John McLaughlin: A Retrospective Exhibition

John McLaughlin (1898–1976) did not begin to present his work widely as a full-time painter until 1956, the year of this exhibition, which displayed eight paintings, many of which incorporated abstract, geometric shapes. McLaughlin was greatly influenced by the work of Mondrian and Japanese artists. He renounced expressionist gesture and figurative painting in favor of European abstraction and the perceived quiet simplicity of the Eastern philosophies he practiced. He won numerous awards in the 1950s for his work as a hard-edge abstractionist. The artist said of his own process: “In developing a painting I am conscious of an order of nature, and meaning must emerge not significantly but as significance. The painting itself does not represent or symbolize anything. Its neutral forms persistently resist identity and are intended to destroy themselves by implication.” The Norton Simon Museum currently possesses two works by McLaughlin: a lithograph, Untitled, (1963) and an acrylic painting, Untitled (c. 1946).