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May Issue 2005
Pelter Gallery in Greenville, SC, Offers Works by 4 Abstract Artists
Pelter Gallery in Greenville, SC, is presenting the exhibition, Supercoloristics, featuring abstract works by four deceased artists: James Daugherty, Ted Faiers, William Halsey, and Miyoko Ito. The exhibit, on view through June 16, 2005, is a show of colorful abstract paintings beginning in the 1950's and continuing through the 1990's.
"It is refreshing to see William Halsey's work beside nationally known abstract painters of the same time period," says Susan O'Hanlan, owner of Pelter Gallery. "All of the paintings in Supercoloristics are hard edge abstractions, each with it's own strength".
James Daugherty (1887-1974) was born in 1887, in Asheville, NC, and grew up on farms in Ohio and Indiana before the family moved to Washington, DC. By 1903 he was taking classes at the Corcoran School of Art, and in the following years he studied first with Hugh Breckenridge and then with William Merritt Chase and Henry McCarter at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He moved with his family to London in 1905 and studied with Frank Brangwyn whom he described as "paralyzing". He returned to the US in 1908 and settled in New York. He continued to study at the National Academy of Design. The 1913 Armory Show in New York opened Daugherty's eyes to new possibilities and he "went modern with a vengeance". Daugherty took a studio next door to Arthur B. Frost, Jr. who taught him color theory and color painting. He painted with and studied under a long list of well-known artists as his career continued. During WWII he painted murals for the WPA.
Daugherty moved to rural Connecticut in 1923. He began writing and illustrating children's books and by then his career as a muralist and painter seemed to have ended.
In 1949, Daugherty optimistically declared that modern art was nothing less than "liberating and expansive, rousing and freeing human consciousness from materialism to infinite possiblities of living, creating universal harmony, energy and renewal."
Ted Faiers (1908-1985) was born in Cornwall England in 1908 and moved with his family to Canada in 1921. He worked as an advertising manager for a wholesale hardware company. He did not pursue a professional career in art until he was in his 40's. He had some formal training in Canada and then moved to New York. Faiers studied at the Art Students League in New York City and became involved with the "Indian Space' movement. This movement reacted against Abstract Expressionism and focused on pure forms, flat surfaces, hard edges and brilliant colors.
In 1952, Faiers accepted a teaching position at Memphis College of Art and worked there until his retirement in 1977. He remained in Memphis until his death in 1985.
William Halsey (1915-1999) studied with Charleston renaissance artists Elizabeth O'Neil Verner, Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, and Edward I.R. Jennings. He studied at the University of South Carolina and at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts from 1935-1939. He was awarded a Paige Traveling Fellowship in 1939-1941 and traveled to Mexico with his wife, also a painter, Corrie McCallum. Halsey and McCallum returned home to Charleston in 1945 and he continued to paint until his death in 1999.
The Halsey paintings and collages in this show explore his bold brushstrokes, applied textures, and complex layering of color, creating abstract forms and motifs.
Miyoko Ito (1918-1983) was born to Japanese parents in Berkeley, CA in 1918. She studied at the University of California at Berkeley for a short time until she was imprisoned in a Japanese-American camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Ito continued her education in prison and was awarded her diploma from Smith College in Northampton, MA. After one year in the graduate program at Smith she was given a scholarship to attend the Art Institute of Chicago. It was in Chicago that Ito's career as an artist flourished and she stayed in Chicago until her death in 1983.
For further info check our SC Commercial Gallery listings, call the gallery at 864/242-4311 or at (www.peltergallery.com).
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