Dick Wray: Explosive Color/Dynamic Paint

Dick Wray

Explosive Color/Dynamic Paint

Dick Wray

Explosive Color/Dynamic Paint Essays By:

Bill Camfield Katie R. Edwards Richard Stout Earl Weed

Exhibition On View January 6 - February 4, 2012 Collector Preview January 6-7 Opening Reception January 14, 5-8 p.m.

Gallery Talk January 21, 2-4 p.m.

Closing Weekend Februrary 3-4

William Reaves Fine Art Houston, Texas

Dick Wray Explosive Color/Dynamic Paint

The Lone Star State has always been fertile ground for the colorful, and thus it has been for its

artists.

Dick Wray lived and prospered as an artist in Texas. He is one who can claim to be, along with the art he produced, an original “piece of work”. He stormed across the Texas scene, living out an artful life with zest and bravura. His passion for painting was, and is, still evident. The energetic and expressive canvases which he has left behind roil in their thick paint and exude spectra of colors unparalleled in his own time. This exhibition, Explosive Color/Dynamic Paint, celebrates the robust style and splendid paintings of this unique artist - the indomitable, Dick Wray.

As a gallery concentrating on Texas art of historical significance, William Reaves Fine Art is honored to show these remarkable works. Through this exhibition we are pleased to reintroduce Dick Wray to the greater Texas art scene, and we believe that the 50 paintings shown here will only serve to underscore the artist’s status as a master Texas modernist.

As a means of re-acquainting our patrons with the man and his art, we take pride in publishing this catalogue of the exhibition. In it, we have invited testaments from a few friends and colleagues who knew Dick Wray and his art work most intimately. These writers include his fellow artist and colleague, Richard Stout; his principal collector and patron, Earl Weed; as well as art historians Bill Camfield and Katie Edwards of Rice and Baylor universities, respectively. The collection of authors alone, speaks volumes about the stature and influence of Wray’s work and their statements offer rich and poignant insights into the art and personality of this remarkable artist.

We hope that you will take time to encounter these magnificent paintings, confronting them critically as the artist would insist, but keeping eyes and mind open to the wonders which are wrought through the dynamic paint and explosive color of Dick Wray.

Bill Reaves, Sarah Beth Wilson, and Leslie Thompson 1

1. Untitled, 1983 oil on canvas 72 1/4 x 60 in. (invt. 1427)

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2. Untitled, 1986 oil on canvas 24 x 18 in. (invt. 1287)

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3. Untitled, 1990 oil on canvas 64 x 60 in. (invt. 1851)

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4. Untitled, 1993 oil on canvas 24 x 35 in. (invt. 1781)

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5. Untitled, 1994 mixed media 18 x 24 in. (invt. 1146)

6. Untitled, 1995 oil on canvas 24 x 36 in. (invt. 1132)

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7. Untitled, 1995 oil on canvas 18 x 24 in. (invt. 1300)

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8. Untitled, 1995 mixed media 18 x 24 in. (invt. 1330)

10. Untitled, 1996 photo litho collage and oil on canvas 18 x 24 in. (invt. 1162)

9. Untitled, 1996 oil on canvas 18 x 24 in. (invt. 1161)

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Dick Wray, painter plenipotentiary, was a force – big in stature and appetites; challenging, irreverent, extravagant, and unkempt; alluring and off putting; addicted to painting, and at one with his art. Such words, derived from my experience of the man, seem relevant to these paintings dating from the last twenty years of his life. They, too, are challenging, extravagant, and “unkempt;” alluring to some and dismissed by others as unruly abstractions. Dick regarded a negative response to one of his paintings as a “promising beginning.”

He recommended confronting “the son-of-a-bitch,” adding that “after a good visual fight, you may end up liking it more.” Such effort can lead to the discovery that these paintings are neither unruly nor wholly abstract.

Structure has been an important consideration for Dick since his early studies in architecture at the University of Houston. The rigorous Bauhaus aesthetic that reigned there was soon challenged during a trip to Europe in 1958, where Dick experienced a life-changing encounter with the paintings of the American Abstract Expressionists (a traveling exhibition) and such European contemporaries as Alechinsky, Jorn, Tapies, WOLS, Dubuffet, and Burri. Thereafter, a sense of order was not to be expressed in the geometric structures of the Bauhaus, but in a dynamic, painterly sense of balance achieved in an improvisational manner with lines, forms, color, and texture. Apply a patch of color without premeditated plan. Respond to that patch with another, or with a line, or with a brushed passage that is neither a patch of color nor a line. Respond to that, and continue to build up a rich surface of irregular areas of color – hot and cool, luminous and dark; mingled colors of wet into wet; colors occasionally “bound” by lines, but lines that have an identity of their own; lines that are willfully thick and ragged; lines that refuse to delineate a patch of color but ride over it, extending their own energy throughout the composition; unexpected lines that are crisply etched in the thick surface of the painting. Generally, those surfaces are thick, but as diverse as the “forms” and “lines.” They can be thin or crusty or succulent – but never “pure” in color, excepting Dick’s infatuations with certain colors that he sometimes applied directly from the tube, for example, an alizarin crimson, or a certain blue, or orange.

