Biography

Use of geometric shapes and bright colors

He received three awards from the French government: Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. He received the US National Medal of Arts in 2013.

He studied painting in Boston after his discharge from the Army in 1945. His formative years as an artist were in Paris, which he had visited briefly during WWII, and where he returned to live in 1948 with support from the G.I. Bill. When that support ended, he worked as an art teacher, a textile designer, and a custodian.

Ten of his paintings are pictured on a set of 10 USA nondnominated commemorative post stamps issued 31 May 2019. The featured works are Yellow White (1961), Colors for a Large Wall (1951), Blue Red Rocker (1963), Spectrum I (1953), South Ferry (1956), Blue Green (1962), Orange Red Relief (for Delphine Seyrig) (1990), Meschers (1951), Red Blue (1964), and Gaza (1956).

I think what we all want from art is a sense of fixity, a sense of opposing the chaos of daily living. This is an illusion, of course. What I've tried to capture is the reality of flux, to keep art an open, incomplete situation, to get at the rapture of seeing.

I realized I didn't want to compose pictures. I wanted to find them. I felt that my vision was choosing things out there in the world and presenting them. To me the investigation of perception was of the greatest interest. There was so much to see, and it all looked fantastic to me.