Paul Reed
Artwork
Exhibitions
Paul Reed
Thomas Downing, Howard Mehring, Paul Reed
Wednesday, April 16, 2025 - Friday, May 30, 2025
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Paul Reed
Altered States: A Psychedelic Legacy
Friday, December 2, 2016 - Saturday, January 28, 2017
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Paul Reed
Color: Stained, Brushed and Poured
Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - Saturday, September 3, 2016
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Paul Reed
Re-Op: ‘The Responsive Eye’ Fifty Years After
Friday, October 2, 2015 - Saturday, December 12, 2015
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Paul Reed
Op Infinitum: 'The Responsive Eye' Fifty Years After (Part II)
American Op Art In The 60s
Tuesday, May 26, 2015 - Sunday, July 12, 2015
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Paul Reed
BENT PERIMETERS: THE 'SHAPED CANVAS' AND ABSTRACTION, 1960s TO TODAY
Tuesday, April 14, 2015 - Sunday, May 17, 2015
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Bio
Paul (Allen) Reed (born 1919) is an American artist most associated with the Washington Color School and Color Field Painting.
Reed was born in Washington DC and currently resides in the Virginia suburbs outside of DC. He attended and graduated from both San Diego State College in San Diego, CA and the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC. Reed’s group show debut was in 1958 in the Watkins Gallery, American University. He and a few of his select his contemporary peers made a splash in a 1965 group show at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art entitled The Washington Color Painters. Also called the Washington Color School, this group had a profound influence in the abstract arena and the pushing of artistic boundaries from mid-century forward. His first solo show was in January 1963 at the Adams-Morgan Gallery in Washington, DC. In November of that same year, he had another solo show in the East Hampton Gallery in New York City.
From 1962 to 1971 Paul Reed served as Art Director for the Peace Corps after which he joined the Corcoran School of Art in the position of Assistant Professor.
Gallery Statement / Profile
Paul Reed, the renowned Washington, D.C.-based artist and founding member of the Washington Color School. The focus of his career has been on color and the interplay with surface and light. Paul Reed has created luminous paintings— stretched, not stretched, square, rectangular and dynamically shaped, on canvas, muslin and paper—that explored transparency through a range of subject matter spanning mandalas, biomorphic shapes, discs and geometric abstractions.
CV/BIO
Selected Solo and Group Shows
2015 Op Infinitum: “The Responsive Eye” Fifty Years After, Part I, Part II, American Op Art in the 60’s, David Richard Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2000-2002 Multiple-Venue Tour in Modernism and Abstraction; Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
1997 Nov. the Arts Club of Washington, Washington, DC
1997 Feb. Watkins Gallery, Washington, DC
1982 Mar-Apr WPA (Washington Project for the Arts), Washington, DC
1981 Apr. Yares Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
1979 Mar. Yares Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
1979 Dec. Yares Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
1978 Mar. Yares Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
1977 Jan. Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ
1976 Aug. Chilmark Gallery, Martha's Vineyard
1973 Feb. Pyramid Gallery, Washington, DC
1971 Oct. Pyramid Gallery, Washington, DC
1971 May Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale, VA
1971 Jan. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC – Melzac Collection
1971 Dec. Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York City
1971 Apr. Matthews Center, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
1970 U.S. Peace Corps, Washington, DC
1970 May Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD – Washington Twenty Years
1970 Jul. Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center - New Accessions USA
1970 Feb. Jacksonville Art Museum, Jacksonville, FL - The Washington Painters
1969 Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT – Inaugural Exhibition
1969 University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI
1969 The Westmoreland County Museum of Art, 10th Anniversary Exhibition
1969 Steinberg Gallery of Art, Washington University, St. Louis, MO - The Development of Modern Painting, Jackson Pollock to Present
1969 Dec. Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL – The Washington Painters
1968 the Jefferson Place Ten Years, Washington, DC
1968 Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK – East Coast-West Coast Paintings
1968 Comprehensive Survey National Collection of Fine Arts
1967 School of Visual Arts Gallery, New York City – Homage to Morandi
1967 Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma – Collectors Choice VII
1967 Nov. Jefferson Place Gallery, Washington, DC
1967 Nov. Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York City
1967 Mar. Steinberg Gallery of Art, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
1967 Corcoran Gallery of Art, Recent Acquisitions
1966 National Collection of Fine Arts - The Hard Edge Trend White House Rotation Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Recent Acquisitions Exhibition
1966 John Heron Art Museum
1966 Jan. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
1966 Des Moines Art Center, Op Art
Paul Reed is also in more than 50 public collections including: the Detroit Institute of Art in Detroit, Michigan; Emory University in Atlanta, GA; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC; the National Museum of Art in Washington, DC; the Phoenix Museum of Art in Phoenix, AZ; the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Boca Raton, FL; the Santa Barbara Museum in Santa Barbara, California; and the Wadsworth Athanaeum in Hartford, CT.
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