Jack Whitten, born in 1939 in Bessemer, Alabama, came to New York in 1960 to study at the Cooper Union. At the time, Abstract Expressionism dominated the art world. The work of Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline was at the forefront of Whitten’s mind. After graduating in 1964, he began creating colourful abstract paintings inspired by and in response to the AbEx movement. Whitten lived amongst many creatives during this period and was able to meet New York artists–such as Philip Guston, Barnett Newman, Jacob Lawrence, and Norman Lewis–many of whom would leave a long-lasting impression on the young artist. The works on view combine his inventive juxtaposition of abstraction with surreal figurative imagery. As Whitten would later demonstrate throughout his career, his instinct was to respond to his time, the sociopolitical climate that defined it. Whitten’s artistic production of the late 1960s serves as a reflection of his experience of living in a socially and creatively charged era, shaped by the events that constituted its tumultuous political landscape.

Jack Whitten is most recognised for his innovative processes of applying paint to the surface of his canvases and transfiguring their material terrains. Over the course of a six-decade career, Whitten’s work bridged rhythms of gestural abstraction and process art, arriving at a nuanced language of painting, which hovers between mechanical automation and intensely personal expression.