This improvisational creation by act and response with no final composition in mind requires a spirit of adventure, acceptance of risk, and countless decisions, including when to stop and whether or not retain the result of the venture. Dick’s method of working invites overworked, muddy surfaces, but gives these surfaces “a good visual fight.” Look for how the overall distribution of forms, colors, values, and textures cohabit the canvas, contend with each other and the rectangle of the canvas. Examine the details – a thick, juicy stroke with multiple colors that usually make a muddy mess but here stand as a marvelous detail – or a “muddy” area of dark black/ brown brought to life with an almost imperceptible oval of dark blue.

While we are into details, reconsider the topic of abstraction. Many of Dick’s paintings over the last two decades were actually brushed over figurative images collaged to the canvas, but those images were not noticeable until you got up close, really close, and suddenly had your nose in them. These paintings look abstract, but they are seeded with feet, faces, and private parts. They should not dominate your experience of these paintings, but they are a part of them. Have a look.

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Essay Written by Bill Camfield Professor Emeritus, Rice University, Houston, Texas

11. Untitled, 1997 mixed media 76 x 53 in. (invt. 1120)

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12. Untitled, 1996 oil on canvas 20 x 16 in. (invt. 1309)

13. Untitled, 1996 mixed media 16 x 20 in. (invt. 1395)

14. Untitled, 2001 oil on board 18 x 34 in. (invt. 1134)

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15. Untitled, 1997 photo litho collage and oil on canvas 72 x 60 in. (invt. 1114)

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16. Untitled, 1999 mixed media 60 x 44 in. (invt. 1495)

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17. Untitled, 1997 photo litho collage and oil on canvas 40 1/4 x 30 in. (invt. 1205)

18. Untitled, 1997 oil on canvas 42 3/4 x 32 in. (invt. 1050)

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19. Untitled, 2002 oil paper prints 36 x 48 in. (invt. 1009)

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20. Untitled, 2002 mixed media 35 x 48 in. (invt. 1127)

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“I’m not a Texas artist, damn it!” Dick Wray insisted to me on two occasions. Those who knew Dick will suspect he included another forceful adjective before the word “Texas.” (He did. Both times.)

Wray was doubly resentful about being lumped into the “Texas art” category. For one, the art most people associate with the Lone Star state includes impressionistic bluebonnets at best, cowboy regalia at worst.* That wasn’t Wray. Second, even when he was identified with the superb and progressive Houston artists—Harvey Bott, Jack Boynton, Henri Gadbois, Dorothy Hood, Leila McConnell, Earl Staley, Richard Stout, Stella Sullivan, and many more of earlier and later generations—he hated being classified with any group. Yet Houston artists tend to work independently rather than follow the tenets of a particular style, so Wray’s terse remark belies the good fit.

Wray saw himself as a loner, making art year in and year out, proudly exhibiting every single year. His biography and exhibition record attest to the seriousness of his venture: skilled draftsmanship as a kid, early art classes in Houston, G.I. Bill-funded studies at the University of Houston School of Architecture, two years in Europe (1958-59) including the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, a 1959 one-man show at the Beaumont Art Museum, a crucial painting purchased by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 1962, group and regular solo exhibitions for decades, including two shows curated by James Harithas (1979 at the CAM and 2003 at the Station) and Texas Artist of the Year in 2000.

Europe was a life-altering experience. In Paris, Wray was struck by the work of Jean Dubuffet, Antoni Tàpies, the COBRA Group and Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze), among others. Wray must have responded to the tactility of Art Informel, with its blend of wild aggression and sensual materiality. In Düsseldorf the Kunstakademie environment was stimulating, to say the least. Paul Klee taught there in the 1930s, the notorious Joseph Beuys studied there and would become professor in 1961. Wray just missed having Blinky Palermo, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter as classmates. They all share Wray’s playful fluctuation between abstraction and representation and his interest in the contemporary world. The Kunstakademie air in the late 50s would have been supercharged.

