Stanley Whitney Untitled, 2016

Focus, February 10, 2023 March 10, 2023

Stanley Whitney's work is inspired by a broad cultural and historical spectrum of references, ranging from color, Roman architecture, the American quilting tradition, and jazz. Filtered by his intuition, this mix of correspondences encapsulates the infinite possibility that exists in the the geometric motifs of his work.

A monotype is a unique print, typically painterly in effect, made by applying paint or printing ink to a flat sheet of metal, glass or wood. Whitney's monotypes are included in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Stanley Whitney was born in Philadelphia, PA, in 1946 and lives and works in New York and Solignano, Italy. His works have been featured in exhibitions since the early seventies. In 2015 the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, presented his major solo exhibition ”Dance the Orange.” In 2016 he had a solo exhibition at Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX. Whitney participated in documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel (2017) and in “Utopia Station” at the 50th Venice Biennial (2003).

He has been included in group exhibitions at, among others, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, Venice (2022), Moderna Museet, Malmö (2019); Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio (2018); American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York (2017); Camden Arts Centre, London (2016); Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago, and Contemporary Art Museum Houston (both 2014); Belvedere, Vienna (2012); The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (2008); Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach (2007); Art in General, New York (1998); Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania (1991); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (1981); and Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield (1976). He is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship (1996) and Pollock-Krasner Fellowship (2002) and won the first Robert De Niro, Sr. Prize in Painting (2011) and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Art Award (2010).

A comprehensive survey exhibition of his work is planned for 2023 at the Albright-Knox’s Buffalo AKG Art Museum in Buffalo, NY.