Ralph Humphrey

Humphrey's artistic style went through several phases and developments, which can be roughly outlined in the following way: monochromes from 1957 to 1960; frame paintings 1961–65; shaped canvases 1967–70; constructed paintings 1971–1990. Throughout these phases, Humphrey kept a keen eye on color, light, and space while he moved between abstraction and representation. As Kenneth Baker explains in Art in America in 1984, “Each of his works defines an ideal viewing distance that can be discovered only by patient observation of the focus of the details, the resolution of the image and the proper relationship between body and object. Finding the apt distance from which to contemplate Humphrey’s new paints is thus not something you do discursively: it is an exercise in feeling your way silently towards a correct spatial interval.”

Reviewing Humphrey's show at Tibor de Nagy in 1960, Donald Judd said, of his monochromes, “They are large, subtle and single-colored. This is Purism of a sort, in which generality does not contain variables but excludes them, in which the basic diagram or color, the only continuity, is exposed, here the essence of a confused sequence of perceptions.” Donald Judd also likened these canvases to the work of Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, and Josef Albers.

Neil A. Levine wrote in 1965 about Humphrey's solo exhibition at Green Gallery, where he showed some of his frame paintings. Levine said, “His new work is serious and demanding. All the paintings are variations on one theme. The theme is, simply stated, an expansive, lightly brushed, large grey field…surrounded by a painted framing edge…” Here, Neil, too, references Albers, as well as TV screens, unfilled billboards, and Rothko.

Robert Pincus-Whitten reviewed Humphrey's 1969 show at Bykert Gallery, where his shaped canvases were hung. Pincus-Whitten explains how Humphrey created “a luminous cosmos of fragile exhalations, painted on large squares or horizontal rectangles, softly turned at the corner and curved back into the stretcher.” These canvases are noteworthy, too, for their use of day-glow colors. At this time, his work becomes increasingly more atmospheric than his previous efforts; multi-colored wavy lines and sprayed colors replace solid geometric fields of single colors.

The last definable phase of his artistic style approaches representation at times, sometimes calling to mind an open window. These constructed paintings also border on sculpture, often coming ten inches out from the wall, directly confronting the viewer in real space. The paint, too, is considerably built up, giving the surface of the paintings considerable texture that was not previously seen in his work. Ellen Schwartz writes in 1977 about his show at John Weber, where his constructed paintings were still abstract: “Humphrey’s latest works, meditative rather than communicative, require the suspension of conscious efforts to grasp them before they will yield their secrets, which lay within ourselves all the while. The rich blue variegated surfaces are like blotters onto which we pour our own fantasies.” D Phillips, writing about his Willard Gallery show in 1982, explains how his constructed paintings are natural extensions of the earlier frame paintings: “Frames-within-frames have long provided the structural basis for Humphrey’s colorful designs; he has simply made his window allusion literal.” She explains, too, that these paintings are a step forward: “The shift does, however, bring greater variety and complexity to the artist’s constructions. There is a more explicit sense of space, of indoors and outdoors.” Beyond content, we see Humphrey using a brighter color palette and inserting vaguely figurative, whimsical patterns onto the surface. Yet, by the mid 1980s, the paintings return to a more ambiguous, abstract state.

Since his first solo exhibition at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York City in 1959, Humphrey's work has been the subject of 40 solo shows. During his lifetime, he had been represented by Green Gallery, Bykert Gallery, Andre Emmerich Gallery, Willard Gallery, and John Weber Gallery. Solo exhibitions have continued to be mounted since his death in 1990, including Ralph Humphrey: Frame Paintings, 1964 to 1965 at Mary Boone Gallery, New York City, September 8–October 6, 1990 and Ralph Humphrey: Conveyance at Gary Snyder Gallery, April 2 – May 16, 2015. Other exhibitions have been held elsewhere in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boston. Humphrey's paintings have also been in group shows such as Systemic Painting at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1966, The Structure of Color at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1971, the 1979 Biennial at the Whitney Museum, and High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting, 1967–1975 at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, 2006.

1959

Ralph Humphrey, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, February 3–21 1960

Ralph Humphrey, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, February 2–21 1961

Ralph Humphrey: Recent Paintings, Mayer Gallery, New York, March 14 – April 1 1965

Ralph Humphrey, Green Gallery, New York, May 5–29 1967

Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, January 10 – February 24 1968

Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, February 3–29 1969

Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, February 1–27 Galerie Alfred Schmela, Düsseldorf 1970

Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, April 4–25 1971

Ralph Humphrey, André Emmerich Gallery, New York, March 20 – April 8 1972

Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, May 2–23 1973

Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, May 12 – June 2 Ralph Humphrey: Survey of Paintings, Texas Gallery, Houston, May 15 – June 9 1974

Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, April 20 – May 15 Ralph Humphrey: Paintings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco, November–December 1975

Ralph Humphrey: Paintings, 1974, Bykert Gallery, New York, February 4–26 Ralph Humphrey: Paintings, 1958–1966, Bykert/ Downtown, New York, February 4–26 1976

Ralph Humphrey, John Weber Gallery, New York, January 31 – February 25 1976–1977

Ralph Humphrey: Recent Paintings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco, December 16, 1976 – January 22, 1977 1977

