Frederick Hammersley
Encyclopedia
Frederick Hammersley was a critically acclaimed American abstract
painter whose participation in the landmark 1959 Four Abstract Classicists exhibit secured his place in art history.
. His father, a Department of the Interior employee, moved the family to Blackfoot, Idaho
and eventually to San Francisco, where the young Hammersley first took art lessons. His studies later took him back to Idaho, at Idaho State University
in Pocatello from 1936 to 1938 and then to Los Angeles for the Chouinard Art Institute
starting in 1940. There he studied everything from figure painting to lettering and his instructors included Rico Lebrun
. His artistic training was interrupted by a stint in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and Infantry as a graphic designer. His World War II service in England, Germany, and France was from 1942 to 1946. Fortuitously, he was stationed in Paris near the end of his service, and he took the opportunity to attend the École des Beaux-Arts
in 1945. During this period, Hammersley met Pablo Picasso
, Georges Braque
and Constantin Brâncuşi
, visited their studios, and made sketches.
Hammersley returned to the U.S. and resumed his studies at Chouinard (1946), with financial assistance from the G.I. Bill. A year later, he continued his art education at the experimental Jepson Art Institute
for another three years.
(1953–62), Pasadena Art Museum (1956–61), Chouinard (1964–68), and University of New Mexico
(1968–71).
Hammersley first gained widespread acclaim when his paintings were featured in the landmark Four Abstract Classicists exhibit, which also showcased the work of Karl Benjamin
, John McLaughlin
, and Lorser Feitelson
. This 1959 exhibit was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
and curated by Jules Langsner, who, with Peter Selz, coined the term "hard-edge painting
" to describe the work of these artists. The exhibit, which traveled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
, the Institute of Contemporary Arts
in London and Queen's University
in Belfast
, Northern Ireland
, was praised for its presentation of cool abstractions which were very different from the emotional ones of the established abstract expressionist movement.
He moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico
in 1968 and took a teaching position at the University of New Mexico; he stopped teaching in 1971 so that he could concentrate full-time on painting. In 1973 he was honored with a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship
in painting, and he received National Endowment for the Arts
fellowships in 1975 and 1977.
Hammersley wrote in an exhibition catalog, "hard-edge is often very hard to take, coming to it cold—or, even to the practiced eye". He expanded his repertoire beyond hard-edge, dividing his art into three categories: "hunches", "geometrics", and "organics".
"Hunch" paintings, produced from 1953 to 1959, start by laying down an initial shape. Other shapes are successively added, and the whole evolves in unplanned ways. Hammersley explained: "My painting begins with a hunch, no plan, no theory, just a feeling to make a shape. That shape dictates what and where the next will go, and so on..." The final canvas may be suggestive of a still-life or a landscape, although still quite abstract. Los Angeles Times
art critic Christopher Miles wrote that "they show Hammersley to have been, from the start, as keen a student of Modernist style as he was of color and composition."
"Geometrics" are orchestrated compositions of sharp geometric forms, painted from 1959 to 1964, and from 1965 to the mid-'90s. While more rigidly composed than Hunches, they still retain a degree of playfulness. A gridded canvas may have sections divided by diagonals or arcs. The triangles, squares, and other geometric shapes combine to form interlocking relationships to each other, creating a rhythmic composition with interchangeable positive and negative space
.
"Organics" consist of freely curving shapes inspired by the natural world. These works, produced in 1964 and from 1982 into the 2000s, also contain interlocking shapes, but, as Miles wrote, they "are more evocative and suggestive, with elements seeming to probe and penetrate, embrace and envelop one another. Particularly effective is the combination of hard breaks between colors from one shape to the next with gradations between colors within a shape. In Comes Out Eden, #8 (1994), shapes seem to fade in and out, to merge, dematerialize or change states -- to behave like chameleons and run hot and cold."
In reviewing Visual Puns and Hard-Edge Poems: Works by Frederick Hammersley, a 2000 retrospective
, Los Angeles Times critic Leah Ollman wrote that he
Art critic David Pagel
commented that the complex arrangements of colors and geometric shapes in some paintings featured in a 2002 show made Hammersley "look like a Baroque
artist in Minimalist clothing.
In addition to paintings, Hammersley also produced photographs, computer-generated art, prints and drawings.
Hammersley died on May 31, 2009 at his home in Albuquerque.
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
painter whose participation in the landmark 1959 Four Abstract Classicists exhibit secured his place in art history.
