Artist Biography

Stanton MACDONALD-WRIGHT
1890 - 1973

Stanton Macdonald-Wright was born in Charlottesville, Virginia on July 8, 1890. A problem child, Stanton ran away from home on a windjammer. When his father became manager of the Arcadia Hotel on the coast at Santa Monica, he moved with his family to California in 1900. His art studies were begun locally with Joseph Greenbaum. He soon hyphenated his last name with Macdonald to avoid being ask if he was related to the architect or the aviators. In 1909 he journeyed to Paris for further study at the Sorbonne, Académies Julian, Beaux Arts, and Colarossi. In Paris he and artist Morgan Russell developed an art style which they termed Synchromism in which color generates form. They co-exhibited in Paris and Munich in 1913 and New York in 1914. Upon returning to the United States in 1916, MacDonald-Wright was active on the East Coast until his return to Los Angeles in 1919. He then turned from Synchromism to a more oriental approach to art, and produced the first full-length stop-motion film ever made in full color. He was director of the Art Students League of Los Angeles from 1923-30. During the 1930s he served as regional advisor for seven states on the Works Progress Administration art program. From 1942-52 he taught oriental aesthetics, art history, and iconography at UCLA. Upon retirement, he devoted full time to painting, dividing his time between Kyoto, Japan and his home in Santa Monica. His work alternated throughout his career between pure abstractions and figural representations. Eugen Neuhaus put it succinctly in his History and Ideals of American Art, "Wright apparently attempts to correlate music with painting, as indicated in his emphasis upon strongly moving dynamic rhythms clothed in the hues of the spectrum." A pioneer in modern art, MacDonald-Wright died in Los Angeles on August 22, 1973. Exhibited: American Modernists (Los Angeles), 1920; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1927, 1932, 1956; North Carolina Museum, 2001 (retrospective). Works held: Corcoran Gallery (Washington, DC); Art Institue of Chicago; Brooklyn Museum; Los Angeles County Museum; Metropolitan Museum; Carnegie Institute; Detroit Institute of Arts; Boston Museum; Oakland Museum; Museum of Modern Art (New York City); Walker Art Center (Minneapolis); San Diego Museum; Pasadena Art Institute; Orange County (California) Museum; Santa Monica City Hall, High School and Public Library; Whitney Museum (New York City); Thomas Edison Jr. High School (Los Angeles).

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