Larry Poons: A Short Biography
by John "Brojo" Wooldridge
Lawrence "Larry" Poons is a painter who was born in 1937 in Tokyo, Japan. Originally a musician, he studied at the New England Conservatory of Music from 1955 to 1957. He then studied at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts in 1959. His early artwork is Optical Art and/or the Color-Field school of painting, and his later paintings are non-objective. He currently resides primarily in New York City, but he also has a studio in Florida.
Larry Poons began to exhibit his paintings in important group exhibitions in 1963. His first show was in 1963 at the Green Gallery in New York. His paintings of the 1960's were characterized by dots of color placed according to a horizontal vertical and diagonal grid against a rich colored ground. The effect was a sense of movement--thus Optical Art.
Op Art designated a group of American artists who experimented with elements of design and color to create optical illusions. The title "Op" is a play on the preceding "Pop" art movement. Both Pop and Op react against the dominant modern American style Abstract Expressionism. Additionally, Op art was particularly influenced by scientific research in perceptual psychology and ocular physiology. Specifically, Poons' work is designed to create the visual effect commonly referred to as afterimages. If one focuses intensely on the picture surface for twenty seconds the cones in the retina of ones eye retain the image and one will continue to see the compliment of the image for a short time following. As Poons' dots are elliptical they will appear to move across the canvas so that no two viewers have the same visual experience. One of his more famous early pieces, representing his Op Art phase, is entitled "Orange Crush".
By the mid-sixties, however, Larry had moved away from the optical, scientific aspect of his work in a more poetic and painterly direction. His dots and ellipses began to be adjusted and hand-painted, and "his expressive color sense asserted itself in some of the most interesting and beautiful paintings of the decade." His dots and ellipses took on an identity, "like a familiar voice in a song or a character in literature." The paintings perfectly embody the painter's artistic soul.
In his large ellipse paintings of 1967 Poons made dramatic pictorial and compositional changes that moved away from his all over dot paintings. When Poons, always a great colorist, stained over his ellipse paintings in 1968 he achieved some of the most beautiful, free spirited and innovative abstractions of the decade. The artistic character that Poons had developed in his pictures had achieved "a nirvana of expressive lyricism".
One source, named DuChance, says that Larry Poons "threw some of the best loft parties with some of the best dope." Thus, like many artists (especially those of the 1960's), Larry's artistic inspiration and influence can be attributed, at least in part, to mind-expanding soft drugs like marijuana and LSD. Salvador Dali said, "Everyone should eat hashish", which puts Larry amongst esteemed company.
In an interview with Dorothy Seckler, dated March 18, 1965, Larry successfully predicted both the American artistic renaissance of the 1960's and his own continued place in art history:
"it seems as if there's a whole bunch of people I guess you might say from my generation that are coming to the front now as very, very, very strong performers -- artists, dancers and these are all very interesting to me and in about six years . . . . Things are pretty really fantastic as far as, you know, the kids that went to high school in the 1950's sometime. You know, as they mature . . . because I think there's quite a few really what you'd call big big talents that are just emerging."
He couldn't have been more correct. Big things were happening, and many more were about to happen - and not just in the artistic sense, either. For example, it was during this interview with Dorothy that Larry learned a Russian cosmonaut had taken the first space walk.
Although Larry told Dorothy Seckler that "I don't think I've ever really been interested in art with a capital A", the art community has certainly been interested in him. Larry himself became one of those "big things" he mentioned in his interview with Dorothy. Beginning with his 1963 Green Gallery show, Larry has had more than 60 solo shows of his paintings in galleries around the world. Achieving enormous success early in his career he has been represented by the finest contemporary art galleries. His work has been in major group exhibitions and in museums all over the world. His paintings are in many major private and museum collections as well, and there are numerous important publications that include his work. When musician Sam Andrew (of both "Big Brother and the Holding Company" and Janis Joplin's "Kozmic Blues Band") listed some of the greatest people he's met, besides Jimi Hendrix, the list read "Andy Warhol, Larry Rivers, Salvador Dali, Tiny Tim, Debbie Harry, Larry Poons, Mick Jagger, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Richard Chamberlain" - as strong of an endorsement as any artist could possibly hope for.
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