Laddie John Dill, California Modernist Abstract Laddie John Dill Abstract Oil Painting Modernism

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Laddie John Dill (American, b. 1943)
Untitled Composition
1983
2 1/2" x 8 1/2" image, 10" x 16" frame
Oil … Read more Laddie John Dill (American, b. 1943)
Untitled Composition
1983
2 1/2" x 8 1/2" image, 10" x 16" frame
Oil painting with pastel on paper
Hand signed and dated lower right
Provenance: James Concord Gallery, Los Angeles, California (label verso)


Laddie John Dill was born in Long Beach, CA in 1943. He graduated from Chouinard Art Institute in 1968 with a BFA. After graduating, Dill became a printing apprentice and worked closely with established artists, like Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jasper Johns. Laddie John Dill’s work is in the permanent collections of national and international institutions such as Museum of Modern Art, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; High Museum, GA; The Phillips Collection, DC; Chicago Art Institute, IL; Smithsonian, DC; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark; Pio Monte della Misericordia, Italy; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; and Museo Jumex, Mexico. He currently lives and works in Venice, CA where he maintains a studio. This is the same color palette as the Memphis Milano works and Peter Shire Sculpture. A central figure in the California Light and Space movement, Laddie John Dill has been crafting light and earthy materials like concrete, glass, sand, and metal into luminous sculptures, wall pieces, and installations since the 1970s. Referring to his choice of materials, Dill explains: “I was influenced by [Robert] Rauschenberg, Keith Sonnier, Robert Smithson, Dennis Oppenheim, and Robert Irwin, who were working with earth materials, light, and space as an alternative to easel painting.” Among his most celebrated works is an untitled installation from 1971, for which Dill filled a gallery with mounds of pale sand, topped with precisely arranged glass panels illuminated by the soft, green glow of argon lighting set just beneath the surface. When he does use canvas, he paints with pigments derived from cement and natural oxides. His work bears a relationship to the Light & Space Movement and Minimalism artists James Turrell, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, Billy Al Bengston, Joe Novak, Peter Alexander and Lita Albuquerque. See less