Nicholas Krushenick was native to New York, and yet his first experience with lithography was at Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles in 1965. His dramatic turn toward a simplified aesthetic—essentially a parody of the artistic gesture championed by the abstract expressionists practicing in New York in the 1950s—solidified his position as one of the first pop painters of the era. His extraordinarily vibrant color, in combination with flat, black outlines, was suited to both lithography and screenprinting. To maintain a rigid two-dimensionality, Krushenick insisted on using absolutely flat white paper with no pulp and no “softness,” as he termed it. When his printer Ken Tyler established Gemini Ltd. in 1965, Krushenick became the first artist to work with Tyler there. Their project was a print commissioned for a fundraiser for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Details
- Artist Name: Nicholas Krushenick (American, 1929-1999)
- Title: Untitled
- Date: 1965
- Medium: Lithograph
- Dimensions: Paper: 29-1/4 x 21-1/2 in. (74.30 x 54.61 cm.)
- Publisher: Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Inc.
- Printer: Kenneth Tyler
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Anonymous Gift
- Accession Number: P.1967.20.096
- Copyright: © Estate of Nicholas Krushenick, courtesy Gary Snyder Gallery, New York
Object Information
Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California
- Norton Simon Museum, 2011-10-02 to 2012-04-02
- Lehmbeck, Leah et al., Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California, 2011, Fig. 86 p. 125
Additional Artwork by Artist
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