Ralph Humphrey (April 14, 1932 – July 14, 1990) was an American abstract painter whose work has been linked to both Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. He was active in the New York art scene in the 1960s and '70s. His paintings are best summarized as an exploration of space through color and structure. He lived and worked in New York, NY.
He is not to be confused with the percussionist Ralph Humphrey, best known for being the drummer of The Mothers of Invention from 1973 until 1974.
Biography Ralph Humphrey studied at Youngstown State University. He moved to New York in 1957 and immediately became a part of the art scene that was known, at the time, for Abstract Expressionism. He met artists such as Mark Rothko, Theodoros Stamos, Frank Stella, Robert Ryman, and Ellsworth Kelly, who would end up having a large influence on his work. Humphrey was a prominent member of the generation of artists who laid the groundwork for American art in the 1970s and 60s. From 1966 until his death in 1990, he taught painting in the graduate department at Hunter College.
Artistic style Humphrey's artistic style went through several phases and developments, which can be roughly outlined in the following way: monochromes from 1957 to 1960; frame paintings 1961–65; shaped canvases 1967–70; constructed paintings 1971–1990. Throughout these phases, Humphrey kept a keen eye on color, light, and space while he moved between abstraction and representation. As Kenneth Baker explains in Art in America in 1984, “Each of his works defines an ideal viewing distance that can be discovered only by patient observation of the focus of the details, the resolution of the image and the proper relationship between body and object. Finding the apt distance from which to contemplate Humphrey’s new paints is thus not something you do discursively: it is an exercise in feeling your way silently towards a correct spatial interval.”
1957–1960 Reviewing Humphrey's show at Tibor de Nagy in 1960, Donald Judd said, of his monochromes, “They are large, subtle and single-colored. This is Purism of a sort, in which generality does not contain variables but excludes them, in which the basic diagram or color, the only continuity, is exposed, here the essence of a confused sequence of perceptions.” Donald Judd also likened these canvases to the work of Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, and Josef Albers.
1961–1965 Neil A. Levine wrote in 1965 about Humphrey's solo exhibition at Green Gallery, where he showed some of his frame paintings. Levine said, “His new work is serious and demanding. All the paintings are variations on one theme. The theme is, simply stated, an expansive, lightly brushed, large grey field…surrounded by a painted framing edge…” Here, Neil, too, references Albers, as well as TV screens, unfilled billboards, and Rothko.
1967–1970 Robert Pincus-Whitten reviewed Humphrey's 1969 show at Bykert Gallery, where his shaped canvases were hung. Pincus-Whitten explains how Humphrey created “a luminous cosmos of fragile exhalations, painted on large squares or horizontal rectangles, softly turned at the corner and curved back into the stretcher.” These canvases are noteworthy, too, for their use of day-glow colors. At this time, his work becomes increasingly more atmospheric than his previous efforts; multi-colored wavy lines and sprayed colors replace solid geometric fields of single colors.
1971–1990 The last definable phase of his artistic style approaches representation at times, sometimes calling to mind an open window. These constructed paintings also border on sculpture, often coming ten inches out from the wall, directly confronting the viewer in real space. The paint, too, is considerably built up, giving the surface of the paintings considerable texture that was not previously seen in his work. Ellen Schwartz writes in 1977 about his show at John Weber, where his constructed paintings were still abstract: “Humphrey’s latest works, meditative rather than communicative, require the suspension of conscious efforts to grasp them before they will yield their secrets, which lay within ourselves all the while. The rich blue variegated surfaces are like blotters onto which we pour our own fantasies.” D Phillips, writing about his Willard Gallery show in 1982, explains how his constructed paintings are natural extensions of the earlier frame paintings: “Frames-within-frames have long provided the structural basis for Humphrey’s colorful designs; he has simply made his window allusion literal.” She explains, too, that these paintings are a step forward: “The shift does, however, bring greater variety and complexity to the artist’s constructions. There is a more explicit sense of space, of indoors and outdoors.” Beyond content, we see Humphrey using a brighter color palette and inserting vaguely figurative, whimsical patterns onto the surface. Yet, by the mid-1980s, the paintings return to a more ambiguous, abstract state.
Exhibitions Since his first solo exhibition at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York City in 1959, Humphrey's work has been the subject of 40 solo shows. During his lifetime, he had been represented by Green Gallery, Bykert Gallery, Andre Emmerich Gallery, Willard Gallery, and John Weber Gallery.
Solo exhibitions have continued to be mounted since his death in 1990, including Ralph Humphrey: Frame Paintings, 1964 to 1965 at Mary Boone Gallery, New York City, September 8–October 6, 1990 and Ralph Humphrey: Conveyance at Gary Snyder Gallery, April 2 – May 16, 2015. Other exhibitions have been held elsewhere in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boston.
Humphrey's paintings have also been in group shows such as Systemic Painting at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1966, The Structure of Color at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1971, the 1979 Biennial at the Whitney Museum, and High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting, 1967–1975 at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, 2006.
