biography
Stanley Whitney, born 1946 in Philadelphia, is a contemporary African-American artist. He studied at the Kansas City Art Institute before he went to continue his studies at the Yale School of Art in New York, where he received an MFA in 1972. Compared to other African-American artists Whitney had no interest in creating art about his black identity, instead he focusses on loosely-gridded multi-colored paintings that reference a wide variety of art historical and cultural references, e.g. Egyptian hieroglyphs, early Minimalism, Jazz music or other artists such as Bob Thompson or Giorgio Morandi. Whitney’s works are known for his brushy blocks of colors that can complement but also clash against one another. He says of his work that color dictates the structure, that one color calls forth another.
The artist lives and works in New York and Parma.
His works have been shown at various institutions such as The Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven), The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas), The Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia), The Wexner Center for the Arts (Colombus) and the Documenta 14 (Athens, Kassel).
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022
Stanley Whitney: The Italian Paintings, Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, Venice
2018
Abstraction Today – Mapping the Invisible World, Tobias Mueller Modern Art, Zurich
2017
Stanley Whitney, Documenta 14, Athens/Kassel
2016
Focus – Stanley Whitney, Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth
2015
Dance the Orange, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
2007
Stanley Whitney, Palazzo Magnani, Reggio Emilia
2004
Stanley Whitney: Recent Works, A.A.M Architettura Arte Moderna, Rome
1991
Stanley Whitney, University of Dayton, Dayton
1985
Stanley Whitney, University of Rhode Island, Kingston
Stanley Whitney, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia
1984
Stanley Whitney, Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond
1983
Stanley Whitney, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York
1972
Stanley Whitney, University of Rhode Island, Kingston