Peter Bradley
Peter Bradley (b. 1940, Connellsville, PA) is a painter and sculptor whose work is associated with the Color Field movement. Across his abstract paintings, vivid hues splatter and stain the canvas, creating surface effects that celebrate encounters with color. Bradley uses acrylic gel paint, a medium that was newly developed at the start of his practice, to combine wide gestural passages and saturated layers of color with an expressivity that influenced abstract artists such as the New New Painters in the 1970s, and expanded the possibilities of the medium. His work takes advantage of the intrinsically performative nature of color, revelling in its brilliance and splendor.
Bradley is recognized for curating the first racially integrated show in the United States, with the backing of collector and philanthropist John de Menil. The De Luxe Show became a landmark moment in civil rights history. Presented in 1971 in Houston, the exhibition featured both white and Black abstract modern artists of the time, including Darby Bannard, Peter Bradley, Anthony Caro, Ed Clark, Frank Davis, Sam Gilliam, Robert Gordon, Richard Hunt, Virginia Jaramillo, Daniel Johnson, Craig Kauffman, Alvin Loving, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Larry Poons, Michael Stiener, William T. Williams, and James Wolfe.
Bradley’s work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Dallas Art Museum, Dallas, Texas; The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas; African American Museum, Dallas, Texas; African American Museum, Los Angeles, California; Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Aldrich Museum, Ridgewood, Connecticut; University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; University of California, Berkeley, California; Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio; Johannesburg Art Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina; Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; The Rennie Collection, Vancouver, Canada; and the Stamford Museum and Nature Center, Stamford, Connecticut, among others.
Bradley’s work is currently on view in New Abstracts at LACMA in Los Angeles.
Born 1940, Connellsville, Pennsylvania
Lives and works in Saugerties, New York
EDUCATION
Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut
Society of Arts and Crafts, Detroit, Michigan
SELECTED SOLO AND TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2021
Karma, New York
2019
Oyster Point Gallery, Red Bank, New Jersey, Peter Bradley: Beyond the Fields of Color
Emerge Gallery, Saugerties, New York, Peter Bradley: New Work
2017
GraySpace Gallery, Santa Barbara, California, Squire Foundation residency exhibition
2003
David A. Portlock Black Cultural Center Gallery, Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, Peter Bradley: The Kingdom Has Come
2002
Cross Path Culture, New York, Peter Bradley/John Hersey
1993
Kenkeleba House, New York, Peter Bradley
1987
Gallery Hirondelle, New York, Peter Bradley
1986
Gallery Hirondelle, New York, Peter Bradley/Suzanne McClelland
1982
Dyansen Gallery, New York, Peter Bradley
1981
Hedgeepeth & De Staycker, Brussels, Peter Bradley
1974
Cusack Gallery, Houston, Texas, Peter Bradley
André Emmerich Downtown, New York, Peter Bradley: New Paintings
1973
André Emmerich Downtown, New York, Peter Bradley
1972
André Emmerich Gallery, New York, Peter Bradley
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022-23
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, New Abstracts
2022
Stamford Museum & Nature Center, Stamford, Discovering Color: Two Decades of Abstraction
MORÁN MORÁN, Mexico City, A Form of Magic, curated by Benjamin Godsill
2021
Karma, New York, Get Lifted!, organized by Hilton Als
Karma, New York/Parker Gallery, Los Angeles, The De Luxe Show
2020
Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-83
2017
GraySpace Gallery, Santa Barbara, California, GraySpace Artists Group Show
2002
Jack Tilton Gallery and Anna Kustera Gallery, New York, No Greater Love: Abstraction
Cross Path Culture, New York, Paper for Paper
2001
Tribes Gallery, New York, Cross-Cultural Gems, curated by James Little
1991
Kenkeleba House, New York, The Search for Freedom: African American Abstract Painting 1945-1975
1984
Harkrader and Ross, Washington DC, Walk
1983
22 Wooster Gallery, New York, On Trial: Yale School of Art
1982
White Gallery, New York, Peter Bradley
1976
Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corp. and Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Selected Works by Black Artists from the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut
1973
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1973 Biennial, Contemporary American Art
1972
Sidney Janis Gallery and Pace Gallery, New York, Art for McGovern
1971
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Toward Color and Field, curated by Elmer Arthur Carmean Jr.
De Luxe Theater, Houston, De Luxe Show, curated by Peter Bradley
Institute for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, Some American History
1969
Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, Contemporary Black Artists
1968
Museum of Modern Art, New York, In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 30 Contemporary Black Artists
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Studio Museum, Harlem
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
African American Museum of Dallas, Dallas
California African American Museum, Los Angeles
Fogg Museum, Boston
Aldrich Museum, Ridgewood, Connecticut
University of Sydney, Australia
Menil Collection, Houston
University of California, Berkeley
Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio
Johannesburg Art Foundation, South Africa
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina
Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Stamford Museum and Nature Center, Stamford, Connecticut
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas
The Rennie Collection, Vancouver
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California
HONORS, LECTURES, AND AWARDS
2017
Squire Foundation Artist in Residence, Santa Barbara, California
2009
Harvard University, Department of Art History and Architecture, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Clement Greenberg at 100: Looking Back to Modern Art
2003
Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania
2002
Pollock Krasner Award
2001
Wheeler Foundation Grant
1994
Pollock Krasner Award
1986
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, Emma Lake Artist Workshop
1985
Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York
United States-South Africa Leadership Exchange Program Grant
1983
Andy Warhol Foundation Exhibition Grant
National Endowment for the Arts Grant, Clayworks Studio Workshop, New York
PUBLICATIONS
2016
Darby English.
1971: A Year in the Life of Color
University of Chicago Press, Chicago
312 pages
7 x 9 inches
2010
Josef Helfenstein, Laureen Schipsi, Suzanne Deal Booth.
Art and activism : projects of John and Dominique de Menil
Menil Collection, Houston
344 pages
1971
Peter Bradley, Jefferee James, Steve Cannon, Clement Greenberg, Simone Swan.
The Deluxe show : August 15-September 12, 1971, Houston, Texas
Menil Collection, Houston
74 pages