Solo exhibitions 1959
Ralph Humphrey, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, February 3–21
1960
Ralph Humphrey, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, February 2–21
1961
Ralph Humphrey: Recent Paintings, Mayer Gallery, New York, March 14 – April 1
1965
Ralph Humphrey, Green Gallery, New York, May 5–29
1967
Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, January 10 – February 24
1968
Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, February 3–29
1969
Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, February 1–27 Galerie Alfred Schmela, Düsseldorf
1970
Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, April 4–25
1971
Ralph Humphrey, André Emmerich Gallery, New York, March 20 – April 8
1972
Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, May 2–23
1973
Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, May 12 – June 2 Ralph Humphrey: Survey of Paintings, Texas Gallery, Houston, May 15 – June 9
1974
Ralph Humphrey, Bykert Gallery, New York, April 20 – May 15 Ralph Humphrey: Paintings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco, November–December
1975
Ralph Humphrey: Paintings, 1974, Bykert Gallery, New York, February 4–26 Ralph Humphrey: Paintings, 1958–1966, Bykert/ Downtown, New York, February 4–26
1976
Ralph Humphrey, John Weber Gallery, New York, January 31 – February 25
1976–1977
Ralph Humphrey: Recent Paintings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco, December 16, 1976 – January 22, 1977
1977
Ralph Humphrey, John Weber Gallery, New York, February 9–26
1980
Ralph Humphrey, Willard Gallery, New York, April 5 – May 7
1982
Ralph Humphrey, Willard Gallery, New York, April 3–May 8 Ralph Humphrey: Paintings, 1975–1982, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, October 6–30
1983
Ralph Humphrey: Selected Paintings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, May 14 – June 11
1984
Delahunty Gallery, Dallas Ralph Humphrey, Willard Gallery, New York, April 7 – May 12
1985
Ralph Humphrey: Recent Paintings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, October 16 – November 2
1987
Ralph Humphrey, Jay Gorney Modern Art, New York, January–February
1990
Ralph Humphrey: 1990, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, March 3–31 Ralph Humphrey: Frame Paintings, 1964 to 1965, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, September 8–October 6 Ralph Humphrey: A Retrospective View, 1954–1990, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, November 8– December 5
1991
Ralph Humphrey: The Late Paintings on Paper, Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery, Hunter College, City University of New York, September 19 – October 26 Ralph Humphrey: Paintings, 1975–1985, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, October–November
1996
Ralph Humphrey: Selected Paintings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco, August 17 – October 17
1998
Ralph Humphrey, Danese Gallery, New York, January 16 – February 14
2000
Ralph Humphrey: Early Paintings, 1957–1967, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, November 1 – December 9
2001
Ralph Humphrey: Later Paintings, 1975–1982, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, April 5 – May 26
2008
Ralph Humphrey: Selected Works from the Estate, Nielsen Gallery, Boston, May 17 – June 14 Ralph Humphrey: Selected Paintings, 1957–1980, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, May 31 – June 28
2012
Ralph Humphrey, Gary Snyder Gallery, New York, September 13 – October 27
2015
Ralph Humphrey: Conveyance, Garth Greenan Gallery, New York, April 2–May 16
Group exhibitions 1961 American Abstract Expressionists and Imagists, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, October–December
1966 Systemic Painting, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, September–November
1967 Selected N.Y.C. Artists 1967, Ithaca College Museum of Art, Ithaca, New York, April 4 – May 27 Focus on Light, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, May 20 – September 10 Highlights of the 1966–1967 Art Season, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut, June 18 – September 4 A Romantic Minimalism, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia September 13 – October 11
1968 Bykert Gallery, New York The Art of the Real: USA, 1948–1968, Museum of Modern Art, New York, July 3 – September 8
1968–1969 The Pure and Clear: American Innovations, Philadelphia Museum of Art, November 13, 1968 – January 21, 1969
1969 American Painting: The 1960s, Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, September 22– November 8 Current Minimal Painting, Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York
1969–1970 1969 Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, December 16, 1969 – February 1, 1970
1970–1971 Color and Field, 1890–1970, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, September 15 – November 1, 1970; Dayton Art Institute, Ohio, November 20, 1970 – January 10, 1971; Cleveland Museum of Art, February 4–March 28, 1971
1971 The Structure of Color, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 25 – April 18 Spray, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California, April 24–May 30 Bykert Gallery, New York Art of the Decade, 1960–1970: Paintings from the Collections of Greater Detroit, University Art Gallery, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, November 14–December 17
1972 Painting and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis Museum of Art, April 26 – June 4 Current American Abstract Painting, Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York Dealers’ Choice, La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, California, July 15–September 27
1973 Drawings, Bykert Gallery, New York, January 6–24 Gallery Toselli, Milan
1974 New Painting: Stressing Surface, Katonah Gallery, Katonah, New York, May 4 – June 23 Painting and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis Museum of Art, May 22 – July 14; Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, September 12–October 24 Ten Painters in New York, Michael Walls Gallery, New York, June 15 – July 6 Seventy-First American Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, June 15 – August 11
1975 22 Artists, Susan Caldwell Gallery, New York, January 4–25