It’s easy to see why Wray bristled at the Texas moniker and the potential whiff of provincialism. But Texas clearly inspired his work, whether it was through the bright skies, the rural rugged stretches or Houston’s vibrant urban scene. Houston was occasionally good to him, especially in the early days after James Johnson Sweeney arrived. Sweeney made few friends when he came down from New York and promptly suspended the Houston Annuals in 1961. But Wray made the cut for the first nationally juried, more competitive show. Surely Sweeney, who wrote the essay for Jackson Pollock’s first exhibition in 1943, saw in Wray a kindred expressionistic spirit.

For Wray as for Pollock, tactility was paramount, whether it was in the texture of his early 1960s works, the physicality of his forms, or the way Wray makes you feel color in the later works. In sixty years as an artist, Wray’s art and personal life had dark and light spells. But overall his body of art is vast, consistently inspiring and occasionally sublime….just like Texas. * Bluebonnets and cowboy art can sometimes be first-rate, as many collectors, curators and historians well know.

Essay Written by Katie R. Edwards Assistant Professor, Allbritton Art Institute, Baylor University, Waco, Texas 17

21. Untitled, 2004 photo litho collage and oil on wood 60 x 44 in. (invt. 1498)

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22. Untitled, 2003 oil on canvas 36 x 48 in. (invt. 1036)

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23. Untitled, 2003 mixed media 48 x 36 in. (invt. 1848)

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24. Untitled, 2004 photo litho collage and oil on wood 60 x 44 1/4 in. (invt. 1863)

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26. Untitled, 2005 photo litho collage and oil on canvas 60 x 48 in. (invt. 1494)

25. Untitled, 2005 mixed media 60 x 48 in. (invt. 1881)

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27. Untitled, 2007 oil and mixed media 48 x 36 in. (invt. 1012)

28. Untitled, 2007 oil on canvas 40 x 30 in. (invt. 1893)

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29. Untitled, 2008 mixed media 24 x 18 in. (invt. 1140)

30. Untitled, 2005 mixed media 24 x 18 in. (invt. 1155)

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Dick Wray was born on December 5, 1933, in the Houston Heights Hospital and grew up in the Heights and West University Place. After his service in Panama in 1955, he began his freshman work at the University Of Houston School Of Architecture with H. W. Linnstaedter. This study was a Bauhaus discipline not uncommon in the better schools of architecture at the time. Already painting, Wray knew the exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Association where he may have met Jim Love and through him Jack Boynton who was showing at Kathryn Swenson’s New Arts Gallery, a building designed by Linnstaedter. At the McNay Art Institute in San Antonio, Wray saw the Modigliani exhibition and then traveled to Monterrey and Mexico City. After another two years of study with Richard Lilliot and the supportive Burdette Keeland, he left in December 1958 to travel in Europe. In Paris, Wray saw the MoMA traveling show, New American Painting, and in Dusseldorf and Copenhagen more paintings by Tapies, WOLS, Dubuffet, and Jorn, an artist who was new for him.

Wray’s experience of this work confronted him with unexpected coherence, stature and truth that supported his new and original paintings. On a bright, late winter afternoon in 1960, shortly after his return from Europe, I met Dick at the New Arts Gallery. From that time on we had the best of friendships.

By late that summer, Wray was sharing a studio with Jack Boynton on Nance Street. And with Dorothy Hood’s arrival from Mexico in 1961, our peer group was complete. That year also saw the arrival of James Johnson Sweeney as the Director of The Museum of Fine arts, Houston and to work in its new Mies van der Rohe wing.

Sweeney was Wray’s “JJ Baby”! We each, in our own way, sought to expand the dialogue in art and to make work that would reflect our time and place. This was no ordinary effort. But we were, after all, Texans and in a despotic frontier city with modernist roots. Hanging above Wray’s front door is a sign stating: “Texas ain’t no place for amateurs!”

Wray’s time at the School of Architecture prepared him with analytical tools to critique his own work and decipher that of others. He held strong opinions. Everything in his experience of life was both subject and content for his work. His work is neither settled in academic theory nor is it tedious in its making. His work is decisive, rough and tender at the same time. He painted each painting to win, much as a poker hand. He was driven by the act of painting. His early training in architecture reinforced his uncompromising opinion about all things. His painting is both personal and heroic. The first of his works to enter the collection of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston was titled: There is only one position for an artist: and that is up.

