Washington Color School

A visual-art movement of the late 1950s through the mid-1960s, the Washington Color School was originally a group of painters who showed works in the "Washington Color Painters" exhibit at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art in Washington, DC from June 25-September 5, 1965. The exhibition subsequently traveled to several other venues in the United States, including the Walker Art Center. The exhibition's organizer was Gerald "Gerry" Nordland and the painters included Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis, Howard Mehring, Thomas "Tom" Downing, and Paul Reed.

The Washington Color School artists painted largely abstract works, and were central to the larger color field movement. Though not generally considered abstract expressionists, in so far as much of their work is more orderly than—and not apparently motivated by the philosophy behind—abstract expressionism, there are parallels between the Washington Color School and the abstract expressionists largely to their north in New York City. Minimally, the use of stripes, washes, and fields of single colors of paint on canvas were common to most artists in both groups.

After their initial, benchmark exhibition, Davis, Mehring, Downing, and Reed exhibited at various times at Jefferson Place Gallery, which was originally directed by Alice Denney and later owned and directed by Nesta Dorrance. Other artists associated with the group include Sam Gilliam, Anne Truitt, Mary Pinchot Meyer, Leon Berkowitz, Jacob Kainen Alma Thomas, and James Hilleary among others. The group is sometimes thought to have expanded as it achieved a dominant presence in the Washington DC visual art community through the 1960s and into the 1970s. Along with the original Washington Color School painters, a second generation also exhibited at Jefferson Place Gallery. The movement remained influential even as some of its members dispersed elsewhere.

Hilda Thorpe was a color field painter who made over sized paintings and paper sculpture and who taught a generation of metro Washington, D.C. artists. Other Washington Color School female artists include Anne Truitt whose work relates to the 'minimalist-purity' side of three dimensional painterly objects and painters Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Alma Thomas. Other artists include Sam Gilliam's suspended paintings (by contrast they are almost baroque in sensibility,) Rockne Kreb's transparent sculptures, light & laser works, Ed McGowin's vacuum formed pieces which he was ending and moving towards a more personal art (tableau,) Bill Christenberry's neon works which lead him to deal more directly with his roots, Bob Stackhouse, Tom Green,] all fall under this art movement.

During Spring and Summer 2007, arts institutions in Washington, DC staged a city-wide celebration of Color Field painting, including exhibitions at galleries and museums of works by members of the Washington Color School. In 2011, a group of Washington art collectors began the Washington Color School Project, to gather and publish information about the history of the Color Painters and abstract art in Washington.