Gene Davis: Classic, just like the stripe itself

By the 1960s, Washington, D.C. born Gene Davis had become a central figure of the Washington Color School, whose members included Kenneth Noland, Howard Mehring and Morris Louis.  Their 1965 exhibition, The Washington Color Painters, at the now-defunct Washington Gallery of Modern Art, and which traveled to the Walker Art Center, solidified the style as Washington’s signature art movement.

Though he himself was not a musician, Davis referred to the repetition of colored intervals as being akin to musical rhythm. He suggested that when looking at his paintings, one begins by “simply glancing at the work, selecting a specific color and taking the time to see how it operates across the painting. Enter the painting through the door of a single color, and then you can understand what the painting is all about.”

A work such as Solar Diary is a refined and sophisticated composition that now stands as a classic in the lexicon of contemporary art.