"Kelly Dance" Painting by Robert Gonzales

Details

Description

Well reviewed color field painter in the 70s, Robert Gonzales passed away before he could garner the fame he may … Read more Well reviewed color field painter in the 70s, Robert Gonzales passed away before he could garner the fame he may have had if he lived longer. He was right up there with Helen Frankenthaler in his use of color, and his work has the energy and vitality that make his works feel lively and intriguing look after look. He was the star artist of my mother's art gallery in San Francisco, and I have been thrilled to live with a number of his works for decades.
.................................
In 1971 he took a portfolio of drawings to the Malvina Miller Gallery, who encouraged him to keep up his work and who later placed one of his works in a group show in Oakland. He also held his first solo exhibition at the Galeria de la Raza that same year, to critical acclaim. By the late 1970s he has garnered a reputation as an up and coming artist, with works being purchased by major collectors such as Margarget Walker, the Achenbach Foundation, and others, and write ups of his shows appear in ArtWeek magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle. A brief bout with cancer found in his leg waylaid his progress, but by 1980 he was exhibiting throughout California as well as in Chicago and Seattle. Critics call him a leader of the new "Lyrical Abstraction" genre of painting.

Success continued into the following year and in 1981 he had garnered attention from several museums and major collectors, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Louise Barco Allrich of The Allrich Gallery. Unfortunately, by mid year he began experiencing serious fatigue, and it was discovered that his cancer had returned. At the peak of his career, Robert Gonzales died on December 5, 1981. In his honor, the first exhibition of San Francisco artists held at the Moscone Center in 1982 was dedicated to him, and several shows of his work were held over the next decade, including a major exhibition at The Mexican Museum in 1990 titled "Portraits on the Wind: a retrospective exhibition of Robert Gonzales," featuring thirty-five paintings from several collections. See less