Charles Millard

Geometric Abstraction was born of Cubism and nourished by Russian Constructivism and the Bauhaus. It was, and is, an inevitable consequence of the rise of abstraction, a counterpoint to such trends as Fauvism and Expressionism, and a continuation of the Classical tradition. It is not a movement or a style, properly speaking, but a manner of thinking and working. It is perhaps the most important of the 20th century expressions in paint of the spirit of Poussin and Ingres, as opposed to Rubens and Delacroix, the contemporary embodiment of the linear, as opposed to the painterly. While occasionally happily married to the painterly, as in the work of Hans Hofmann, it has by and large gone its own way.

Thus described, Geometric Abstraction would seem to be a European phenomenon. It has had, however, important American roots. A convincing argument could be made for the work of, say, Patrick Henry Bruce as one of its native precursors. It is nonetheless clear that the presence in this country of such émigrés as Mondrian, Albers, and Bolotowsky, and of their pictures, gave significant encouragement to those American artists whose inclination was to follow a similar course. This is apparent in the work of painters like Ludwig Sander, who was of the Abstract Expressionist generation but not of Abstract Expressionism. In the reaction to Abstract Expressionism during the 1960s and '70s, Geometric Abstraction found an important outlet in certain aspects of Minimalism, and it is healthily with us today.

Geometric Abstraction has been a comparatively quiet and little noticed aspect of modem art. Its austerity has kept many from realizing how accomplished it can be, as Ingres' austerity blinded many to his remarkable colorism. Not only has Geometric Abstraction been less noticed as a genre, but the work of many of its individual practitioners has been too little seen and credited. One hopes that the present exhibition will be but the first of many to re-present Geometric Abstraction, not only so that individual works by relatively neglected artists can be brought to light, but to assist in the comprehension and assimilation into the history of modem art of an important historical tradition.