Ernest Briggs

Ernest Briggs (1923–1984) is a second-generation Abstract Expressionist painter known for his expressive, sometimes calligraphic brushwork, his geometric compositions, and revolution in abstract painting that secured New York City's position as the art capital of the world in the post-World War II period.

Biography
Ernest Briggs was born 1923 in San Diego, CA. He went on to serve in the U.S. Army during World War II (1943–1946).

Briggs studied painting at the Schaeffer School of Design, San Francisco, CA (1946–47) and later at The California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco (1947-1951), where he thrived under the tutelage of such ab-ex greats as Clyfford Still, Ad Reinhardt, David Park, and Mark Rothko. According to New York Times critic Grace Glueck, Briggs was largely impacted by the "painterly rhetoric" of his teacher Clyfford Still during and after his time at CSFA.

Considered a member of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists, along with Giorgio Cavallon, Briggs left California for New York in 1953 where he began exhibiting at the Stable Gallery. During the 1950s, he was able to make a name for himself through his explosive and dynamic style as part of the New York City avant-garde. Briggs brought to the East Coast a fresh, lively aesthetic, reflecting what has been termed a "radical West Coast style" that he had continued to develop since his days at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. He participated in several Whitney Museum Annuals and in 1956 was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition “12 Americans” curated by Dorothy Miller. He taught painting and sculpture at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn from 1961 until the time of his death at age 61, and is survived by his wife Anne Arnold, who is also an artist.

The dynamism and at some points discord in Briggs' work is best suggested by the following quote from his obituary, published on June 14, 1984 in the New York Times:


 * "Sometimes Mr. Briggs's emphasis was on strong, lyrical color and thick brush strokes that called attention to the act of painting. Sometimes, as in his exhibition earlier this year at the Gruenebaum Gallery in New York, his work was more linear and geometric, and the expressive element was dependent upon a strong, almost translucent light within grays and blues."

Selected solo exhibitions

 * 1949: (first) Metart Gallery, San Francisco, CA
 * 1954/55: Stable Gallery, New York City
 * 1956: San Francisco Art Association Gallery, CA
 * 1960/62/63: The Howard Wise Gallery, NY
 * 1968: Yale University, New Haven, CT
 * 1969: Alonzo Gallery, NY
 * 1973: Green Mountain Gallery, NY
 * 1975: Susan Caldwell Gallery, Inc., NY
 * 1977: Aaron Berman Gallery, NY
 * 1980: Landmark Gallery, NY
 * 1980/82: Gruenebaum Gallery, NY
 * 1984: Memorial Exhibition, Gruenebaum Gallery, NY
 * 1991: With Edward Dugmore, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 1992: With Ibram Lassaw, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 1994: With Clement Meadmore and Erik van der Grijn, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 1996: Two Painters and a Sculptor (with Clement Meadmore and Erik van der Grijn), Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 1998: Abstract Paintings from the 1950s to the 1970s (with Michael Loew), Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 2001: Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 2002: Abstract Expressionist Paintings from the 1950s, Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, City University, NY
 * 2004: Ernest Briggs: Paintings of the 50th and 60th’s, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 2005: Ernest Briggs: Paintings of 50's & 60's, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 2006-07: Nassos Daphnis & Ernest Briggs: OPPOSING FORCES, Anita Shaplosky Gallery, NYC

Selected Group Exhibitions

 * 1948/49/53: San Francisco Art Association Annuals
 * 1953: Five Bay Area Artists, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA
 * 1955/56/61: Annuals and Biennials, Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
 * 1956: 12 Americans, circ., Museum of Modern Art, NYC
 * 1961: Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, PA
 * 1962/1961, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Contemporary Art Exhibition, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA
 * 1963: ‘'Directions-Painting-USA'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
 * 1967: ‘Large–Scale American Painting, Jewish Museum, NY; Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
 * 1969, 70: American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY
 * 1970: Proctor Art Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; ''San Francisco 1945-1950, Oakland Art Museum, CA
 * 1976: California Painting and Sculpture: The Modern Era, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA
 * 1977: Bay Area Update, Huntsville Museum of Art, Alabama
 * 1978: Cape Split Place, Addison, ME
 * 1984: Underknown, Institute for Art & Urban Resources, P.S. 1, Long Island City, NY
 * 1989: Anne Weber Gallery, Georgetown, ME; Portland Museum of Art, ME
 * 1991: The Prevailing Fifties, also with Edward Dugmore, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 1992: The Tradition, also with Ibram Lassaw, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NY
 * 1994: New York–Provincetown: A 50s Connection, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, MA; Maryland Art Institute, MD
 * 1994/96: Josiah White Exhibition Center, Jim Thorpe, PA
 * 1995: The Fifties, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 1996: Other Artists of the 50s, Kendall Campus Art Gallery, Miami–Dade Community College, FL; The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA
 * 1997: Artists of the 1950s, Part 1 and 2, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 1998: Paper Works, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NY
 * 1998-99: ''Artists of the 50s; The Development of Abstraction, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NY
 * 1999: ''Abstract Expressionist Tradition, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NY
 * 2000: Art For Art’s Sake–Credo of the Fifties, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 2004: San Francisco and the Second Wave: The Blair Collection of Bay Area Abstract Expressionism, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Re-Examining Abstract Art, Part 2, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC; New York School Artists: Works Of the 50's and 60's, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
 * 2005: While Pollock Was Sleeping: Bay Area Abstract Expressionism from the Blair Collection, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA; The Invisible In The Visible, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC

Selected Public Collections

 * Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
 * Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA
 * Rockefeller Institute, New York, NY
 * Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC,
 * San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,CA
 * San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
 * Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
 * Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
 * Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
 * Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Books

 * Thomas Albright, Art in the San Francisco Bay area, 1945-1980 : an illustrated history, (Berkeley, Calif. : University of California Press, ©1985.) ISBN 0-520-05193-9
 * Susan Landauer, The San Francisco school of abstract expressionism (Berkeley : University of California Press, ©1996.) ISBN 0-520-08610-4
 * Marika Herskovic, American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 54–57
 * Marika Herskovic, New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 32; p. 36
 * Marika Herskovic, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless (New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 978-0-9677994-2-1. pp. 52–55

External link for image reproduction

 * Ernest Briggs paintings-from the exhibition at the Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, New York City