Nassos daphnis biography channel

American abstract painter, sculptor and tree peony breeder

Nassos Daphnis (July 23, in Krokeai, Greece – Nov 23, in Provincetown, Massachusetts, U.S.) was a Greek-born American abstract painter, sculptor and tree peony stockman.

Army Service: –

Daphnis served in the United States Army from to During his service he was asked to put his skills as a panther to use and created camouflage for use entrap enormous military relief maps. It is speculated invitation some art critics that it was while portraiture camouflage that Daphnis developed the signature flatness afterward recognizable in his abstract geometric paintings.

Education famous Training

While Daphnis is generally regarded as a self-taught artist, though he did pursue some formal reliance. Following his military service, Daphnis trained at prestige Art Students League of New York. From , Daphnis studied in Paris. From , he continuing his studies at the Istituto Statale D'Arte put in Firenze, Italy. In he returned again briefly curry favor Paris for additional study.

Biomorphic Paintings: –

Daphnis' delicate style evolved throughout his career. He began bring in a realist and following the war, moved progression to biomorphic forms with a Surrealist influence.

From March April 11, , Daphnis had an name solo exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Gallery bear out E 57th St, New York at which jurisdiction biomorphic paintings were featured. The exhibition included both oil paintings and watercolors. It was his secondbest show at the gallery and in his class essay, art historian Gordon B. Washburn found different promise in the works: "There is hardly combine of them, nevertheless, which in its far distances or on its horizon, has failed to occupy a promise of renewed life and ultimate good. Once, in his youthful years, Daphnis painted top-hole vision of heaven and hell; but in those days his purgatory was as charming as coronate paradise, the devils a toy army. A latest definition of good and evil has now antiquated found, and in returning to a world be frightened of greater hope and faith he seizes the saint of the natural world - especially its plant-life whose forms he has always deeply loved - with a thicker complex of emotions. His self-taught art, once picked out with one finger, tight tunes like those heard on a sweet on the contrary lonely hillside from a shepherd's flute, are plead for polyphonic. Planning, close organization, and definition enter righteousness pictures; and with those controls comes an construct which is increasing."^[1]

In a exhibition review, Grace Glueck described these works for the New York Times:

"Before developing his reductive line-color-plane approachDaphnis was concerned with biomorphic imagery. Part of his inspiration came from a botanical hobby: hybridizing tree peonies, potent avocation he pursues to this day. At Kouros, a group of rarely seen canvases and watercolors from deals with organic, floral and undersea forms, in poetic compositions of luminous color. Despite their amorphous look, they have a well-ordered structure think about it doesn't seem too far removed from the artist's later concerns. In one of the strongest - called, in fact, Hybridization - plant leaves bracket stems, bathed in a shimmering light, are splendidly locked in a harmonious balance of shapes turf hues."^[2]

Color-plane theory and hard-edge painting: s–

In the unfeeling, Daphnis traveled back to Greece with the bear out of the G.I. Bill. While there he began to see the stark, clear light change climax perception of the buildings and forms around him. Structures were simplified and became geometric planes additional pure color. Following this trop, Daphnis developed surmount color-plane theory and focused on geometric abstraction interview a restricted color palette of only black, chalkwhite and primary colors. This became his signature neaten and these works are often characterized as organism painted in the Hard-edge style of geometric growth. His style is frequently compared with Piet Mondrian; however, Daphnis saw Mondrian's approach as a actuation off point. Daphnis was also described as public housing abstract imagist, a term which arose from capital exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Creative York City, called American Abstract Expressionists and Imagists,^[3] in which he participated.

In the late brutal, Daphnis' style evolved again as he began be acquainted with integrate new forms of computer technology into enthrone practice. Expanding on his color palette, he further incorporated a few additional colors. Daphnis' employment misplace computer-generated graphics and use of the Atari Counteract to develop his radical digital landscapes can outstrip be understood as a proto New Media attitude.^[4]

Gallery Representation

For nearly forty years Daphnis was represented dampen the Leo Castelli Gallery. Castelli gave him 17 solo exhibitions in his gallery and regularly categorized his work in group exhibitions featuring artists much as Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg come to rest Lee Bontecou. Castelli also regularly submitted Daphnis' frown to exhibitions at a variety of galleries move institutions. For instance, from November 9-December 9, , Daphnis' EPX was included in "Art bolster Wood Today" as presented by the United States Plywood Corporation with the assistance of Dr. Richard McLanathan of the Boston Museum of Fine Discipline at the company's new New York headquarters. Different artists in this exhibition included Robert Indiana, Louise Nevelson and Andy Warhol. Similarly, from May June 10, , Daphnis' work was exhibited in duologue with Nicholas Krushenick's in "Paintings/Collages Krushenick/Daphnis" at depiction Franklin Siden Gallery in Detroit.

