., Color: Theory and Chart (privately printed); co-auth., with his brother, Willard Huntington Wright, The Creative Will: Studies in the Philosophy and Syntax of Aesthetics (John Lane Co., 1916); auth., "Blueprint for a Textbook on Art," College Art Journal, 1945; auth., Beyond Aesthetics (Tokyo, 1955); auth., Treatise on Color (reprint, Smithsonian Press, 1967).

Sources: WW73; WW47; Lloyd Goodrich & John Baur, American Art of Our Century (Praeger, 1961); Giov. Micheli, La Sincromia (Libr. Editrice Baroni, Lucca, 1963); National Collection of Fine Arts, The Art of Stanton MacDonald-Wright (Wash. DC: Smithsonian Inst. Press, 1968); Michel Seuphor, L'Art Abstrait (Galerie Maeght, Paris, Vols. I & II, 1971-1972); Gail Levin, Synchromism and American Color Abstraction (WMAA, 1978); Stanton MacDonald-Wright Paintings: 1903-73 (Los Angeles: ARCO Center for Visual Arts, 1979); Hughes, Artists in California, 621; Abraham Davidson, Early American Modernist Painting, 121-32; Falk, Exh. Record Series.