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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.

Single work, Peter Bradley

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

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