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Essay Written by Richard Stout Artist, Houston, Texas

31. Steemed Beans, 1999-2010 oil on canvas 48 x 48 in. (invt. 1040)

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32. Untitled, n/d photo litho collage and oil on canvas 60 x 48 in. (invt. 1042)

33. Untitled, n/d mixed media 16 x 20 in. (invt. 1366)

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34. Untitled, n/d oil and mixed media 48 x 35 1/2 in. (invt. 1046)

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35. Untitled, n/d mixed media 48 x 36 in. (invt. 1007)

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36. Untitled, n/d mixed media 48 x 36 in. (invt. 1064)

37. Untitled, n/d oil on canvas 27 1/2 x 37 in. (invt. 1133)

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38. Untitled, n/d mixed media 40 x 30 in. (invt. 1129)

39. Untitled, n/d oil on canvas 18 x 24 in. (invt. 1347)

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40. Untitled, n/d oil and mixed media 48 x 36 3/4 in. (invt. 1020)

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When I first saw Dick’s art in the early 1990’s, I didn’t understand it and didn’t like it. His pictures seemed like messy explosions of oil paint on canvas with limited organization, little sense of composition, and a callous and purposeful disregard of the craft of painting. They were almost irritating pictures, except there was an aspect of an itch I couldn’t scratch about them, and I kept looking. Then I came across one that only barely belonged in a group landscape show, and even though it irritated me, I had to have it, and borrowed money and bought it. Not long after, I drove over to Dick’s house and met the man. He, and his house, seemed like messy explosions, with limited organization, little (apparent) interest in composition, and a callous and purposeful disregard of the tightly wound, yuppified and suburban-leftover world in which I’d lived my adult life. Thus began 15 years of one of the most important relationships of my life, which only ended with Dick’s passing in early 2011.

Dick was a friend, a mentor, and a teacher. Although he is gone now, what he had to say to me, and others, that became like a fountain in the desert of what sometimes seems like a rather hard, rigid and unforgiving world, is still there in his paintings, and I feed on it as I look at them wherever they are – in my house, in the houses of friends, in pictures in a catalog, or in this exhibition, the first show of Dick’s work since he passed. Indeed, his message is easier to understand from looking than it is to put into words, though I did not see it very well at first.

Dick’s pictures talk about letting go. They talk about play. They talk about forgetting or even throwing out the rulebook, giving up on acting like an adult, or even admitting that age qualifies you to be one. Yet at the same time, they are about integrity, hard work, and struggle. “It’s only when it gets really ugly that I know it has any chance to be good,” Dick used to say, and I know from watching him that he stripped away or painted over more canvas than he ever let be.

And they are about color. This show celebrates his love of color as its central focus of course – but it does something else that needs doing, and that is putting his later work in the context of his earlier work. Some artists (and musicians and writers) say what they have to say early on, then either begin saying the same thing over and over, or quit. Dick was not one of those. He started with a bang, but the 70’s and 80’s were hard years peppered by personal tragedies, poverty, and various means of escape. In the late 80’s, he began to settle down in his house on Oxford Street, and painted with a steady abandon, like a man on a mission. To this viewer, Dick’s later work presents with a clarity of purpose and vision that begins to trump the passionate thrust of the earlier work, good as much of it is. These are the pictures of an artist who has settled in, with determination, to create the body of work that will define him, not unlike Monet in Giverny.

Dick’s Giverny was the sprawling urban jungle of Houston, with hints of the high desert of deep West Texas and New Mexico. In the broad gestures and the muscular impasto we can see and feel the breadth and the openness of the space in these places. And in the color, we can breathe in the life.

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Essay Written by Earl Weed Friend and Art Collector, Houston, Texas

41. Untitled, n/d oil on canvas 68 x 84 in. (invt. 1920)

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42. Untitled, n/d oil on wood 60 x 44 in. (invt. 1880)

43. Untitled, n/d photo litho collage and oil on canvas 24 x 36 in. (invt. 1780)

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44. Untitled, n/d oil on canvas 60 x 48 in. (invt. 1901)

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45. Untitled, n/d photo litho collage and oil on wood 60 x 44 in. (invt. 1500)

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46. Untitled, n/d photo litho collage and oil on wood 44 x 60 in. (invt. 1484)

47. Untitled, n/d oil on board 60 x 44 in. (invt. 1481)

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48. Untitled, n/d oil on canvas 20 x 16 in. (invt. 1369)

49. Untitled, n/d oil on canvas 40 x 24 3/4 in. (invt. 1805)

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50. Untitled, n/d oil on canvas 24 x 30 in. (invt. 1792)

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Dick Wray: Explosive Color/Dynamic Paint Exhibition Checklist No.

