Where to See Doug Ohlson

Doug Ohlson's artworks have been included in group exhibitions at various museums. These include the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston; the University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach; the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts; the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; the Wichita Art Museum; the Muskegon Museum of Art; the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables; and the Toledo Museum of Art. Ohlson's pieces have also been displayed at the Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, Nice; the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; the Galena de Arte IBEU Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro; the Seanle Art Museum; the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; and the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. His work was part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's 'Rendezvous: Masterpieces from the Centre Georges Pompidou'. Other venues include the Colorado University Art Galleries, Boulder; the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence; the Centre Cultural de la Fundacio 'la Caixa', Barcelona; the Schim Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Seattle Art Museum.

Doug Ohlson (1936^[1]-2010^[1]) was an American^[1] abstract painter and printmaker. He is best known for his geometric compositions and colour field paintings. Ohlson studied at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and at the Central School of Art, London. He was associated with the Post-Painterly Abstraction movement, a development from Abstract Expressionism. This style emphasises openness of design, with large areas of unmodulated colour. His prints often feature simple shapes, such as circles and squares, arranged in carefully balanced compositions. Colour is a defining element in Ohlson's work. He explored the interaction of hues and their effect on the viewer. Ohlson frequently employed a limited palette, creating subtle variations in tone and value. Ohlson taught at various institutions, including the Maryland Institute College of Art and Hunter College, New York. His work can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, all in New York.

Doug Ohlson (1936^[1]-2010^[1]) was an American^[1] abstract painter. He is associated with the Color Field movement, and his works often feature geometric forms and carefully considered colour relationships. Ohlson's art is significant for its exploration of colour theory, and his paintings demonstrate a precise understanding of how colours interact. He frequently employed simple shapes, such as circles and squares, arranged in ways that create optical effects. These arrangements can produce a sense of depth or movement on the canvas. His approach to abstraction was both intellectual and intuitive. Ohlson carefully planned his compositions, yet he also allowed for spontaneity in the application of paint. This combination of structure and freedom gives his paintings a dynamic quality. Although Ohlson's work is not as widely known as that of some of his contemporaries, his contributions to abstract painting are noteworthy. His paintings offer a quiet, contemplative experience for viewers interested in the subtleties of colour and form. His art continues to be studied by those interested in the development of abstract art in the second half of the twentieth century.

Doug Ohlson (1936^[1]-2010^[1]) was an American^[1] abstract painter associated with colour field painting and geometric abstraction. He is known for large-scale canvases featuring simple geometric forms. Ohlson's mature works typically involved carefully balanced compositions of circles, rectangles and triangles. These shapes often appear as soft-edged blocks of colour. He achieved this effect through a meticulous process of layering diluted acrylic paint on unprimed canvas. The use of thin washes allowed the weave of the canvas to remain visible, contributing to the luminosity of the finished painting. Ohlson sometimes employed masking techniques to create clean edges, juxtaposing them with the blurred boundaries achieved through his layering process. Although primarily a painter, Ohlson also experimented with printmaking, creating screenprints that echo the geometric forms and colour relationships found in his paintings. These prints allowed him to explore variations on his established themes.

It is difficult to identify specific artists who were directly influenced by Doug Ohlson. However, one can consider the broader artistic movements and contexts that may have intersected with his work. Ohlson's abstract style, with its emphasis on colour and form, places him within a tradition of abstract expressionism. This movement saw a resurgence in the 1980s, with younger artists reconsidering the national artistic heritage of America. The support structure for emerging artists was strong in New York, where Ohlson lived and worked. While Neo-Expressionism waned, other forms of expression, such as abstraction, gained attention. Ohlson's work, with its focus on colour and geometric shapes, aligns with this broader trend of artists exploring abstraction.

Doug Ohlson's artistic development involved exposure to several influences. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was intrigued by the work of Louis and Noland, specifically Louis's Veils and Unfurleds and Noland's targets and chevrons. Ohlson noted that their approach, which aimed to introduce colour without relying on gesture or subject matter, represented a departure from, yet also a development of, his own work. Earlier, while studying at Black Mountain College (1946^[1]-1948^[1]), Noland became familiar with Albers' colour theories and Bauhaus principles. However, Noland found them too rigid. He credited Ilya Bolotowsky as his most important teacher there. Bolotowsky guided students through Impressionism, Cubism, neo-plastic art, and Surrealism. Noland described Bolotowsky as someone who, emerging from Mondrian's influence, "painted in colour". Mondrian's theories about colour relations, arising from spatial division, were conveyed by Bolotowsky.

It is difficult to name one single work as Doug Ohlson's "most famous". He is best known for his large abstract paintings that explore colour and form. Ohlson's mature style, developed in the 1960s, involved hard-edged geometric shapes, often circles or dots, arranged on a monochrome field. These works investigate spatial relationships and the optical effects of colour. His paintings from this period, such as those included in the exhibition *Color and Field: Houston Collects*, are well regarded. Later in his career, Ohlson's work became more gestural, with softer edges and blended colours. Although his style shifted, his focus remained on colour and its capacity to evoke emotion and create space. While he produced a consistent body of work over several decades, no single painting has achieved the level of popular recognition that would qualify it as his "most famous".

Doug Ohlson was active during a period when multiple styles co-existed, often incorporating social commentary. The New York School, which gained prominence after World War II and continued through the 1960s, saw the Western art world shift, both physically and conceptually, to New York City. A 1965^[1] Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition, titled ‘The New York School: The First Generation Painting of the 1940s and 19508,’ included artists such as Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Paintings by the first generation of New York School artists were large and abstract. They emphasised bold brushstrokes. Critic Harold Rosenberg coined the phrase ‘action painting’ to describe these works. Subjective and highly gestural, they addressed the theme of human impulse and desires, commenting on society's need to impose order on such expression and to define and control taboos through myth.