HOWARD MEHRING - VINCENT MELZAC COLLECTION

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06797570
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: March 9, 2023
• Document Release Date: January 29, 2021
• Case Number: F-2011-00399

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Untitled
Howard Mehring 1960
Vincent Melzac Collection Washington Color School
This work, the last of the six Mehring's in the Agency's collection, shows
the strong relationship and interaction with the work of fellow Color School
artist Downing. Mehring and Downing were close friends as well as
colleagues and their work had an interesting mutual influence, one upon the
other. Like Downing's Dapple, Mehring here uses dots of color, but not
dots of uniform size and shape. Rather, he stipples the apparent dots of
color onto the canvas, slightly recalling the areas of color in the large orange
Untitled canvas of 1958 (in OHB Main Corridor.) Mehring wanted to get
away from the over-all style of the earlier work, in which he thought the
energy of the color "heated up around the edge," that is, where the color
meets the Wall. To do so, he brought the edge into the painting: "The edge is
important and exciting to me, but what I've done in these paintings is to
reverse the edge, carrying it into the picture almost as if the canvas has been
folded back on to itself." By repeating these "energy breaks" inside the
painting, he multiplies their potential. Within these edged spaces, Mehring
stipples the paint onto the canvas in order to achieve the sense of airiness,
movement, and lights. To increase further the power of the edge, he actually
cut the shaped areas of uniform color out from other canvases and glued
them into this arrangement on yet another canvas. This concentration on the
edge influenced Downing's later "shaped" paintings.
#14 NHB 3rd Floor
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Untitled
Howard Mehring 1959
Vincent Melzac Collection Washington Color School
In this painting, as in the silver-gray painting on the opposite wall,
Mehring's use of small areas of color maintains an even attention over the
entire canvas surface. Ever so slight variations in size and color, however,
create a sense of expansion and contraction, with the effect that the surface
seems to "breathe color." This is largely achieved by the nature of the
medium as well as the technique. The medium is a new product of the
1950s called magna: unlike water-based acrylic � also a product of the
1950's � magna is based on turpentine and mineral spirits. Applied directly
onto the cotton canvas, it literally bites into the threads of the cotton surface
and becomes part of the canvas � instead of just being on top of the canvas.
The artists of the Washington Color School also expanded on a technique
called "staining" which allows the color to be applied evenly and
meticulously across the surface of the canvas while removing, so to speak,
the touch of the artist's hand, which is more obviously evident when a paint
brush is used. In some cases, artists even used eye drops to apply the paint!
This emphasis on depersonalizing the painted surface creates a surface in
which every area has virtually the same intensity of color, saturation, and
inflection. The artists of the Washington Color School believed that in
denying the personality .of the artist, a certain purity is added to the work.
Color and structure are "married" in this approach, with color � with its
accompanying lyrical qualities � becoming the primary emotive vehicle of
the painting.
#1 OHB Main Corridor
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Untitled Howard Mehring
no date (ca. 1958-59)
Vincent Melzac Collection Washington Color School
This painting preceded the orange-toned painting to the left and is an
important example of the transition from gesture and romantic atmosphere to
staining. While also on cotton canvas, the water-based acrylic medium is
not stained into the cotton but rather sits on top of the fiber of the canvas.
Mehring acknowledged that a major influence in this work was the French
Impressionist Claude Monet's massive paintings devoted to water lilies.
Using layers of color with the dominant silver-gray on top of the other
colors, Mehring creates a similar "romantic" image evoking � but not
literally depicting � forces of nature, such as water or a storm. This indeed
was a typical characteristic of the Washington Color School artists: the
elimination of literal representation or figuration in their striving toward
purity in the image and unity of color and structure.
#2 OHB Main Corridor
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Untitled Howard Mehring
ca.1958
Vincent Melzac Collection (on loan) Washington Color School
The subtle yet at times striking colors and the strong diagonal of this
painting's composition carry the viewer's eyes across the canvas surface.
