STUDIO F

Larry Poons

1992

Though born in Japan, Larry Poons grew up outside New York City. In 1955, he attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Two years later, he transferred to The School of The Museum of Fine Arts to study painting.

He moved to Manhattan in 1958, where he met the art critic Henry Geldzahler and saw the proto-Minimalist work of Frank Stella. In 1963, he painted Orange Crush, and had his first solo exhibition. By 1965, his work had been included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In the early 1970s, Poons began experimenting with various techniques including the pouring and throwing of paint. In 1981, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston mounted a major exhibition of his paintings from the 1970s.

His deep interest in music influences his work by expressing a rhythm within the context of form. In the 1960's, he created an intriguing form of Systemic painting with optical illusionistic implications. In 1968 he adopted a painterly idiom and returned to gestures of abstract expressionism. Subsequently, he moved in the direction of matter painting, heavily textured canvases, with long vertical dragged brushstrokes, densely arranged in rich color patterns. More recently, Poons has arrived at a more complex style, at once richer and more playful.

Larry Poons has been included in over 60 shows worldwide and is in major collections throughout the world including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, NYC, San Francisco Museum, Museum of Modern Art, NY, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirschhorn, Wash, DC and the Tate Gallery, London.

The STUDIO-f lithographic monoprints Poons created in December 1992 show exciting color strokes. His high energy is expressed throughout. An illusion of dimension is created by the rhythm of layered colors and shapes vibrate. Poons produced large and small monoprints with exciting variations in color and design.

Poons currently resides in Florida and New York.

Studio F