Lamar Briggs, Modernist Abstract Expressionist Color Field Acrylic "April Dance Form" Painting, c.1980s

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Large Abstract Expressionist color field painting. Similar in the manner of the colorful abstract works of Paul Jenkins. This one … Read more Large Abstract Expressionist color field painting. Similar in the manner of the colorful abstract works of Paul Jenkins. This one is a bit more muted in color.
Lamar Briggs (1935-2015) Well known Texas artist was born in Lafayette, Louisiana and attended the University of Southern Louisiana, where he initially studied architecture before attending the University of Houston where he studied painting under Paul Maxwell, Jack Boynton, and Robert Morris before graduating from the Colorado Institute of Art, where he was inducted into their Hall of Fame in 2005. Lamar’s work is internationally acclaimed and he has been listed in “Who’s Who in American Art” since 1962. Among the many honors he has received is the “Ford Foundation” award. In 1963 this award was juried by Alexander Calder, James Brooks and James Johnson Sweeney. Briggs was given the award at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. The award was presented by Willem de Kooning. Lamar’s first show of paintings
followed in 1965 at the Meredith Long Gallery in Houston, which attracted both local and national attention. By 1969 he left his position as an art director. Lamar’s reputation as an abstract colorist was established in the early 1970’s when he began experimenting with acrylic paints. By 1976, he was painting full-time while developing techniques for lithographs, silkscreens, and monotypes. Lamar was known for the infinite variety of shades and tints in his work and in particular, the transparency of color, pioneered by Helen Frankenthaler and later Sam Francis, which has a fluid and spontaneous feeling on the canvas celebrating a joy in life and in movement that he saw in landscape, nature, light, and music - particularly jazz. By 1972 Briggs started coming into his own as a proficient colorist. In 1971 he presented a one-man exhibition at the United States Consulate in Guadalajara, Mexico. In 1982 Lamar participated in a Group Show, the “Rutgers Archives for Printmaking Studios”, at the Zimmerli Art Museum in New Brunswick, New Jersey. This prestigious print show traveled for several years throughout the U.S. Briggs was featured in “The Houston Century” (Top Artists of the Century) in the Houston Chronicle on December 12, 1999. From 1990 through 1994 Lamar Briggs was the Guest Artist at the Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass, Colorado. Lamar’s work has been show in Museums and Galleries in Canada, Mexico, England, Germany, Switzerland and Hungary as well as throughout the United States. He has participated in over 140 group and one-man exhibitions in his artistic career. Lamar Briggs’ longevity and fame are attributable to his curiosity of the world around him and his constant experimentation in the arts. Over the years, Lamar Briggs’ talents as an abstract artist have been applied to paintings, monotypes, watercolors, bronze sculpture, woodcuts, and tapestry. He is known worldwide as a colorist inspired by music and nature.

permanent collections:
Beaumont Art Museum, TX
Chicago Art Institute, IL
Denver Art Museum, CO
Library of Congress, Washington DC
Mint Museum of Art. Charlotte, NC
Moody Foundation, Galveston, TX
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Rice University, Houston, TX
Rutgers University Archives, Rutgers University, NJ
University of Texas, Austin See less