Larry Poons

Larry Poons ( born October 1, 1937 in Tokyo, Japan, lives and works in New York City, USA) is an American painter and important exponents of contemporary abstract painting in the United States.

Life and work

Lawrence Poons was born in 1937 in Tokyo, Japan, his parents emigrated in 1938 with him to the United States. He studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent to become a professional musician. In 1959 he began, however, a study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and also studied at the Art Students League of New York where he should also teach.

His work was important in the 1960s, when he on often brilliantly colored backgrounds went public with pictures of circles and ovals. These paintings conveyed a sense of movement, and were categorized as Op Art. Although he exhibited with Op Art artists in 1965, In 1966 he began to move away from the optical art and rather looser and create more painterly abstract paintings. His main work is classified in the styles of Op Art, hard-edge painting, Color Field painting, Lyrical Abstraction and Abstract Expressionism.

1965 he exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the same year he participated in the Biennale of São Paulo in Brazil and was in 1968 with five of his pictures of the participants documenta 4 in Kassel.

Literature and sources

• Exhibition catalog for Documenta IV: IV documentation. International Exhibition; Catalogue: Volume 1: ( painting and sculpture ); Volume 2: (graphics / objects ); Kassel 1968
• Kimpel, Harald / stem, Karin: documenta IV International Exhibition 1968 - A photographic reconstruction ( Series of the documenta - Archives); Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-524-9