Background

Larry Poons was born on October 1, 1937 in Tokyo, Japan. He is a son of Melvin Poons and Esma Poons. In 1938, Larry arrived in the United States.

Education

Since 1955 to 1957, Larry studied at the New England Conservatory of Music. He gave up musical composition and in 1959, Poons entered the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. Some time later, he also attended Art Students League of New York.

Career

In the early 1960's, Poons acted as a guitarist for The Druds, a short-lived avant-garde band, which featured Walter de Maria on drums, LaMonte Young on saxophone and Patty Mucha as the lead singer, while Jasper Johns wrote the lyrics.

In 1963, Larry held his first solo exhibition at Richard Bellamy’s Green Gallery. Two years later, he was included in "The Responsive Eye" exhibition, where his works were shown along with those of others artists, such as Josef Albers, Larry Bell, Ellsworth Kelly and Ad Reinhardt. In 1969, Poons took part in "New York Painting and Sculpture, 1940–1970" exhibition, that took place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Poons paintings from the early 1960's consist of optical arrangements of dots and ellipses, that float against monochromatic backgrounds. The formal elements of each of these paintings were determined by plotting points on a gridded matrix, according to predetermined mathematical principles. Also, it was in the early 1960's, when Poons became famous for his paintings of circles and ovals on solid backgrounds.

Beginning in the 1970's, Larry started pouring, throwing and splashing paint onto the surface of the canvas. By the late 1970's, he had begun to build the surface of his paintings with foam, rubber, rope and typewriter paper, causing the works to become increasingly heavy and extending dramatically into space.

Also, Larry held the post of a teacher at Art Students League of New York during the period from 1966 to 1970. In 1997, he returned to the League, where he still works as a teacher.

Achievements

• Poons's most famous works are "Brown Sound", "Night on Cold Mountain" and "Day on Cold Mountain". In 1988, he attained Francis J. Greenbruger Foundation Award. Also, he received special awards from the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA), including the 500 cc Hailwood Cup in 1998 and 2003, and the 2003 John & Ginny Demoisey Trophy for road racing couples, with his wife, painter Paula DeLuccia.
  
  His works are kept in different galleries, art institutions and museums, including Albright–Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, Art Institute of Chicago, Cleveland Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate in London and others.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Santorini

  • Cotherman

  • Reuben - As the Mississippi Flows on to the Sea

  • Abstract #2

  • Skiny Slip

  • Minter

  • Parrot Island

  • Mary Queen of Scots

  • Untitled, from Ten Works by Ten Painters

  • Untitled

  • Express Train

  • Untitled, #1

  • Untitled (81 G-5)

  • #4

  • untitledduplicate

  • Kojiro

  • Big Purple

  • Merton Eaves

  • Untitled

  • Untitled (from Conspiracy: The Artist as Witness)

  • Untitled

  • Untitled

  • Cutting Water

  • Secret Sun, 90A-3

  • Terrangel

  • Cat's Eye, 97B-5

  • Night on Cold Mountain

Views

Quotations: "A failed painting is better than one that's just plain bad. The failed painting is one that could have been great."

"There's something always instinctively visually right about nature. There's no difference, to my eye, between looking at a great painting and looking at nature. Because painting, when it's great, has the same immutable rightness, unquestioned rightness, about it."

"If you think you know where you're going to be 10 years from now, that's where you're at now. You're just putting it off."

"There are people who don't respond to color. That's what painting is. It's color."

"A great painting is a great painting."

Personality

Since the age of sixteen, Larry rode motorcycles.

Interests

• Vintage motorcycles, music

Connections

Larry is married to Paula DeLuccia, a painter.

Father:

Melvin Poons

Mother:

Esma Poons

Wife:

Paula DeLuccia

References

• Larry Poons | The Twenty-First Century
  2018
• Larry Poons: New Paintings
  2007
• Larry Poons: Mercurial Genius
  2002