Early years
Frederick Hammersley was born in Salt Lake City, UtahSalt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...
. His father, a Department of the Interior employee, moved the family to Blackfoot, Idaho
Blackfoot, Idaho
Blackfoot is a city in Bingham County, Idaho, United States. The population was 10,419 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Bingham County. Blackfoot is self-designated the "Potato Capital of the World", because it claims to have the largest potato industry in the world...
and eventually to San Francisco, where the young Hammersley first took art lessons. His studies later took him back to Idaho, at Idaho State University
Idaho State University
Idaho State University is a public university located in Pocatello, Idaho. It has outreach programs in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho Falls, Boise, and Twin Falls....
in Pocatello from 1936 to 1938 and then to Los Angeles for the Chouinard Art Institute
Chouinard Art Institute
The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 in Los Angeles, California, by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard .-Founder:...
starting in 1940. There he studied everything from figure painting to lettering and his instructors included Rico Lebrun
Rico Lebrun
Rico Lebrun was an Italy-born, Italian-American painter and sculptor.-Biography :Lebrun was born on December 10, 1900 in Naples, Italy. His formal art education consisted of attending technical school and art classes at night, studying the Old Masters in museums, and assisting fresco painters...
. His artistic training was interrupted by a stint in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and Infantry as a graphic designer. His World War II service in England, Germany, and France was from 1942 to 1946. Fortuitously, he was stationed in Paris near the end of his service, and he took the opportunity to attend the École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
in 1945. During this period, Hammersley met Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Georges Braque
Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
and Constantin Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
, visited their studios, and made sketches.
Hammersley returned to the U.S. and resumed his studies at Chouinard (1946), with financial assistance from the G.I. Bill. A year later, he continued his art education at the experimental Jepson Art Institute
Jepson Art Institute
Jepson Art Institute, founded in Los Angeles in 1945 by artist Herbert Jepson, was an art school located at 2861 West 7th Street that flourished from 1947 to 1953 - becoming an important center for experimental figure drawing, art theory and printmaking. Prior to this, Jepson served as an...
for another three years.
Work
He began a teaching career at Jepson in 1948, staying until 1951. Subsequent teaching positions included Pomona CollegePomona College
Pomona College is a private, residential, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. Founded in 1887 in Pomona, California by a group of Congregationalists, the college moved to Claremont in 1889 to the site of a hotel, retaining its name. The school enrolls 1,548 students.The founding member...
(1953–62), Pasadena Art Museum (1956–61), Chouinard (1964–68), and University of New Mexico
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...
(1968–71).
Hammersley first gained widespread acclaim when his paintings were featured in the landmark Four Abstract Classicists exhibit, which also showcased the work of Karl Benjamin
Karl Benjamin
Karl Benjamin is an American painter of vibrant geometric abstractions who rose to fame in 1959 as one of four Los Angeles-based Abstract Classicists and subsequently produced a critically acclaimed body of work that explores a vast array of color relationships...
, John McLaughlin
John McLaughlin (artist)
John Dwyer McLaughlin was an American abstract painter. Based primarily in California, he was a pioneer in minimalist and hard-edge painting.-Life:...
, and Lorser Feitelson
Lorser Feitelson
Lorser Feitelson was born and raised in New York city but rose to prominence on the West Coast as one of the founding fathers of Southern California-based Hard Edge painting...
. This 1959 exhibit was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
and curated by Jules Langsner, who, with Peter Selz, coined the term "hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
" to describe the work of these artists. The exhibit, which traveled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
, the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
in London and Queen's University
Queen's University
Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...
in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, was praised for its presentation of cool abstractions which were very different from the emotional ones of the established abstract expressionist movement.
He moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...
in 1968 and took a teaching position at the University of New Mexico; he stopped teaching in 1971 so that he could concentrate full-time on painting. In 1973 he was honored with a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
in painting, and he received National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
fellowships in 1975 and 1977.
Hammersley wrote in an exhibition catalog, "hard-edge is often very hard to take, coming to it cold—or, even to the practiced eye". He expanded his repertoire beyond hard-edge, dividing his art into three categories: "hunches", "geometrics", and "organics".
"Hunch" paintings, produced from 1953 to 1959, start by laying down an initial shape. Other shapes are successively added, and the whole evolves in unplanned ways. Hammersley explained: "My painting begins with a hunch, no plan, no theory, just a feeling to make a shape. That shape dictates what and where the next will go, and so on..." The final canvas may be suggestive of a still-life or a landscape, although still quite abstract. Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
art critic Christopher Miles wrote that "they show Hammersley to have been, from the start, as keen a student of Modernist style as he was of color and composition."
