john day american born 1932 died 1982 exhibited at 25 grand-rue vieille ville 1204 geneva switzerland see further details www.artadvisor.ch

John Day American born 1932 died1982 his earliest years resonated with the localised sense of want and of the scarcity and anxiety that permeated American culture throughout the Great Depression. When pressed about his childhood, Day focused on the loving relationship that he enjoyed with his grandmother, Frances Hamblin, but the influence of his father, an anesthesiologist and his classical pianist mother manifested in a number of interesting and often unexpected ways as his oeuvre developed.Rather than open his paintings as a forum in which to process identity, Day carefully isolated respective characteristics, fomenting his most vulnerable personal presence through artistic absence. Day sold his first painting at age fifteen, and at eighteen began his studies with Josef Albers in Yale University's Department of Design. Over the next three decades, John Day tested and explored a number of different artistic practices, each a discrete permutation of the theoretical and practical variables that would allow him, ultimately, to "step out of the way", freeing each of his viewers to a reception unsettling in its forceful solitude. The carefully calculated richness of Day's paintings resides in their absences and exclusions and restraint as much as in their application of paint to canvas.

French Suit Revisited
oil on canvas
1979

Antiques.co.uk Ref: HWFNW7BG

Maker/Artist:

John Day

Materials:

Oil on canvas

Width (cm):

40 inches

Height (cm):

46 inches

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John Day Estate

PUBLIC AND CORPORATE COLLECTIONS Adelphi University, Garden City, New York The American Broadcasting Company, New York, New York American Council of Learned Societies, New York, New York The Anderson Company, Chicago, Illinois The Avis Corporation, New York, New York The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, New York Chase Manhattan Bank, Paris, France The Deutsche Bank, New York, New York Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, New York Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, Connecticut Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey Musee Cantini, Marseilles, France Musee Pompidou, Centre National de l?Art Contemporain, Paris, France The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York Nabisco Inc. East Hanover, New Jersey The National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C. The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New Jersey Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York The United Bank of Illinois, Rockford, Illinois Carlson Gallery, University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, Connecticut Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, ConnecticutBIOGRAPHY John Day was born in Malden, Massachusetts on May 27, 1932; his father was a physician who became an anesthesiologist and his mother was a classical pianist/teacher. After graduating from Malden High School (1949), where he had already exhibited his talent for and commitment to painting, he spent a year (1949-1950) at Syracuse University‘s School of Art, before transferring to Yale University’s School of Art & Architecture.   During his years there (1950-1957) he studied with Josef Albers, Burgoyne Cillier, and James Brooks. Still seeking his own “voice,” his early work in the 50’s was a mix of styles and subjects— everything from landscapes to collages. In the early 60’s he worked on a series of collages known as the Billboard series.   Meanwhile, he was spending several summers in France and through his friendship there with a young Greek artist, Theo Stavropoulos, Day developed an interest in Greek mythology. This would come to the fore with his Erebos series during 1961-62, a phase that began with his find of a scrapbook with photographs of Victorian and Edwardian actors and singers; he proceeded to make what are technically collages, although many of the works require close examination to see the photographs under his painting; also, although seemingly a dramatic break from the color field mode he had studied with Albers, many of the Erebos works incorporate almost pure color field elements.   John Day, an artist, died yesterday in the He was a professor of art at William Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He was 49 years old.   Mr Day's paintings have been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum and Paterson College in New Jersey. Mr Day was born in Boston and is survived by his mother, Josephine Day of Waterford, Conn., and his brother, Michael Day of the Whitney Museum POSTHUMOUS EXHIBITIONS celebrating John Day’s mesmerizing art were staged at the West Hampton Guild Hall in 1983, the Montclair Art Museum and New London’s Lyman Allyn Museum in 1984, and the Elaine Benson Gallery in Bridgehampton, Long Island, in 1985. JOHN DAY’S ESTATE – a treasure-trove of 92 paintings, 30 reliefs, 14 collages and over 500 drawings – was acquired that year by his friend Guy Cooper (1937-2014) and left in storage in Secaucus, New Jersey. Cooper moved to London with his partner Gordon Taylor and the collection was forgotten about for a quarter of a century, before being shipped to London in 2011. In February 2020 it was acquired by art consultant Iain Brunt.        

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