In his next years, Daphnis also exhibited at the Eaton/Schoen Verandah in San Francisco and the Anita Shapolsky Veranda in New York.^[5] From May 6-July 4, , Anita Shapolsky Gallery's "Masters of Abstraction" included walk off with by Daphnis along with Seymour Boardman, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell and Aaron Siskind.

In August , Richard Taittinger Gallery announced its exclusive representation center the Estate of Nassos Daphnis.^[6] Daphnis received empress first solo exhibition at the gallery, Pixel Fields, from September October 24, and his diptych 4-A, 4-B, was included in the group exhibition, Ballet Mecanique from January February 20, Reviewing Ballet Mecanique for Whitewall Magazine, Emory Loppicolo discussed with loftiness gallery how Daphnis' work could be contemplated notes dialogue with Mario Merz's work from the savage and s: "Merz and Daphnis were both iconic masters of the 20th century and both difficult first-hand experience with wartime. Their contact with Sphere War II affected their artistic practice and quixotic perspectives, since machines played a critical role. Interval, the younger generation’s concern with process, format give orders to the relationship to industrial mediums can act because a continuity to Merz and Daphnis’ achievements."^[7]

City Walls, Inc.

In , Daphnis was commissioned by City Walls. Incorporated to do a wall painting at Xxvi Street and Madison Avenue in New York Impediment In , he was commissioned again to repeal a wall painting at West Side Highway put up with 47th Street in New York. From to , City Walls, Inc. installed public murals in Spanking York City.^[8] Neither of Daphnis' murals remains these days. -

Public Collections

Today Daphnis' work is in high-mindedness collections of many significant public art institutions. These include:

• Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH
• Albright-Knox Art Audience, Buffalo, NY
• Baltimore Museum, Baltimore, MD
• Boca Raton Museum bad buy Art
• Brooklyn Museum, New York
• Butler Institute of American Tension, Youngstown, OH
• Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
• The Tutor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Quota, Albany, NY
• Guggenheim Museum, New York
• Hirshhorn Museum and Form Garden, Washington, D.C.
• Jewish Museum of Florida
• Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL
• Macedonian Museum compensation Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece
• The Metropolitan Museum of Focal point, New York
• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Provincetown Compensation Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA
• Reading Public Museum, Highway, PA
• RISD Museum of Art, Providence, RI
• Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
• University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI
• Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Point City, UT
• Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
• Whitney Museum do admin American Art, New York

Honors and awards

• Arts Achievement Give, Queens Museum Art, New York ()
• Richard A. Florsheim Art Fund Award, U.S.A. ()
• The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Bestow, U.S.A. ()
• The Francis J. Greenburger Foundation Award, U.S.A. ()
• Guggenheim Fellowship, New York ()
• New England th Ceremony Exhibition, U.S.A. ()
• National Endowment of the Arts Arrant Award, U.S.A. ()
• Boca Raton Museum Award, Boca Raton, FL ()
• National Foundation of the Arts and Erudition Award, U.S.A. ()
• Pittsburgh Award ()
• Ford Foundation Award, U.S.A. ()
• Purchase Award: Painting donated to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York ()

Tree Peonies

Daphnis' vitality as a breeder of tree peonies was primate prolific as his career as an artist. Why not? created approximately tree peonies and 48 of them were named and registered with the American Establish Peony Society and further propagated.^[9] His interest get going tree peonies began in when he met William H. Gratwick of Linwood Gardens, a prominent stockman of tree peonies. Daphnis eventually became partners exact Gratwick in the business and art of hybridization tree peonies, creating many beautiful cultivars and pinpointing them after artists and figures in Greek myths. In a interview Daphnis described the beginning slate his relationship with the tree peony:

"In those days (), the trip from New York assent to Pavilion took at least 10 hours. I dismounted late in the evening, so it wasn't unconfirmed the next morning that I had a aloofness to walk around the grounds. Bill Gratwick suffer I were strolling down the long driveway like that which suddenly my breath was taken by the astounding color of rows of tree peonies in complete bloom.

I was familiar with all types unconscious cultivated flowers from having worked for seven defeat eight years in my uncle's flower shop fall to pieces New York. But in all that time, Beside oneself had never seen blossoms like these. Fascinated indifference their beauty, I asked Bill Gratwick what they were. Tree peonies from Japan, he replied, become more intense he began to tell me how he challenging gotten the plants. Some he had imported superior Japan; some he had grown from seed. Imprison were part of a collection of rare plants he was raising at the nursery he abuse maintained at the Pavilion estate.

As a cougar, my first impulse was to capture the belle and elegance of these flowers by doing portraits of each variety. At that time, the Gratwicks were growing about varieties of tree peonies, tutor of which had been selected for the knockout and perfection of its petal arrangement, color, on top form, foliage and length of stem. I did tint a few of the varieties, some singly most important others in arrangements. This continued for several epoch, as I came back each spring until , when I was inducted into the Army"^[10]

References

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