Paul Feeley

Paul Feeley (July 27, 1910 − June 10, 1966) was an artist and director of the Art Department at Bennington College during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Though Feeley was born in the same generation as the Abstract Expressionists, his mature style was hardly gestural; instead, according to Feeley, his paintings "just sat still and had a presence rather than some sort of an agitated fit."

His greatest source of admiration was the Great Pyramids in Egypt.

Gene Baro stated that Feeley's mature style did not overtly depend on any contemporary art movements of the time.

His paintings are best summarized as follows:

"Primarily a painter, Feeley favored canvases in which simple geometric forms are deployed singly or in repeating groups. He used upright barbell or baluster shapes, oblongs that resemble peanuts, small solid-looking arches and wavy-countered squares and rectangles. Fascinated with modularity, Feeley often surrounded his forms with white bands and colored borders that echo the contours of the central shape. While the paint handling in his work is always restrained and stencils were used to repeat forms, Feeley is not a 'hard edge' painter; his geometry is too clearly of the handmade variety. The solid colors (predominantly red, blue, green, orange) are usually limited to two colors on a white ground, although the watercolors often use more hues per composition than the paintings."

In 1931, Feeley moved to New York to pursue his studies.

He studied portrait painting with Cecilia Beaux, figure painting with George Bridgeman and Thomas Hart Benton, and mural painting from 1931-1934.

In fact, in 1934, Feeley joined the Mural Painters Society of New York and became increasingly engaged with mural projects.

From 1934-1939, he would teach at the Cooper Union, where he'd later become the head of industrial design.

In 1940, he would join the staff at Bennington College, where he was fundamental in establishing its art department.

Aside from a brief hiatus from 1943-1946, when he volunteered for service with the United States Marines, he remained committed to the art of his contemporaries, he exposed his students — Helen Frankenthaler among them — to many of the most significant artists of his time.

He helped to organize the first retrospective exhibition of modernist sculptor David Smith, in 1951 and helped with the 1955 Hans Hofmann and the 1952 Jackson Pollock retrospectives which were both organized by Clement Greenberg.

Clement Greenberg included Feeley’s work in his exhibition Emerging Talent at the Kootz Gallery in 1954, alongside other Color-Field painters like Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland.

Critics have argued that his work is distinct from Color Field painting in its classical rigor and forms, whether derived from ancient Greek and Moorish decorative patterns or Cycladic and Egyptian statues.

Art critic Gene Baro argued that the Color Field classification was in certain ways inappropriate.

He saw Feeley's work as something wholly independent and not dialectically related to the Abstract Expressionist legacy - "in the way that Baroque art is remote from ancient Egyptian art and presumes different standards of value and habits of mind."

Paul Feeley’s early style has been compared to that of the Abstract Expressionists.

It was gestural, the painter’s hand was evident, many colors were present on the canvas at one time, and there was an overall abstraction of form.

Lawrence Campbell, writing in 1955, described his paintings as “blobs elbowing each other and being rained on;” in one painting in particular Campbell described, “a strange red blob on a green ground successfully not looking like anything but itself.” This is his infamous “Red Blotch” from 1954.

Feeley himself saw this painting as a breakthrough: “So I suppose the reason that I can see that red and green picture as significant has to do with the absence of all those textural variations and all that brush dynamism.

I suppose in fact I just placed it, and didn’t do anything about the dynamic brush work, rather allowed the paint just to sit there.

With the red and green picture, I think I just sensed the shape of the canvas as an event, as against the notion of the canvas creating an arena for events.” At this point, his focus shifts away from paintings that project themselves onto their viewers and towards paintings that bring you in.

Feeley was also an important Color Field painter and in the early 1960s he was included in the catalog and exhibition called Post-Painterly Abstraction organized by Clement Greenberg in 1964.

By 1960, Feeley was known for his use of unprimed canvas.

His style had also tightened up significantly, favoring clean lines and geometric forms over the more popular Pollock-inspired gestural style.

By this time, he had cut down on surface variations in his paintings to avoid light reflecting on different patches of paint.

Lawrence Alloway, in an interview with Feeley, recollects how Feeley described this change as “getting away from the madness, too much dynamic energy, of the earlier style.” At the same time, his use of color was also simplified, favoring only two to three colors per canvas.

Writing in 1960, Campbell explained the dichotomy present in Feeley’s paintings: “On the one hand, they are simple.

On the other, they suggest complicated theories, ideas and emotions.” He also suggests that Feeley’s forms are biomorphic, suggestive of “tiny living things greatly magnified.”

In the early to mid 1960s, Feeley continued to perfect his forms.

He makes greater use of negative space, isolating his quatrefoil and dumbbell shaped forms in the center of the canvas.

Judd explained how his paintings contained a “peculiar ornateness” that struck a balance between “being easily identified as ornate and Moorish and being thought something more new and interesting.”

Feeley and Greenberg also organized a Kenneth Noland Exhibition at Bennington in 1961.

Donald Judd reviewed a Paul Feeley show at Betty Parsons Gallery in 1962.

Judd noted how Feeley had improved his canvas staining technique: “Also, as before, both bright colors are stained into unprimed canvas.

This time the colors are opaque, fully intense and definitely opposed, and the edges are unbled, harder and often stressed by a narrow line of canvas.” These improvements clearly impressed Judd, who stated “The paintings are stronger than before and thorough…The greater scale, not size, since the painting is smaller than several others, adds considerable force and abstraction…The new scale makes the forms and the rectangle of the work more nearly identical, makes the painting more autonomous and exclusive.”

Feeley had his first full scale retrospective (held posthumously) at the Matthew Marks Gallery, 2002 in New York City.

In 2015 and 2016, the Albright Knox Art Gallery and Columbus Museum of Art held his first museum retrospective, titled "Imperfections by Chance: Paul Feeley Retrospective, 1956-1966."

His paintings are characterized by bright colors; simple, abstract forms; and symmetrically arranged, but serene, compositions.