Untitled White

David Einstein (b. 1946)
United States, 1979
Acrylic on canvas, h. 49 ½  x w. 37 ½  in.
B’nai B’rith Klutznick Collection of the Skirball Museum, TAJ0057

Born in Detroit, Michigan, David Einstein earned his MFA at Wayne State University. Since the 1970s, he has taught at Wayne State, Oakland Community College, and Birmingham Bloomfield Art Association in Michigan, and College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California. He has exhibited widely and his works can be found in corporate and museum collections.

Einstein described his work of the 1970s as follows: I found myself drawn more and more into quasi-abstract landscapes. A certain freedom of movement developed as I worked on large scale color field paintings, reducing nature’s forms to a minimum. These paintings are the closest I had come to pure lyric abstractions in some time. The work of Morris Louis, especially his “veil paintings” interested me greatly at this particular time. I was most intrigued by the way in which Louis could overlap layers of color and still retain soft translucency; I experimented with a series of veil paintings of my own.

Einstein described his process for his own veil paintings, of which Untitled White is one, as follows: to achieve these original effects, I establish an initial light mono- chromatic ground. While the ground is stilll wet, I pour layers of pure translucent pigment, which mix upon the surface of the canvas to create monumental organic shapes. Using rollers, squeegees, brushes, palette knives, sticks and sponges, I manipulate the pigment. This process allows the colors to retain their brilliance and clarity upon drying.

Einstein is currently making welded steel sculptures based on a recent series of large-scale mixed media drawings on paper.