Establishing an Identity

Works acquired in 1968 by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art show the diversity and trajectory of contemporary American art

Oklahoma City Museum of Art

415 Couch Drive Oklahoma City, OK 73102 t: (405) 236-3100 www.okcmoa.com

Fifty years ago, the Oklahoma Art Center, the precursor to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, made an unprecedented decision when it purchased the more than 150-piece collection of the closing Washington Gallery of Modern Art. Featured in the grouping were works by both established and then-emerging artists— names such as Robert Indiana, Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Grace Hartigan, Richard Diebenkorn, Paul Reed, Marcel Duchamp and Ellsworth Kelly, to mention a few.

To celebrate this important moment in the museum’s history, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art presents 54 of the works in the exhibition The New Art: A Milestone Collection Fiftyyears Later. Hanging through May 13, the show will highlight the various styles and movements of the contemporary art scene in the 1950s and early 1960s. It is organized by themes such as abstract, pop art, op art and the Washington Color School, a Washington, D.c.based group of artists whose pieces focused on color as subject matter.

One of the artists who was a leading member of the group was Kelly, whose piece Red Blue, 1963, will be on view in the exhibition.“this may be the most important work in our permanent collection bar none,” says E. Michael Whittington, president and CEO of the museum.“ellsworth Kelly is one of the iconic artists,american artists, postwar artists.this was one of his favorite paintings, and it is a very important work to showcase the minimalist movement…it was reducing a painting to surface appeal and color and line.

It’s a very sophisticated and intellectual approach that was pioneered by Kelly and some of the artists of the Washington Color School.”

Also associated with the group is Sam Gilliam, whose works have been becoming more and more recognized by collectors in recent years. His 1965 work Khufu is on view in the show. The piece is an earlier painting that

Robert Indiana (b. 1928), Coenties Slip, 1962. Oil on canvas, 60 x 48 in. Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Museum purchase, Washington Gallery of Modern Art Collection, 1968.152. Photo by Joseph Mills.