John Grillo

Lady in Chair

circa 1978

John Grillo 1917–2014 A leading exponent of Bay Area Abstract Expressionism during the 1940s, John Grillo was a painter, sculptor, and printmaker regarded as one the purest and most influential “action painters” on the West Coast. Though his diverse and colorful body of work ranged from abstraction to figuration, his art is considered linked in its uniquely aggressive and spontaneous approach. Grillo creates bold, fluid, gestural works such as Untitled #69 (1947) and Untitled (1949) that draw on the influence of Surrealist automatism. After moving to New York in 1948, Grillo began a series of paintings consisting of small, precisely organized colored squares, as seen in Untitled (1951) and Untitled (1959); these and other works were influenced by the color theories of Hans Hofmann, with whom he studied. Grillo’s later work was more figurative, but no less colorful, with works such as Blue Hat (1978) or Duerme (1980) recalling the Expressionism of Max Beckmann. 1947 Daliel Gallery 1960 Tanager Gallery 1961 The Howard Wise Gallery 1962 University of California, Berkeley 1964 Butler Institute of American Art 1969 Benedict Art Center 1970 Robert Dain Gallery 1973 Landmark Gallery 1982 Jean Lumbard Fine Arts 1984 Museo de Arte Moderna 2000 Aaron Gallery 1988 Provincetown Art Association Selected Group Exhibitions 1950 The Kootz Gallery 1955 Walker Arts Center 1953 Whitney Museum of American Art 1960 Walker Art Center 1961 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 1961 Yale University 1962 Dallas Museum of Fine Arts 1962 Seattle Worlds Fair 1963 Museum of Modern Art, New York 1963 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 1970 The Brooklyn Museum of Art 1973 The Oakland Museum of California 1979 The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1996 The Laguna Beach Museum Selected Collections The British Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art The Whitney Museum of American Art The Brooklyn Museum of Art Walker Art Center Los Angeles County Museum Butler Institute of American Art Bundy Art Gallery Museum Smith College Museum Bennington College Portland Museum