Robert Swain 
Color: Theory and Affect

Artist Reception: Saturday, December 9, 2017 from 1:00 – 7:00
On view through January 20, 2018


Robert Swain, a leading color theorist, exhibits at David Richard Gallery’s New York location, marking the first comprehensive survey of his work since the major 2010 retrospective at Hunter College. Spanning four decades of systemic approaches, Swain’s paintings elucidate the theoretical, perceptual, and sensual experience of color’s constant flux. 


David Richard Gallery, LLC 
Harlem Venue - 211 East 121st Street
New York, NY 10035
(212)882-1705
www.davidrichardgallery.com


David Richard Gallery is pleased to announce the presentation Robert Swain, Color: Theory and Affect, on view December 9, 2017 – January 20, 2018 at the Gallery’s newest venue in Harlem, located at 211 East 121st Street, New York, NY 10035, P: (212) 882-1705. There will be an opening reception with the artist on Saturday, December 9, 2017 from 1:00 – 7:00 PM. A digital catalogue will be available online. 

For the past 50 years, Robert Swain has dedicated his career to a rigorous study of color sensations and their effect on the human experience. Swain’s paintings offer visual, cognitive, and sensuous experiences, while elevating our understanding of color phenomenon and perception. This heightened awareness of seeing and unique experience of feeling color occurs when Swain’s works are viewed in person with attentive, patient observation. Perceptual effects will begin to emerge slowly, rearranging themselves as the constant flow of color’s energy changes and moves in response to Swain’s compositions and palettes. 

The perceptual and psychological implications of color are the result of Swain’s many varied combinations of particular hues, value transitions, degrees of saturation, color adjacency, overall organization and scale. These elements are then activated by the viewer through distance, light source and duration of observation. While accessible by all who can see color, the perceptual effects and emotional content vary with each viewer resulting in a unique and intensely personal experience. This reciprocity, between viewer and painting, becomes the heart and soul of Swain’s work.

Swain’s seemingly unlimited palette and unique vocabulary of color derives from the personal color system that he devised in the 1970s. By dividing color into 30 hues, 33 value steps, and up to 9 degrees of saturation, Swain created a catalogue with almost 2,200 more components than the well-known Munsell color system. This extensive variety in color deepened Swain’s knowledge and aided in the formulation of his nuanced color relationships. In the 1980s and 1990s, Swain broke down his compositional structure into different sized modules, creating grids within grids, still set in relation to one another but altered in size and scale, order and configuration. These works, on view in this exhibition, allow the viewer to experience multiple color phenomena within one pictorial plane. His largest canvases activate the viewer’s peripheral vision, sensing the edges of the work and allowing the colors to blend, creating an immersive and meditative experience. 

Groundwork for the study of color as an autonomous element (rather than in service of symbolism of signification) was set by Paul Seurat in the 1880s and taken up with a renewed vigor in the twentieth century by Modern masters such as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Josef Albers, and Frank Stella. Swain is a critical figure in this history, coupling the aesthetic and empirical approaches in his quest to understand the phenomenological experience of color. 

About Robert Swain:

Robert Swain received his BA from American University in Washington, D.C. in 1964 and came to New York City the following year where he has lived and worked since. Swain taught in the department of Art and Art History at Hunter College between 1968 and 2014. Here, he was a critical component of the “Hunter Color School” alongside William C. Agee, Sanford Wurmfeld, Gabriele Evertz, Doug Ohlson, Vincent Longo, and Joanna Pousette Dart. In 1998 he was awarded the Distinguished Teaching of Art Award from the College Art Association for the instrumental education he provided to countless generations of artists. 

Swain has had over twenty solo exhibitions and his work has been included in over sixty group shows at prestigious institutions such as, The Museum of Modern Art, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Whitney Museum, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2010 a major exhibition of his work, entitled Visual Sensations, The Paintings of Robert Swain: 1967 – 2010, was held at the Hunter College / Times Square Gallery, curated by his colleague Gabriele Evertz. Swain’s artwork is represented in over 284 private and public collections, including The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Walker Art Center, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Denver Art Museum, The Milwaukee Art Center, The Detroit Institute of Art, The Everson Art Museum, The Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

About David Richard Gallery:

Since its inception in 2010, David Richard Gallery has produced museum quality exhibitions that feature Post War abstraction in the US. The presentations have addressed specific decades and geographies as well as certain movements and tendencies. While the gallery has long been recognized as an important proponent of post-1960s abstraction—including both the influential pioneers as well as a younger generation of practitioners in this field— in keeping with this spirit of nurture and development the gallery also presents established and very new artists who embrace more gestural and representational approaches to the making of art as well as young emerging artists.

In 2015 David Richard Gallery launched DR Projects to provide a platform for artists of all stripes—international, national, local, emerging and established—to present special solo projects or to participate in unique collaborations or thematic exhibitions. The goal is to offer a fresh look at contemporary art practice from a broad spectrum of artists and presentations. Opening the second location in New York in 2017 exposes the gallery’s artists to new markets, institutions and collectors.

Associated Artist

• Robert Swain

Associated Exhibitions

• Robert Swain Color: Theory and Affect
  December 9, 2017 - January 20, 2018
  MORE INFO

Associated News

• April 1, 2023
  Robert Swain: The Perception of Color
  The Brooklyn Rail
  By Alfred Mac Adam
  March 31, 2023
  
  


• February 27, 2023
  Robert Swain: The Perception of Color
  GalleriesNow
  February 27, 2023
  
  


• February 26, 2023
  Press Release - Robert Swain The Perception of Color


• March 11, 2021
  Robert Swain's scaled color studies for monumental series on view at David Richard Gallery
  ArtDaily
  March 11, 2021
  


• November 20, 2017
  Press Release - Robert Swain "Color: Theory and Affect"


• July 13, 2015
  Robert Swain Color Energy
  The Brooklyn Rail, 07/13/2015
  Hovey Brock
  
  


• June 6, 2014
  At Bergamot Station: Great paintingsfor every taste
  Huffington Post, 06/05/2014
  John Seed
  
  


• June 6, 2014
  Robert Swain presents "Color as a Transfer of Energy
  


• May 22, 2014
  Culture Watch: Looking forward
  Santa Monica Daily Press, 05/22/2014
  
  


• May 18, 2014
  Santa Monica Art Events. The Form of Color by Robert Swain (45 Years of Research!!)
  Yareah Magazine, 05/18/2014
  
  


• May 14, 2012
  ROBERT SWAIN "COLOR AFFECT" AT DAVID RICHARD GALLERY
  Eyes In, 05/14/2012
  
  


• May 11, 2012
  Press Release - Robert Swain "Color Affect"