1980s Abstract Expressionist Pop Art Painting Collage, Assemblage Hugh O'Donnell, 1988

Description

This is a mixed media collage with an almost sculpture quality to it. it is hand signed. size includes frame. … more This is a mixed media collage with an almost sculpture quality to it. it is hand signed. size includes frame.

Hugh O'Donnell is an English painter, printmaker and site-specific artist. Born in London in 1950. From 1968–74 he undertook study at various institutions across England, including the University of the Arts in London, the University College Falmouth in Cornwall, the University of Central England in Birmingham and the University of Gloucestershire. In 1974 he was awarded a fellowship to the Kyoto City University of Arts in Japan, and upon his return completed his thesis on Japanese monumental screen painting in the Momoyama period at the Royal College of Art in 1979. Although he had been exhibiting regularly since 1975, both in one-person and group shows, it was after exhibiting in the 1980 show British Art Now: An American Perspective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum that O’Donnell became internationally recognized. He has exhibited extensively in New York, as well as throughout the USA, Japan, Europe, and the United Kingdom. Public venues include The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Royal Academy, London; The Walker Art Gallery, Minneapolis; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo and The Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan; XLII Venice Biennale, Italy; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC and the IV Medellin Biennial, Colombia. In 1983 O’Donnell worked with Ken Tyler and other workshop staff at Tyler Graphics (they printed art world legends such as Frank Stella, David Hockney and Roy Lichtenstein), to complete the series of 25 paper pulp works entitled Weapons of desire. A unique mould was created for each image, through which coloured paper pulps and dyes were applied to white paper pulp bases, creating an almost painterly effect. O’Donnell returned to Tyler Graphics in 1992 to create his Mélusine works, the title of which refers to a female water spirit from European folklore—a mermaid with two tails. His abstract expressionism style taps into the lyrical and emotional roots of modernism, aligning his work more with that of artists such as Clyfford Still, Philip Guston and Franz Klein, than with postmodernist trends. He sets up a correspondence with gesture between the rhythms of the body and those of nature, through a method of automatic drawing that emulates the ebb and flow of the elements. Also important to his style are his studies of the expressive implications of the painter-calligrapher's approach to painting. Hugh was included in the travelling exhibition, British art now: an American perspective, originating at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
His work was printed by Graphicstudio, founded by Dr. Donald Saff as part of the renaissance in American printmaking in the 1960s, in the company of studios such as ULAE, Tamarind, and Gemini GEL. This renaissance brought artists involved in the Pop art movement, such as Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, and Jim Dine, together with a growing number of trained printmakers from around the world.
O’Donnell’s work is in many museum collections including The Addison Gallery of American Art Andover, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York; Rose Art Museum Boston, MA: Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Denver Museum of Art; Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Yokohama Museum of Art Japan; Polk Museum of Art, Florida; Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo; The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Arts, CT; London Contemporary Arts Society; The Tate Gallery London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Arts Council of Great Britain; British Council, U.K.
O’Donnell has been Professor of Painting at Boston University College of Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts, since 1996. In addition to continuing his development as a fine artist painter, since 1994 Hugh O'Donnell has also developed as a digital site-specific artist. He has created many site-specific digital print and video wall productions for companies such as Verizon, The Mohegan Sun Casino and most recently Canon USA. less