John Day artists Estate

John Day was born in Malden, Massachusetts in 1932, and sold his first painting at age fifteen. At eighteen, he began his studies with Josef Albers in Yale University's Department of Design, where he focused on the combination of art and science manifest in color theory. Over the next three decades, John Day tested and explored a number of different artistic methods, ranging from impressionistic landscapes, to collages, to precisely-blended color meditations. Many of his early collages were torn-paper landscapes that reference the work of the nouveau réalistes such as Raymond Hains from the 1960’s. His surrealist “Erebos” series illustrates his interest in the art and life of Ancient Greece. The abstract paintings from the last phase of his life evoke the spiritual intensity of Mark Rothko’s work. John Day continued his devotion to serious art until his death in New York City on April 15, 1982. His paintings are found in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Metropolitan M