(AbEx Composition)

George Ball

George Ball did this Abstract Expressionist watercolor in 1966. Influenced by his experimental work done at Atelier 17: automatic line and gestural compositions which had contributed to the Abstract Expressionist movements of the 1950s and 60s he created a visual "landscape" of color, a sunset - or an inferno, beautiful or sinister.

George Ball, painter, and printmaker was born in San Francisco, California on August 10, 1929. He studied art at Stanford in the 1950s and moved to Paris in 1957 where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. In 1958 Ball studied with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 and he taught briefly at the workshop. With Hayter’s support, Ball began showing internationally.

Ball had arrived on the Parisian art scene at the time when lyrical abstraction, informal art, dripping, materialism flourished. He explored these paths for a few years by combining these different techniques. Later his art evolved again, from abstraction to a return to figuration. From 1961, he exhibited large oils: landscapes, portraits, fountains, urban landscapes, along with engravings, alongside Alexander Calder, Jasper Johns, and Anita de Caro.

After that many galleries and traveling exhibitions hosted his works. He was part of the USA New Painting group which was under the patronage of the US Embassy which represented American art in France. All the artists of this group exhibited regularly on both sides of the Atlantic. Along with Hayter and Atelier 17, he participated in numerous international exhibitions.