Howard Mehring (1931–1978) was a twentieth-century

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

born in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Howard Mehring is associated with Color Field painting and the

Washington Color School The Washington Color School, also known as the Washington, D.C., Color School, was an art movement starting during the 1950s–1970s in Washington, D.C., in the United States, built of abstract expressionist artists. The movement emerged during ...

and the artists at Jefferson Place Gallery. Mehring and Robert Gates both received grants from The Woodward Foundation to travel in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

during 1971 to broaden their art backgrounds. His connection with Vincent Melzac was instrumental in developing his work. Early in his career (1956–1958) he shared studio space with Thomas Downing, with whom he had been a student of

Kenneth Noland Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s as a minimal ...

Catholic University Catholic higher education includes universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher education privately run by the Catholic Church, typically by religious institutes. Those tied to the Holy See are specifically called pontifical univers ...

. Some of their paintings from that period are difficult to tell apart. Mehring's early work is a "Washington version" of

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

, with the loose handling of paint on a surface but a much more transparent use of

magna paint Magna is the brand name of an acrylic resin paint, developed by Leonard Bocour and sold by Bocour Artist Colors, Inc. in 1947. It is somewhat different from modern acrylic paint, as it is composed of pigments ground in an acrylic resin brought in ...

, an

acrylic paint Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. Dep ...

developed by

Leonard Bocour Leonard Bocour (March 18, 1910 – September 6, 1993) was an American artist. Bocour was born in New York City. Around 1933, he formed the New York City based company Bocour Artists Colors. He was the co-developer along with Sam Golden of Ma ...

. The stylistic resemblance to '' Mountains and Sea'' by

Helen Frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...

is obvious. As Mehring developed as an artist his work became much more structured. He went from a painted surface with an all-over pattern to cutting up canvas with the all-over pattern and gluing it back together. Later he used some of those same forms to make "

hard-edge painting Hard-edge painting (also referred to as Hard Edge or Hard-edged) is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas often consist of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstra ...

s", such as ''Chroma Double'' from 1965, in the collection of the

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. It has one of the largest single co ...

. Mehring and the other

painters were in debt to the writings of

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...

. In 1964 Greenberg included Mehring in his traveling museum exhibition called '' Post-painterly Abstraction.''

References

*Introduction & Text by Roy Slade, "The Corcoran & Washington Art" Copyright 1976 The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.: 2000 copies printed by Garamond Press, Baltimore, MD LCCC# 76-42098 *Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Interview with Gerald Nordland Conducted by Susan Larsen, Chicago, Illinois May 25–26, 2004 http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/nordla04.htm *''Washington Art'', catalog of exhibitions at State University College at Potsdam, NY & State University of New York at Albany, 1971 o copyright or LCCC # listed Introduction by Renato G. Danese, printed by Regal Art Press, Troy NY. *''The Vincent Melzac Collection,'' Foreword by

Walter Hopps Walter "Chico" Hopps (May 3, 1932 – March 20, 2005) was an American museum director, gallerist, and curator of contemporary art. Hopps helped bring Los Angeles post-war artists to prominence during the 1960s, and later went on to redefine pract ...

, Introduction by Ellen Gross Landau, Retrospective Notes on the Washington Color School by

Barbara Rose Barbara Ellen Rose (June 11, 1936December 25, 2020) was an American art historian, art critic, curator, and college professor. Rose's criticism focused on 20th-century American art, particularly minimalism and abstract expressionism, as well as ...

, Copyright 1971 The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.: printed by Garamond/Pridemark Press, Baltimore, MD LCCC#75-153646 *''Howard Mehring'', Conner Contemporary Art, Washington D. C., http://www.connercontemporary.com/artists/howard-mehring/

External links

Washington Post Obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mehring, Howard 20th-century American painters American male painters American abstract painters 1931 births 1978 deaths Catholic University of America alumni Painters from Washington, D.C. 20th-century American male artists