Acrylic Paint

Abstract expressionist painting completed in 1973 by artist Peter Bradley. The painting has red and orange undertones with a gestural splatter on top of the colored layer. The painting is signed, titled and dated by the artist on the back of the canvas. It is framed in a wooden frame with a gold trim.

Peter Bradley, born 1940 in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, is an American painter and sculptor and former art dealer. He attended the Society of Arts and Crafts in Detroit and subsequently Yale University where he left prior to finishing the program. His work was included in the 1973 Whitney Biennial. As an art dealer he was the associate director of the Perls Galleries from 1968 until 1975. He later donated his papers from this period to the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution. As Bradley continued to work as a painter during this time, he made connections while supporting himself through work as a gallery salesperson, handling such artists as Picasso and Calder. These contacts led to Bradley being invited to exhibit his work at The Whitney Museum in the “Contemporary Black Artists of America” show. But Bradley wanted his work to be considered with other contemporary artists, not simply as a black artist, and he declined to show. The criticism among the black community was that there was little black participation in organizing the Whitney exhibit, and in response, the Menil Foundation planned to fund an exhibit that would place black artists and curators at the center of organizing an exhibit of contemporary art. Bradley was invited by the Menil Foundation to curate “The DeLuxe Show” in Houston, which he organized integrating some of the most well-known contemporary artists in 1971 with no regard to race. This was a turning point for black artists that began to change the dialogue about which artists get representation. Bradley is known to have had a direct effect on the "New New Painters" movement, a group with a core of nine abstract artists that developed in 1978 coincident with the invention and development of acrylic gel paint by the paint chemist Sam Golden. Bradley's work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; African American Museum (Lose Angeles); André Emmerich Gallery; The Industrial Bank of Japan, Hong Kong; Aldrich Museum; Hayward Museum; University of Sydney; Princeton University; University of California, Berkeley; Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio; Chairman Bank, Boston, MA; Johannesburg Art Foundation, South Africa; Witherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina; Creative Art Center, West Virginia University; the Stamford Museum and Nature Center, Stamford Connecticut.

H 45.5 in. x W 137 in. x D 2.25 in.

H 44.5 in. x W 136 in. x D 1 in.