Ralph Humphrey, John Weber Gallery, New York, February 9–26 1980

Ralph Humphrey, Willard Gallery, New York, April 5 – May 7 1982

Ralph Humphrey, Willard Gallery, New York, April 3–May 8 Ralph Humphrey: Paintings, 1975–1982, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, October 6–30 1983

Ralph Humphrey: Selected Paintings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, May 14 – June 11 1984

Delahunty Gallery, Dallas Ralph Humphrey, Willard Gallery, New York, April 7 – May 12 1985

Ralph Humphrey: Recent Paintings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, October 16 – November 2 1987

Ralph Humphrey, Jay Gorney Modern Art, New York, January–February 1990

Ralph Humphrey: 1990, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, March 3–31 Ralph Humphrey: Frame Paintings, 1964 to 1965, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, September 8–October 6 Ralph Humphrey: A Retrospective View, 1954–1990, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, November 8– December 5 1991

Ralph Humphrey: The Late Paintings on Paper, Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery, Hunter College, City University of New York, September 19 – October 26 Ralph Humphrey: Paintings, 1975–1985, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, October–November 1996

Ralph Humphrey: Selected Paintings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco, August 17 – October 17 1998

Ralph Humphrey, Danese Gallery, New York, January 16 – February 14 2000

Ralph Humphrey: Early Paintings, 1957–1967, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, November 1 – December 9 2001

Ralph Humphrey: Later Paintings, 1975–1982, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, April 5 – May 26 2008

Ralph Humphrey: Selected Works from the Estate, Nielsen Gallery, Boston, May 17 – June 14 Ralph Humphrey: Selected Paintings, 1957–1980, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, May 31 – June 28 2012

Ralph Humphrey, Gary Snyder Gallery, New York, September 13 – October 27 2015

Ralph Humphrey: Conveyance, Garth Greenan Gallery, New York, April 2–May 16

1961

American Abstract Expressionists and Imagists, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, October–December 1966

Systemic Painting, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, September–November 1967

Selected N.Y.C. Artists 1967, Ithaca College Museum of Art, Ithaca, New York, April 4 – May 27 Focus on Light, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, May 20 – September 10 Highlights of the 1966–1967 Art Season, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut, June 18 – September 4 A Romantic Minimalism, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia September 13 – October 11 1968

Bykert Gallery, New York The Art of the Real: USA, 1948–1968, Museum of Modern Art, New York, July 3 – September 8 1968–1969

The Pure and Clear: American Innovations, Philadelphia Museum of Art, November 13, 1968 – January 21, 1969 1969

American Painting: The 1960s, Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, September 22– November 8 Current Minimal Painting, Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York 1969–1970

1969 Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, December 16, 1969 – February 1, 1970 1970–1971

Color and Field, 1890–1970, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, September 15 – November 1, 1970; Dayton Art Institute, Ohio, November 20, 1970 – January 10, 1971; Cleveland Museum of Art, February 4–March 28, 1971 1971

The Structure of Color, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 25 – April 18 Spray, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California, April 24–May 30 Bykert Gallery, New York Art of the Decade, 1960–1970: Paintings from the Collections of Greater Detroit, University Art Gallery, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, November 14–December 17 1972

Painting and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis Museum of Art, April 26 – June 4 Current American Abstract Painting, Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York Dealers’ Choice, La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, California, July 15–September 27 1973

Drawings, Bykert Gallery, New York, January 6–24 Gallery Toselli, Milan 1974

New Painting: Stressing Surface, Katonah Gallery, Katonah, New York, May 4 – June 23 Painting and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis Museum of Art, May 22 – July 14; Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, September 12–October 24 Ten Painters in New York, Michael Walls Gallery, New York, June 15 – July 6 Seventy-First American Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, June 15 – August 11 1975

22 Artists, Susan Caldwell Gallery, New York, January 4–25 Fourteen Abstract Painters, Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles, March 25 – May 25 Fourteen Artists, Baltimore Museum of Art, April 15 – June 1 A Group Show Selected by Klaus Kertess, Texas Gallery, Houston, September 15 – October 11 Douglas Drake Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri 1975–1976

Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture of the ’60s and ’70s from the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, October 7–November 18, 1975; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, December 17, 1975 – February 15, 1976 1976

Ideas on Paper: 1970–1976, Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, May 2 – June 6 Daniel Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco 1977

Paintings on Paper, Drawing Center, New York, January 15–26 Galerie Jean-Paul Najar, Paris ’75, ’76, ’77: Painting, Part I, Sarah Lawrence College Art Gallery, Bronxville, New York, February 19–March 10; American Foundation for the Arts, Miami, April–May; Contempo

Humphrey's work can be found in prominent collections in America and Australia, including the following:

Addison Gallery of American Art Allen Memorial Art Museum Art Institute of Chicago Butler Institute of American Art Carnegie Museum of Art Dayton Art Institute Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Museum of Modern Art National Gallery of Australia Norton Simon Museum Oklahoma City Museum of Art Orange County Museum of Art Palm Springs Art Museum Parrish Art Museum Pérez Art Museum Miami Philadelphia Museum of Art Rose Art Museum San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Smithsonian American Art Museum Tucson Museum of Art Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Walker Art Center Weatherspoon Art Museum Whitney Museum of American Art