The Criss-Cross and Pattern & Decoration Movements. "George Woodman: A Democracy of Parts, Paintings 1966-1978"
Now on view:
George Woodman: A Democracy of Parts, Paintings 1966-1978 at DC Moore Gallery
535 W 22nd St, 2nd floor, New York
through May 3rd
By the mid-70s, George Woodman’s singular approach to pattern painting—as harmony between color and form—was well established and recognized among artists and critics alike. Woodman’s canvases were part of the larger zeitgeist around pattern in the art of this period.
In 1974, Criss-Cross—a collective of artists concerned with pattern and structure—formed in Boulder, Colorado. Many of its members were Woodman’s students at the University of Colorado. He served as a mentor to the group, exhibiting with them regularly and contributing texts to their publication Criss-Cross Art Communications through 1981. 1974 was also the year he met influential critic Amy Goldin, a pioneering thinker connected to the contemporaneous P&D movement.
“Working in Colorado I was unaware of an entire pattern movement which sprang up in the East about 3 years ago,” Woodman recounted in 1980. “An art critic, the late Amy Goldin, pointed out to me that I was one of the first and best in a movement to which I was virtually unknown.”
Goldin became a friend and champion of Woodman’s work. His painting 285 (also known as Bari and Winterreise) was included in the 1977 exhibition Patterning & Decoration at the Museum of the American Foundation for the Arts in Miami, curated by Holly Solomon with a catalogue essay by Goldin. By showing with these artists—including Mary Heilmann, Valerie Jaudon, Robert Kushner, Joyce Kozloff, Howardena Pindell, and Frank Stella—and also spending a semester each year in New York City starting in 1978, Woodman’s work caught the attention of curator and critic Peter Frank. Frank later presented several paintings from this period in the 1981 survey exhibition 19 Artists—Emergent Americans at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. These include Double Reflection, San Francisco di Paolo or Axe Pattern—now on view at DC Moore Gallery—and Tessellation Sky—in the Guggenheim’s collection.