Vivian Springford (1913–2003) was an American painter and assemblage artist active in the second half of the 20th century. Springford's abstract paintings and collages are best known for their focus on using color to express captivating patterns and phenomena found in nature as well as from Chinese Calligraphy and Eastern forms of thought such as Taoism and Confucianism.

Biography

Springford was born in 1913 in Milwaukee. Her family moved to Detroit in 1926, and in 1930 to New York, when Springford's father, Herbert Henry Springford, became President of Servel, Inc., a refrigerator manufacturer. She attended the

Spence School The Spence School is an American all-girls private school in New York City, founded in 1892 by Clara B. Spence. Spence has about 740 students, with grades K-4 representing the Lower School, 5-8 representing the Middle School, and 9-12 represe ...

with her sister, Margaret, and graduated in 1932. Shortly after in November 1932, Springford was featured as one of ''"

Debutante A debutante, also spelled débutante ( ; from , ), or deb is a young woman of aristocratic or upper-class family background who has reached maturity and is presented to society at a formal "debut" ( , ; ) or possibly debutante ball. Origin ...

s of the Winter Season in New York"'' in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. She continued her studies at the

Arts Student League The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study fu ...

until 1946, primarily working under

Jon Corbino Jon Corbino (April 3, 1905 – July 10, 1964) was an Italian-born American painter. Born in Sicily, he emigrated to the United States and attended the Art Students League of New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His work is in the co ...

and

Robert Brackman Robert Brackman (September 25, 1898 – July 16, 1980) was an American artist and teacher, best known for large figural works, portraits, and still lifes. Biography Robert Brackman was born on September 25, 1898, in Odessa, Russian Empire (no ...

. Under their influence, Springford began her artistic career as a commercial illustrator in the 1930s to 40s, creating portraits of actresses, debutantes, and other society women for the local New York newspapers. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Springford worked as a commercial illustrator and portrait artist. Her commissions included portraits of actresses and socialites for local New York newspapers and the book 1939 Juggernaut: The Path Towards Dictatorship by Albert Carr, for which Springford created illustrated images of twenty global dictators. Her commercial portraiture throughout this time was stylized though highly realistic. By the 1950s Springford style was influenced by

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 ...

and East Asian art and culture. In the 1970s she created stain paintings. Springford suffered from

macular degeneration Macular degeneration, also known as age-related macular degeneration (AMD or ARMD), is a medical condition which may result in blurred vision, blurred or vision loss, no vision in the center of the visual field. Early on there are often no sym ...

and stopped painting by the 1990s. In the late 1990s much of her work, then in a storage locker, was brought to the attention of Gary Snyder Fine Art. Springford died in 2003.

Exhibitions

Springford has been represented in several solo and group exhibitions at institutions. Notable exhibitions were held at the National Academy of Design, New York, NY (1959); Great Jones Gallery, New York, NY (1960); Balin Traube Gallery, New York, NY (1962); Preston Gallery, New York, NY (1963); Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (1975); WIA Foundation, New York, NY (1976); Visual Arts Coalition, New York, NY (1979); Gary Snyder Fine Arts, New York, NY (1998, 2001, 2003, 2009); Peyton Wright Gallery, Santa Fe, NM (2014, 2015); Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson, WY (2017); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA (2019); Almine Rech, New York, NY (2018, 2020), and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (2021) among others. Springford debuted with a solo exhibition at Great Jones Gallery (September 26 – October 16, 1960). James R. Mellow, in an Arts Magazine review in 1960, remarked that Springford's calligraphic abstract works are “notable for a first one-man showing.” Springford's successful first exhibition was also featured in William Kronick's film, ''A Bowl of Cherries'' (1961), which was played at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

on a number of occasions. Its first showcase was on October 7, 1962, as the museum's "recent acquisition", and then on August 10, 1966, as part of the museum's film program, "The Thirties: U.S.A." Springford had a period of inactivity in the 1980s until the late 1990s due to declining health. In 1998, eighteen years after her last exhibition, art dealer Gary Snyder organized the first retrospective exhibition of Springford, titled ''Vivian Springford: Abstract Paintings 1956-1988''. The show generated great attention from the public and collectors alike, and was nearly sold out before the opening. In 2003, the year of Springford's death, her early works from the 1960s were again featured in a solo exhibition at Gary Snyder Fine Arts, ''West Meets East: A Memorial Exhibition of Painting on Canvas and Rice Paper by Vivian Springford'' (September 12 — October 25, 2003). Reviewing the exhibition for ''The New York Times'', Grace Glueck praised the "strong sense of color" and "exuberant linear scribblings and doodlings". Springford was a leading member of the Women in the Arts Foundation (WIA), through which she has had several exhibitions, including ''Works on Paper: Women Artists'' at the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

in 1975 and a solo exhibition at WIA Foundation, New York, NY in 1976. Other museum exhibitions that included Springford's works are

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With an encyclopedic collection of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums betwe ...

's ''Women of Abstract Expressionism'' (June 12, 2016 – September 25, 2016) and

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

's ''Contemporary Art: Five Propositions'' (October 26, 2019 – May 4, 2020). In 2018,

Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times. Education and early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawre ...

, ''

'' co-chief art critic, selected exhibitions in New York that she believed provided "a new visibility" to painting's present and recent past. One of the seven selections was the solo exhibition of Vivian Springford at

Almine Rech Almine Rech Ruiz-Picasso ( Rech) is a French art dealer and owner of the eponymous contemporary art gallery. The gallery has exhibition spaces in Paris, Brussels, London, New York, Shanghai, Gstaad and Monaco. The gallery opened in 1997 in Paris. E ...

, New York, NY (September 12 - October 20, 2018): ''"''Most of the paintings here feature concentric poolings of translucent colors that intimate flowers, clouds and water reflections. They build on the potential of

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 March 6, 1986) was an American Modernism, modernist painter and drafter, draftswoman whose career spanned seven decades and whose work remained largely independent of major art movements. Called the "M ...

's early watercolors — as O'Keeffe did not — but also evoke the art critic Robert Hughes's epithet about the Color Field paintings being "giant watercolors". The exhibition at Almine Rech was also selected as one of the five "Season Openers" by Whitewall Magazine along with "New Work: Etel Adnan" at

SFMOMA The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art, and has b ...

and "Sarah Lucas: Au Naturel" at the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-nam ...

. In June 2021, Springford's had her first solo exhibition in Asia at Taka Ishii Gallery in Tokyo. Exhibited were works from Springford's Star Stuff and Expansionist series which have not been exhibited publicly since 1979. In 2023 her work was included in the exhibition '' Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970'' at the

Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fi ...

in London.

Publications

* Marter, Joan, et al. ''Women of abstract expressionism''. Denver, CO; New Haven, CT: Denver Art Museum in association with Yale University Press, 2016. * Schwartz, Alexandra and Shechet, Arlene. ''Vivian Springford''. Brussels, Belgium: Almine Rech Gallery Editions, 2018. * Peyton Wright Gallery. ''Vivian Springford''. * ''Review''. New York, NY: The Village Voice, 1963. * ''Review''. New York, NY: The Villager (Greenwich Village, NY), 1960. * ''Review''. New York, NY: Arts Magazine, 1960.

References

External links

*
Vivian Springford Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Springford, Vivian Abstract expressionist artists American abstract painters 1913 births 2003 deaths American socialites Artists from New York (state) 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women painters 21st-century American women

Biography

Exhibitions

Publications

References

Further reading

External links