Edward Avedisian, Mod Abstract Expressionist Modernist Edward Avedisian Color Field Art Gouache, c. 1979

Edward Avedisian Gouache Watercolor Abstract Painting on Arches paper. (notebook cover not included)
Unsigned, (bears name verso in pencil.)
Dimensions: 10″ X 14″
Late 1970s, early 1980s.

Edward Avedisian (June 15, 1936, Lowell, Massachusetts – August 17, 2007, Philmont, New York) was an American abstract painter who came into prominence during the 1960s. His work was initially associated with Color field painting and in the late 1960s with Lyrical Abstraction and Abstract Expressionism.
He studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. By the late 1950s he moved to New York City. Between 1958 and 1963 Avedisian had six solo shows in New York. In 1958 he initially showed at the Hansa Gallery, then he had three shows at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery and in 1962 and 1963 at the Robert Elkon Gallery. He continued to show at the Robert Elkon Gallery almost every year until 1975.
During the 1960s his work was broadly visible in the contemporary art world. He joined the dynamic art scene in Greenwich Village, frequenting the Cedar Tavern on Tenth Street, associating with the critic Clement Greenberg, and joining a new generation of abstract artists, such as Darby Bannard, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, and Larry Poons.
Avedisian was among the leading figures to emerge in the New York art world during the 1960s. An artist who mixed the hot colors of Pop Art with the cool, more analytical qualities of Color Field painting, he was instrumental in the exploration of new abstract methods to examine the primacy of optical experience.
One of his paintings was appeared on the cover of Artforum, in 1969, his work was included in the 1965 Op Art The Responsive Eye exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and in four annuals at the Whitney Museum of American Art. His paintings were widely sought after by collectors and acquired by major museums in New York and elsewhere. He has been exhibited in prominent galleries, such as the Anita Shapolsky Gallery and the Berry Campbell Gallery in New York City. Edward Avedisian was known for his brightly colored, boldly composed canvases that combined Minimalism’s rigor, Pop art exuberance and the saturated tones of Color Field painting.
Roberta Smith of the NYT writes of Avedesian: “Edward Avedisian helped establish the hotly colored, but emotionally cool, abstract painting that succeeded Abstract Expressionism in the early 1960s. This young luminary harnessed elements of minimalism, pop, and color field painting to create prominent works of epic proportions that energized the New York art scene of the time.” In 1996 Avedisian showed his paintings from the 1960s at the Mitchell Algus Gallery, then in SoHo. His last show, dominated by recent landscapes, was in 2003 at the Algus gallery, now in Chelsea.

Selected Exhibitions:
Op Art: The Responsive Eye, at the Museum of Modern Art,
Whitney Museum’s Young America 1965
Expo 67, held in Montreal, Canada.
Six Painters (along with Darby Bannard, Dan Christensen, Ron Davis, Poons, and Peter Young) , Albright-Knox Art Gallery in collaboration with the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Milwaukee Art Center.

Selected collections:
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York;
Brooklyn Museum, New York;
Denver Art Museum, Colorado;
Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan;
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York;
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York;
Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York;
Portland Art Museum, Oregon;
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.;
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York;
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor;
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.
Museum of Modern Art,
Whitney Museum of American Art,
Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts,
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut,
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA,