Kenneth Noland was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School movement. In 1977, he was honored with a major retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York that then traveled to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and Ohio's Toledo Museum of Art in 1978. In 2006, Noland's Stripe Paintings were exhibited at the Tate in London.
Anne Truitt, born Anne Dean, was an American sculptor of the mid-20th century.
The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design is the professional art school of the George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1878, the school is housed in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the oldest private cultural institution in Washington, located on The Ellipse, facing the White House. The Corcoran School is part of GW's Columbian College of Arts and Sciences and was formerly an independent college, until 2014.
Sam Gilliam was an American abstract painter and sculptor. Born in Mississippi and raised in Kentucky, Gilliam spent his entire adult life in Washington, D.C., eventually being described as the "dean" of the city's arts community. Originally associated with the Washington Color School, a group of Washington-area artists that developed a form of abstract art from color field painting in the 1950s and 1960s, Gilliam moved beyond the movement's core aesthetics of flat fields of color when he introduced sculptural elements to his paintings.
The Washington Color School, also known as the Washington, D.C., Color School, was an art movement starting during the 1950s–1970s in Washington, D.C., in the United States, built of abstract expressionist artists. The movement emerged during a time when society, the arts, and people were changing quickly. The founders of this movement are Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, however four more artists were part of the initial art exhibition in 1965.
Alma Woodsey Thomas was an African-American artist and teacher who lived and worked in Washington, D.C., and is now recognized as a major American painter of the 20th century. Thomas is best known for the "exuberant", colorful, abstract paintings that she created after her retirement from a 35-year career teaching art at Washington's Shaw Junior High School.
Howard Mehring (1931–1978) was a twentieth-century painter born in Washington, D.C.
Paul (Allen) Reed was an American artist most associated with the Washington Color School and Color Field Painting.
Sylvia Snowden is an African American abstract painter who works with acrylics, oil pastels, and mixed media to create textured works that convey the "feel of paint". Many museums have hosted her art in exhibits, while several have added her works to their permanent collections.
Lowell Blair Nesbitt was an American painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor. He served as the official artist for the NASA Apollo 9, and Apollo 13 space missions; in 1976 the United States Navy commissioned him to paint a mural in the administration building on Treasure Island spanning 26 feet x 251 feet, then the largest mural in the United States; and in 1980 the United States Postal Service honored Lowell Nesbitt by issuing four postage stamps depicting his paintings.
Washington Project for the Arts, founded in 1975, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the support and aid of artists in the Washington, D.C. area.
Willem Johan de Looper was an American abstract artist, and chief curator at The Phillips Collection.
Carol Brown Goldberg is an American artist working in a variety of media. While primarily a painter creating heavily detailed work as large as 10 feet by 10 feet, she is also known for sculpture, film, and drawing. Her work has ranged from narrative genre paintings to multi-layered abstractions to realistic portraits to intricate gardens and jungles.
Benjamin Abramowitz was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. First recognized for his contribution at age 19 as senior artist with the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in New York City, he is among the most respected Washington, D.C., artists of the past century.
James Frances Hilleary was a working architect and painter who gained prominence as a member of the Washington Color School movement.
Helene Herzbrun (1921–1984) was an American artist who lived and worked within the art community in Washington, D.C. A student and friend of Jack Tworkov, she was a second-generation abstract expressionist who developed a personal style that set her apart from the Color School movement of her time. She was known for abstract landscapes having bold colors and employing gestural brushwork. She was also said to possess an ability to create the illusion of depth without employing graphical perspective. As well as painting, Herzbrun enjoyed a long career gallery administrator and professor of art at American University.
William Woodward is an American painter and muralist from Washington, D.C. He is known for his mural commissions throughout the United States and a number of his pieces are in the permanent collections of major museums.
Mary Orwen (1913–2005) was an American artist known for paintings that appeared to be completely abstract but were usually inspired by objects in the natural world. Her goal, as she put it, was to "find an echo in the visible world of the order which I feel exists beneath the complexity of life." She spent much of her career painting and teaching art in and around Washington, D.C., and was a principal co-founder of an artists' cooperative called Jefferson Place Gallery, that one critic called "a gallery for serious creative work of progressive character" and that Orwen said would demonstrate that the city was not just a provincial backwater.
Kenneth Victor Young (1933–2017), was an American artist, educator, and designer. He is associated with the Washington Color School art movement. He worked at the Smithsonian Institution as an exhibit designer for 35 years.
Valerie Dutton Hollister is an American artist, known for her paintings, printmaking, and artist books. She frequently has used computer technology in aspects of her work.
