Automatic Painting White #3 (1978-79)
Acrylic on canvas
33 x 33 inches
James Hayward’s monochromatic paintings are widely recognized as contributing to twentieth-century experiments in abstraction, particularly the artistic lineage that begins with Suprematism. Hayward was born in San Francisco in 1943, and has lived and worked in California throughout his career. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1966 from San Diego State University, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Washington in 1972. Shortly after completing his academic training, he began creating self-referential paintings in which the emphasis is on the formal properties of the medium.
From 1975 until 1984, Hayward produced “flat paintings,” monochromatic canvases composed of initial coats of paint that are sanded after they are applied in order to achieve a smooth underpainting. Several more layers of paint are then added using automatic painting techniques, signaling his desire to eliminate traces of artistic intent and resulting in the erasure of brushwork. His black flat paintings were created with color that was prepared by mixing primary colors rather than prepared store-bought paint, and were soon followed by all white compositions. These saturated canvases were especially influential to an emerging generation of artists in Southern California in the 1970s and 80s, and expanded the experiments in painting that were advanced by a circle of abstract artists that included John McLaughlin. Hayward became associated with the broader Minimalist movement after the works were included in the critically acclaimed exhibition Less is More at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York in 1977.
Hayward’s first solo exhibition was held at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1975, and since then he has exhibited in venues across the U.S. and abroad, including the Los Angeles County Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C., and Institute of Contemporary Art, London. He is the recipient of the Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. His works are housed in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Jose Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo, NY.
