Gene Davis: Interval

April 14-July 31, 2007

  Gene Davis was one of Washington, DC’s most influential and successful artists, best known for his paintings of vertical stripes. In 2007, The Kreeger Museum presented a timely and extensive exhibition focusing on the artist’s use of interval in his stripe paintings, micro-paintings and works on paper. The exhibition was co-curated by Jean Lawlor Cohen and Andrea Pollan and included a co-authored four-color catalogue.

Davis worked during the heyday of the 1960s Color Field, Washington Color School and Minimalist movements, yet his work provides a different kind of visual experience. Davis uses stripes as events. The intervals between the variously colored stripes incorporate both space and time. Color plays a key role as it adds a sometimes jazzy or syncopated rhythm in some works and a more restrained and diffused tempo in others. Cohen and Pollan examinee the inherent and varied musicality in the works through a focused presentation of works from 1960 to 1985.

Gene Davis: Interval was an integral part of ColorField.remix, a citywide project, spanning the peak of the spring and summer of 2007, celebrating the many legacies of the generation of Color Field and Washington Color School artists.


Gene Davis, Black Balloon, Courtesy of Charles Cowles Gallery and the Estate of Gene Davis, Smithsonian American Art Museum