Paul Feeley 1910–1966
Artist Paul Feeley was born in 1910 in Des Moines, Iowa. He studied painting at Menlo College in the San Francisco Bay Area and at the Art Students League in New York City. In 1935, he began his teaching career at Cooper Union before moving to Bennington College in Vermont in 1939, where he remained until his death in 1966. Serving as the director of the Art Department during the 1950s and early 1960s, Feeley's tenure at Bennington included exposing his students (one of whom was Helen Frankenthaler) to important, mid-century developments in art, namely, Abstract Expressionism and its various subcategories. Closely connected to the New York art world from Bennington, Feeley was also instrumental in organizing the first retrospective exhibitions for artists like Hans Hoffmann, Jackson Pollock, and David Smith.
Feeley's early work, influenced by the gestural style of Abstract Expressionism, evolved into a more formal and innovative approach. His mature compositions are characterized by the use of simple geometric shapes, such as upright barbell or baluster forms, often repeated in modular patterns. Typically featuring restrained paint handling and the use of stencils to copy forms, Feeley's most recognizable works tend to make use of primary colors on white grounds. Although he employed geometric shapes, Feeley's style is not classified as "hard edge" due to its handmade quality. His approach to painting focused on creating a presence rather than expressing dynamic energy. Similarly, while some of Feeley's late works in the 1960s are reminiscent of Kenneth Noland's iconic target or chevron paintings, Feeley's oeuvre is both too expansive and subtle to fall neatly within the Color Field rubric.
Throughout his career, Feeley had numerous solo exhibitions at prominent venues, including the Tibor de Nagy Gallery and Betty Parsons Gallery in New York, along with the Kasmin Gallery in London. His work was also featured in significant museum exhibitions such as Post Painterly Abstraction at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964 and The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965. In 1968, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum held a memorial retrospective exhibition of Feeley's work. After his death, Feeley fell out of favor for some time, but recent decades have seen a renewed interest in his work and a critical reappraisal of his contributions to Abstract Expressionism, with full-career retrospectives held at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo and the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio.
Feeley's legacy extends beyond his paintings to include his contributions to art education and his impact on the art community broadly speaking. He is still remembered for his commitment to fostering creativity and innovation among his students at Bennington College. Today, examples of Feeley's work are held in a range of notable museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, and elsewhere.