"Geometrics" are orchestrated compositions of sharp geometric forms, painted from 1959 to 1964, and from 1965 to the mid-'90s. While more rigidly composed than Hunches, they still retain a degree of playfulness. A gridded canvas may have sections divided by diagonals or arcs. The triangles, squares, and other geometric shapes combine to form interlocking relationships to each other, creating a rhythmic composition with interchangeable positive and negative space
Negative space
Negative space, in art, is the space around and between the subject of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, and not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space is occasionally used to artistic effect as the "real"...
.
"Organics" consist of freely curving shapes inspired by the natural world. These works, produced in 1964 and from 1982 into the 2000s, also contain interlocking shapes, but, as Miles wrote, they "are more evocative and suggestive, with elements seeming to probe and penetrate, embrace and envelop one another. Particularly effective is the combination of hard breaks between colors from one shape to the next with gradations between colors within a shape. In Comes Out Eden, #8 (1994), shapes seem to fade in and out, to merge, dematerialize or change states -- to behave like chameleons and run hot and cold."
In reviewing Visual Puns and Hard-Edge Poems: Works by Frederick Hammersley, a 2000 retrospective
Retrospective
Retrospective generally means to take a look back at events that already have taken place. For example, the term is used in medicine, describing a look back at a patient's medical history or lifestyle.-Music:...
, Los Angeles Times critic Leah Ollman wrote that he
... proved himself more a soft-hearted humanist than a hard-edged purist. ...
Hammersley takes several steps toward making his work more accessible, less aloof. For one, he uses titles as invitations in, catalysts to closer looking. ... [P]unning, free-associative title ideas ... mimic the formal dynamics enacted by the shapes... They joust, contradict, tease, echo and conspire.
Another savvy and refreshing move Hammersley makes is to counter the clean, impersonal precision of hard-edge painting with the amusing presence of his own personality, his own hand. ... Most brilliantly of all, he contains each of his works within wooden frames that he makes by hand... Artificially distressed and self-consciously homey, the frames offset the neat balances of the images within. They nudge the works into a stylistic no-man's-land, which is all the richer for its internal contradictions and resistance to cut-and-dried uniformity.
By reinforcing a connection to the familiar world of touch, the frames also scuttle the notion that abstraction belongs to a rarefied superstratum of experience. Hammersley consistently keeps his feet on the ground and his gaze on the world around him, a world where abstractions are a functional part of the mix.
Art critic David Pagel
David Pagel
-Contemporary Art Criticism:Pagel is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and has written nearly 500 articles since 1997. He serves as Chair of the Art Department at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California....
commented that the complex arrangements of colors and geometric shapes in some paintings featured in a 2002 show made Hammersley "look like a Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
artist in Minimalist clothing.
In addition to paintings, Hammersley also produced photographs, computer-generated art, prints and drawings.
Hammersley died on May 31, 2009 at his home in Albuquerque.
Solo exhibitions
- 1962 California Palace of the Legion of Honor
- 1963 La Jolla Art Museum, La Jolla, CA
- 1965 Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
- 1999–2000 Visual Puns and Hard-Edge Poems: Works by Frederick Hammersley, Museum of Fine Arts (Santa Fe), University of New Mexico, Laguna Beach Art Museum
- 2007 Hunches, Geometrics, Organics: Paintings by Frederick Hammersley, Pomona College Museum of Art
Group exhibitions
- 1959-60 Four Abstract Classicists, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Institute of Contemporary Art, London, England; Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland; Western Association of Art Museums
- 1965 The Responsive Eye, Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
- 1977 35th Corcoran Biennial
- 1994-96 Still Working, Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Chicago Cultural Center, The New School for Social Research, The Virginia Beach Center for the Arts, The Fischer Art Gallery at U.S.C., The Portland Museum of Art
- 2007-2009 Birth of the Cool, Orange County Museum of Art, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Oakland Museum of California, The Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin
External links
- Frederick Hammersley at L.A. LouverL.A. LouverLocated in Venice, Los Angeles, California, USA, L.A. Louver is an art gallery focusing on American and European contemporary art. The building that houses the gallery was designed by architect Frederick Fisher. The gallery is a member of the Art Dealers Association of America. The gallery...
, with biography, articles, and many images organized by decade - Archive containing various articles about Frederick Hammersley