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Larry Poons Portrait

Larry Poons

Born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1937, American painter Larry Poons originally set out to become a musician. From 1955 to 1959, he studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. However, after encountering a Barnett Newman exhibition at French & Company in New York City in 1959, Poons shifted his focus from music to visual art. He went on to study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and upon completing his training, relocated to New York to fully dedicate himself to painting.

Poons debuted with his first solo exhibition in 1963 at Richard Bellamy’s renowned Green Gallery. Two years later, his work was featured in The Responsive Eye, a pivotal exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. His paintings from the 1960s were distinctly “optical” in nature, reflecting the aesthetic principles championed by that MoMA show. Using mathematically arranged points and precisely selected color combinations, Poons sought to remove any visible trace of the artist’s touch, a method shared by his contemporary and friend Frank Stella.

By the late 1970s, Poons had grown dissatisfied with the limitations of purely optical art. During this period, he began experimenting with pouring and flinging paint onto canvas, once again aiming to minimize the evidence of direct manipulation. He also started incorporating unconventional materials, such as foam balls and rope, into his compositions. In the 1990s, he returned to brushwork, creating on long rolls of canvas that stretched across all four walls of his studio, allowing him to physically immerse himself in the creative process. From these expansive works, he would later extract individual paintings with careful precision.

Today, Poons divides his time between his studios in New York City and East Durham, New York. His work remains widely exhibited, notably appearing in Painting after Postmodernism: Belgium - USA (2016–18), an international traveling show curated by Barbara Rose. In 2018, he was also profiled in the HBO documentary The Price of Everything: An Art World Odyssey, directed by Nathaniel Kahn. Poons’s relentless commitment to artistic experimentation has made his work highly sought after by collectors and major institutions alike, with pieces held in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

  • Biography

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Selected artworks

  • Centaur, 2020 - Acrylic on canvas - 139.7 x 247.7 cm - 55 x 97 1/2 in
    Centaur, 2020 - Acrylic on canvas - 139.7 x 247.7 cm - 55 x 97 1/2 in

    Larry Poons Centaur, 2020

    Acrylic on canvas
    139.7 x 247.7 cm
    55 x 97 1/2 in

Gallery exhibitions

Museum exhibitions