STANTON MACDONALD-WRIGHT

Pioneer American modernist Stanton MacDonald-Wright was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1890. He studied in Paris – at the Sorbonne, l’Académie Julian, l’École Beaux-Arts and l’Académie de la Grand Chaumière. In 1913, he invented “Synchromism” with Morgan Russell, a style in which form was generated by color. Together, the two mounted the first major Synchromist exhibits in Munich and Paris. He returned to the United States in 1916, settling in California by way of New York City. With a growing interest in Oriental philosophy and approaches to art, he began teaching at the Art Students League in Los Angeles, the first of many teaching positions. Others included professor of Oriental Art & Iconography at UCLA, Scripps College, the University of Southern California, and the University of Hawaii. He was also the regional advisor of the WPA for seven states during the Great Depression. Throughout his career, he moved back and forth between pure abstraction and figuration. Among his many achievements was producing the first full-length stop-motion film ever made in color. He published the books “Color: Theory and Chart”, and “The Creative Will: Studies in the Philosophy and Syntax of Aesthetics”, as well as many journal articles, including “Blueprint for a Textbook on Art.” He retired in Japan and died in 1973. His work is held in museums in England, France, Poland, Italy, and Japan as well as many schools, libraries, and public buildings in the United States.