Grady McDonald "Coming Out" Blue Yellow Modernist Abstract 1974

Description

Beautiful oil abstract titled "Coming Out" by Grady McDonald (American, 1938-1980).
Signed lower right, titled and dated 1974 on verso. … more Beautiful oil abstract titled "Coming Out" by Grady McDonald (American, 1938-1980).
Signed lower right, titled and dated 1974 on verso. Unframed. Image, 50”H x 44”W.
Grady McDonald was a part of the Bay Area School of Abstract Expressionists. His work often blends traditional Cherokee imagery with modern abstract fields of expression.
Education:
Art Students League, New York; The New School, New York; City College, New York; San Francisco Art Institute; M.F.A., University of San Francisco (formerly Lone Mountain College).

Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions:
Two person exhibition with Gustavo Rivera, Exploratorium Studio, Palace of Fine Arts; Solo exhibition, Galeria Museo, San Francisco.
"There is a kind of spectral presence that illumines the surface qualities of these paintings with something that is not inherent in the materials and forms alone."
- Thomas Albright, San Francisco Chronicle, November 15, 1979

His imagery goes back to tribal symbols (Cherokee) and the drawings in tepees, shields and drums, all of it taken out of its literal contexts and given an extra thrust of visual meaning through abstraction.
- Alfred Frankenstein, San Francisco Chronicle 1978
Few of the artists of California achieved much recognition before the 1970s. Yet their influence was profound, broadening the definition of what art could be, carving out a place for West Coast artistic activity, providing examples of working artists (often as teachers) who were making California something more than New York's outback.
- Beat Culture and the New America: 1950-1965, Whitney Museum of American Art less