Leonard Nelson - "A Life in Art"

"The painting must exist by itself and not be dependant upon 'story telling' elements anymore than music must be dependant on words"

"Painting is the individual expression
of a personal experience
through the use of
color, mass, line, space,
texture, time and movement"

1912 - 1993

Leonard Nelson was part of the first generation of abstract expressionists — a group who came to be known as the New York School — along with Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, Willem DeKooning, Mark Rothko, William Baziotes, Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still, Hans Hoffman, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhart, Franz Kline, Stanley William Hayter, and Melville Price. Leonard Nelson had his first New York solo exhibition in 1949 at Peridot Gallery, followed by his second one man show at Hugo Gallery in 1950. Not only was he shown by Betty Parsons Gallery for three years, but Parsons chose Nelson's work in 1947 to represent her gallery at the all-important Art Institute of Chicago Annual centered on Abstract and Surrealism. Nelson also was shown at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century and Mortimer Brandt Gallery.

Leonard Nelson had been painting for many years before the term "Abstract Expressionism" was applied to the Splatter and Daub School of Painting by Robert Coates, art critic for the New Yorker, in 1946. Nelson is an important figure in the development of Abstract Expressionism in the history of American Art. He has been called a "bridge" between Modernism and Abstract Expressionism.

more ...