{"data":{"id":"1047","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":1047,"topgoose_id":1124,"tms_id":1047,"display_name":"Richard Pousette-Dart","sort_name":"Pousette-Dart Richard","display_date":"1916–1992","begin_date":"1916","end_date":"1992","biography":"\u003cp\u003eRichard Pousette-Dart was an integral member of the New York School during the early years of Abstract Expressionism. He grew up the son of a painter father and poet mother and, as a child, Pousette- Dart was exposed to his father’s collection of African and South Pacific tribal artifacts. These objects no doubt informed his interest in pictographs and other iconography of non-Western art. In the 1940s Pousette- Dart’s work made use of calligraphic and biomorphic forms, similar to those of his contemporaries, such as \u003ca href=\"/artists/1039\"\u003eJackson Pollock\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"/artists/511\"\u003eAdolph Gottlieb\u003c/a\u003e, and \u003ca href=\"/artists/1132\"\u003eMark Rothko\u003c/a\u003e, with whom he exhibited at the Betty Parsons Gallery. Unlike his colleagues, however, who increasingly privileged aesthetic formalism, Pousette-Dart aspired to a symbolic and spiritual function for his art. He once said, “I strive to express the spiritual nature of the universe. Painting for me is a dynamic balance and wholeness of life; it is mysterious and transcending, yet solid and real.”\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis “dynamic balance” is evident in \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/7537\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eWithin the Room\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e. The loosely flowing geometry appears constantly in flux and yet, as the title suggests, it is contained. One colorful shape transforms into the next as lines meander, connect, and continue. The complex tumble of triangles and semicircles keeps the viewer’s eye moving, and yet the composition never descends into chaos. The richly textured organic forms simultaneously evoke two orderly systems that remain mysteries to humankind: the body and the cosmos. \u003cem\u003eWithin the Room\u003c/em\u003e is emblematic of Pousette-Dart’s early work in its evocation of a mystical transcendence and synthesis of European Cubist and Surrealist styles.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500018154","wikidata_id":"Q870701","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:05:41.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-28T07:00:30.747-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/1047/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/1047/exhibitions"}}}}