Title

Date

Medium

Size (in.)

Invt.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled

1983 1986 1990 1993 1994 1995 1995 1995 1996 1996 1997 1996 1996 2001 1997 1999 1997 1997 2002 2002 2004 2003 2003 2004 2005 2005 2007 2007

oil/canvas oil/canvas oil/canvas oil/canvas mixed media oil/canvas oil/canvas mixed media oil/canvas photo litho collage/oil/canvas mixed media oil/canvas mixed media oil/board photo litho collage/oil/canvas mixed media photo litho collage/oil/canvas oil/canvas oil/paperprints mixed media photo litho collage/oil/wood oil/canvas mixed media photo litho collage/oil/wood mixed media photo litho collage/oil/canvas oil/mixed media oil/canvas

72 1/4 x60 24x18 64x60 24x35 18x24 24x36 18x24 18x24 18x24 18x24 76x53 20x16 16x20 18x34 72x60 60x44 40 1/4 x30 42 3/4 x32 36x48 35x48 60x44 36x48 48x36 60x44 1/4 60x48 60x48 48x36 40x30

1427 1287 1851 1781 1146 1132 1300 1330 1161 1162 1120 1309 1395 1134 1114 1495 1205 1050 1009 1127 1498 1036 1848 1863 1881 1494 1012 1893

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No.

Title

Date

Medium

Size (in.)

Invt.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

Untitled Untitled Steemed Beans Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled

2008 2005 1999-2010 n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d n/d

mixed media mixed media oil/canvas photo litho collage/oil/canvas mixed media oil/mixed media mixed media mixed media oil/canvas mixed media oil/canvas oil/mixed media oil/canvas oil/wood photo litho collage/oil/canvas oil/canvas photo litho collage/oil/wood photo litho collage/oil/wood oil/board oil/canvas oil/canvas oil/canvas

24x18 24x18 48x48 60x48 16x20 48x35 1/2 48x36 48x36 27 1/2 x37 40x30 18x24 48x36 3/4 68x84 60x44 24x36 60x48 60x44 44x60 60x44 20x16 40x24 3/4 24x30

1140 1155 1040 1042 1366 1046 1007 1064 1133 1129 1347 1020 1920 1880 1780 1901 1500 1484 1481 1369 1805 1792

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Dick Wray Selected Artist Biography Selected Biographical and Career Highlights

• 1933, Born in Houston, TX

• 1955-58, Attends University of Houston, School of Architecture, Houston, TX

• 1958, Attends Kunstakademie, Dusseldorf, Germany

• 1962, Receives Ford Foundation Purchase Award

• 1964, Guest artist at Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles, CA

• 1968-82, Instructor at Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

• 1978, Receives National Endowment for the Arts Artist Grant

• 2000, Artist of the Year, Art League, Houston, TX

• 2011, Dies in Houston, TX Selected Exhibitions

• 1959, Beaumont Art Museum, Beaumont, TX

• 1960, “Dick Wray Paintings,” Louisiana Gallery, Houston, TX

• 1969, “Tamarind Homage to Lithography,” Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY

• 1970, “Dick Wray Paintings,” The Museum of Fine Arts School of Art, Houston, TX

• 1971, “Other Coasts,” California State University, Long Beach, CA

• 1975, “One Man Show,” Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX

• 1984, “Dick Wray: Monotypes,” Moody Gallery, Houston, TX

• 1985, “Fresh Paint: The Houston School,” Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

• 1990, “Printmaking in Texas: the 1980s,” Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX

• 1996, “Texas Modern and Post-Modern,” Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

•2007, “Texas Modern: The Rediscovery of Early Texas Abstraction,” Baylor University, Waco, TX Selected Public Collections

• Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo, NY

• Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX

• Museum of East Texas, Lufkin, TX

• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

• Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY

• Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX

• Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA

• San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX

• Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX

• University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK

• Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio, TX 43

William Reaves Fine Art 2313 Brun Street Houston, Texas 77019 Ph: 713.521.7500 Fax: 713.521.7504 Web: www.reavesart.com Email: info@reavesart.com Front Cover Image: Detail, Catalogue No. 37, Untitled, n/d, oil/canvas, 27 1/2 x 37 in. (Invt. 1133) Back Cover Image: Detail, Catalogue No. 42, Untitled, n/d, oil/wood, 60 x 44 in. (Invt. 1880)