Richard Pousette-Dart
Biography

Richard Pousette-Dart was an American artist best known for his large-scale abstract paintings. A founder of the New York School of Painting his works were composed of aggregate patterns and forms with wild compositions.

After a brief stint at Bard College in 1936, he moved to New York City, seeking the independent artist lifestyle where he found himself alongside Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock. Pousette-Dart quickly rose to prominence as one of New York’s leading abstract painters, inspiring younger artists like Richard Tuttle and Robert Rauschenberg.

He had a unique perspective on art at the time and is quoted as saying “the greater the work of art, the more abstract and impersonal it is, the more it embodies universal experience, and the fewer specific personality traits it reveals.”

Pousette-Dart died on October 25, 1992 in New York, NY, and his work can be found in the collections of institutions like the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Vatican Museum in Rome, Italy.

Born: 1916
Died: 1992
Education: Scarborough School, Bard College in 1936 (one semester)

Exhibitions

Select Exhibitions

2019
Richard Pousette-Dart: Works 1940-1992, PACE NEW YORK (32 EAST 57TH STREET) 57TH STREET | NEW YORK | USA
Richard Pousette-Dart: Works 1940-1992, PACE LONDON MAYFAIR | LONDON | UK

2018
Richard Pousette-Dart: Beginnings, KETTLE’S YARD CAMBRIDGE | UK
Richard Pousette-Dart: Works 1940-1992, PACE LONDON MAYFAIR | LONDON | UK

2015
Richard Pousette-Dart: 1930s
THE DRAWING CENTER SOHO | NEW YORK | USA

2016
COLOR. Selected works by Sam Francis , Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Charles Pollock, Richard Pousette Dart, American Contemporary Art Gallery, Munich, Germany

2010
‘Artists of the Gallery’- Adolph Gottlieb, Charles Pollock, Richard Pousette-Dart, American Contemporary Art Gallery, Munich
Le Grand Geste, Sammlung Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Germany

2009
Peggy Guggenheim e la nuova pittura Americana, ARCA, Ex-Chiesa di San Marco, Vercelli, Italy

2007
Richard Pousette-Dart, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy
Transparent Reflections: Richard Pousette-Dart, Works on Paper, 1940-1992. Show traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honor, California and the Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio.

2006
Richard Pousette-Dart: Works on Paper, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, California
Richard Pousette-Dart: Presences: The Imploding of Color, Knoedler & Company, New York, New York
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Fifty Years of American Art, Grimaldi Forum Monaco, with Otto Hübner as curator for the Abstract Expressionism

2005–2006
Ecole de New York, MAMAC Nice, France
Action Painting-Arte Americana 1940-1970, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, Modena, Peggy Guggenheim Collection Venedig in cooperation with american contemporary art GALLERY

2004
Presence: Paintings and Works on Paper by Richard-Pousette-Dart, Valerie Carberry Gallery, Chicago

2003
Richard Pousette-Dart: Paintings and Works on Paper, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
Richard Pousette-Dart: Mythic Heads and Forms, Paintings and Drawings from 1935-1942, Knoedler & Company, New York, NY

2002
Richard Pousette-Dart: Works Selected from 1974-1991, Meredith Long & Company, Houston, TX

2001
Pousette-Dart: Contemplating the Sublime, Hill Gallery, Birmingham, MI

2000
Retrospective ‘The Living Edge’, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Boca Raton Museum, Florida
Richard Pousette-Dart, Gallery Camino Real, Boca Raton, FL
Richard Pousette-Dart: Paintings to Paper Black to White,Knoedler & Company, New York, NY
Conrad Marca-Relli, Institut Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt, Germany

1999
Pousette-Dart: Paintings, Tasende Gallery, West Hollywood, CA

1998
Retrospective in the Whitney Museum of American Art

1997
Retrospective in the Museum of Modern Art, N.Y.
American Abstract Expressionism, Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern , Germany (group)

1990–1992
Retrospektives in Indianapolis, Detroit, Columbus (Georgia), Washington

1986
Retrospective in the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale

1983
Time is the Mind of Space, Space is the Body of Time (E Series), Marisa del Re Gallery, New York
The Vision of a Poet, Schweyer-Galdo Gallery, Birmingham, Michigan
Works on Paper, Makler Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1981
Presences: Black and White, 1978-80, Marisa del Re Gallery, New York, New York

1978
Drawings’ The Arts Club of Chicago and Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, New York

1976
Recent Paintings, 1975-76, Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, New York

1975
Alletown Art Museum, Allentown, Pennsylvania
Edwin A Ulrich Museum of Art, The Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas

1974
Paintings from 1963-74, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
A Selection of Twelve Paintings, Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, New York

1970
Recent Paintings’ Obelisk Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, traveling exhibition

1969
Pousette-Dart: Presences, exhibition organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York

1967
Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, New York

1965
The Katonah Gallery, Katonah, New York

1964
Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, New York

1963
Retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York

1961
Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, New York
6th Biennal in the Museo de Arte Moderna, Sao Paulo, Brasil

1959
Abstract Painting ans Sculpture in America'(group)

1959
Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, New York

1958
Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, New York

1955
Predominantly White, Betty Parsons Gallery

1953
1953 Paintings, Betty Parsons Gallery

1951
‘Watercolors’, Betty Parsons Gallery

1951
Exhibitions of Works so Far Completed on Guggenheim Fellowship, Betty Parsons Gallery

1950
Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, New York

1949
Recent Paintings, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, New York

1948
‘Paintings’ Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, New York

1948
‘Brasses and Photographs’, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, New York

1947
Art of This Century, New York, New York

1946
Forms in Brass and Watercolors, Willard Gallery, New York, New York

1946
Paintings and Gouaches, Willard Gallery, New York, New York

1945
7 Paintings, Willard Gallery, New York, New York

1944
Forty American Moderns, 67 gallery, N.Y.C. (group)

1941
Artists Gallery, New York, New York