Oli Sihvonen

Oli Sihvonen
Born 1921
Brooklyn, New York
Died 1991
New York, New York
Nationality Finnish-American
Education Black Mountain College
Known for Abstract painting, study of color
Movement Geometric abstraction

Oli Sihvonen (1921-1991) was a post-war American artist known for hard-edge abstract paintings.[1] Sihvonen's style was greatly influenced by Joseph Albers who taught him color theory and Bauhaus aesthetics at Black Mountain College in the 1940s.[2] Sihvonen was also influenced by Russian Constructivism, Piet Mondrian,[1] and Pierre Matisse. His work has been linked to Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Hard-Edge and Op-Art.[2]

Career

Oli Sihvonen was a Finnish-American born in Brooklyn, New York in 1921. He began his art career by attending the Norwich Art School, now known as Norwich University College of the Arts, in Connecticut from 1933 to 1938. He then studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1938 to 1941.[3] He served in the U. S. Army during World War II. After which he studied art from his mentor Joseph Albers at Black Mountain College in North Carolina from 1946 to 1948. At Black Mountain he met and befriended many people including Buckminster Fuller, Merce Cunningham, Robert Creeley, and John Cage.[2]

Throughout his career Sihvonen was noted for his dedication to painting that began at Black Mountain College and carried through to his time in Taos, Mexico where he started to be recognized for his ellipse paintings, and then also in New York where he received much critical, if not financial, success.[3] "His entire body of work remained clean, objective and flat, with no gestural or emotional contrivances."[4]

After graduating from Black Mountain, Sihvonen lived and studied in New Mexico under the G.I. Bill at Louis Ribak’s Taos Valley Art School from 1949 to 1950.[4] He then went to Mexico where he painted murals. He then moved to Washington D.C. and later New York where he taught at Hunter College and Cooper Union.[5] In the 1950s Sihvonen moved to Taos, New Mexico where he stayed until the 1960s. During this time he painted large canvases and diptychs.[5] While in Taos he was considered a part of a group of modern artists known as the Taos Moderns.[2] Because of the scale and subject matter of his paintings there wasn't a strong market for them in New Mexico in the 1950s and 1960s, but he was gaining attention in New York.[4] In 1965 The Museum of Modern Art acquired one of his Ellipse paintings for the exhibition "The Responsive Eye."[2] He moved to back to New York in 1967.[4]

Through the 1970s and 1980s Sihvonen continued to paint and exhibit regularly. He spent time with Allan Graham in New York - in the mid to late 1980s Sihvonen gave Graham a roll of echocardiograms of his heart and suggested he make something out of them.[3] These became Graham's 1995 series Heart Sutra and they were exhibited alongside a selection of Sihvonen's paintings in 2000 at a SITE Santa Fe exhibition.[3]

Awards

Selected Public Collections

Exhibitions

References

  1. 1 2 "Oli Sihvonen - Reviews - Art in America". www.artinamericamagazine.com. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Oli Sihvonen: Energy Fields, Life as a Painter, Selections from His Career press release" (PDF). James Kelly Contemporary. February 2012. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Shields, Kathleen; Graham, Allan (2000-01-01). As real as thinking: Alan Graham/TH. Santa Fe: SITE Santa Fe. ISBN 0965058379.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Oli Sihvonen: The Final Years :: The Harwood Museum of Art :: An exhibition of Taos Modernist Oli Sihvonen's late work at the". www.harwoodmuseum.org. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  5. 1 2 ManagedArtwork.com. "David Richard Gallery - Oli Sihvonen - Oli-Sihvonen.cfm". www.davidrichardgallery.com. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  6. ↑ "Oli Sihvonen. Duplex. 1963 | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  7. ↑ "Whitney Museum of American Art: Oli Sihvonen". collection.whitney.org. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  8. ↑ "Sihvonen, Oli | The Art Institute of Chicago". www.artic.edu. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  9. ↑ ManagedArtwork.com. "David Richard Gallery - Color: Stained, Brushed and Poured". www.davidrichardgallery.com. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  10. ↑ "Dallas Museum of Art Presents Five Focused Installations Highlighting Work from the Museum's Acclaimed Contemporary Collection Beginning March 13 | Dallas Museum of Art". www.dma.org. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 exhibit-E.com. "Sandra Gering Inc. - Estate of Oli Sihvonen". www.sandrageringinc.com. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
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