Lorser Feitelson

Seeing the modernist works of Cézanne, Matisse, Boccioni, and Duchamp at the 1913 Armory Show in New York predisposed the fifteen-year-old Lorser Feitelson to a reductive train of thought that became the guiding principle in his art throughout his life. In 1934, along with Helen Lundeberg, his wife and former student, Feitelson developed a painting style he called “Post-Surrealism,” which he sought a more cerebral and structured approach than the spontaneous methods of European Surrealism. By 1948, Feitelson had begun his Magical Space Forms, a series which combined large geometric shapes with hard angular edges and bold two-and three-part color schemes. This untitled work from 1968 is an extension of the simplified shapes and colors used in Feitelson’s Magical Space Forms and represents a high point in the development of his late work, which is characterized by his sensuous lines.