There are as many as 10 layers of the turpentine-based magna paint "poured"
onto the surface, starting with the splash of orange and followed by layers of
purple and violet and some subtle greens on top. Even as the paint is
layered, the colors are not muddied, because the magna paint does not bleed
between the layers into the successive layers of color. The composition is
guided but not preconceived: the artist guides the paint as it is being poured
across the canvas placed on the floor, but such a technique of pouring and
staining the color onto the canvas makes it quite impossible to control
exactly how the colors will combine or absorbed into the canvas. While the
artist exerts some degree of control � in terms of the amount of turpentine
used to thin the paint, the amount of paint used, the direction of the flow of
paint, etc. � by allowing chance occurrences to be incorporated into the
painting, Mehring created a composition of particular liveliness and
spontaneity.
#4 NHB 2nd Floor
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Untitled Howard Mehring
no date (ca.1958)
Vincent Melzac Collection (on loan) Washington Color School
This early Mehring work shows the artist studying the way the staining
process works and also shows him enjoying its accidental effects. Most
basically, Mehring presents a contrast here of pigment on the surface of the
canvas with that of deep staining: the viscosity of the white areas, which is
here virtually poured straight onto the canvass out of a bucket, is in vivid
contrast to the thin ethereal space of the purple area, which appears to be
poured and the blotted, resulting in deep staining. In some ways, this work
is reminiscent of a galaxy formation or of something biological, viewed
under a microscope. This relationship to science � away from a romantic
depiction, closer to the very nature of the material and the simplicity of
shape � is viewed as a very American characteristic of the artists of this
period.
#6 NHB 2nd Floor
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Untitled Howard Mehring no date (mid-late 1950s)
Vincent Melzac Collection (on loan) Washington Color School
This is probably the earliest of the six Mehrings in the Agency's
Melzac Collection, painted while he was still in his twenties. With
its bold juxtapositions of color and the controlled energy in the
shapes, this is a deeply felt, personal expression of the lyric
potential of color. As such, it is an example of his earlier
"romantic" style, which he left behind in the later 1950s in favor of
the more depersonalized style achieved through staining. While
this work is also stained in parts, it is done nonetheless using a
brush. Mehring and his Washington Color School compatriots
often visited The Phillips Collection, the private collection of
works by major European and American artists. Of particular
interest to these painters -- Mehring among them -- was the work
of the late 19th century American artist, Albert Pinkham Ryder,
whose work was characterized by broad, simple shapes and a dark,
romantic atmosphere in his depictions of storms and landscapes.
#8 NHB 2nd floor
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Fold-II Thomas Downing 1968
Vincent Melzac Collection (on loan) Washington Color School
This is the last of the Agency's series of paintings spanning
Downing's career. We can follow it from the early poured wash
painting (third floor) through color circles (second floor) to the
earlier shaped canvases (north corridor). Color was always his
focus, but his ideas on what to do with it changed dramatically
over the course of his career. In this work, Downing identifies the
form and color with the canvas itself -- namely, with its very
shape. Feeling that the traditional horizon line was relevant only
to earth-bound space and largely insufficient for the 20th century,
he abandoned vanishing-point perspective for isometric projection.
Colors are flat and even, precluding a sense of background or
foreground. In Fold-II, Downing presents space as an entity of its
own, extending simultaneously into the wall and into the room.
#3 NHB 1st floor
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Center Grid Thomas Downing 1960
Vincent Melzac Collection Washington Color School
In an earlier work (Dapple, #9 on 2nd floor NHB), Downing made use of
modules of pure color to create a field of pulsating color across the canvas
surface. In Center Grid, Downing uses this same module but is aiming for
an entirely different effect than in his earlier work. Now he marshals the
color modules formally, and the play in space results from contrasts of focus
and overlapping layers of depth. Downing saw himself somewhat as a
romantic as regards painting: "I liked the feeling of my brush going around
when I painted. Then I found out a remarkable thing about color � that it
can move while being still." He used the objective structure of the painting
as neutral framework that would allow the color to operate in freedom: "I
use variations of color as a language." Downing's later adventures in color
are evident in his shaped canvases on the first floor.
#7 NHB 2nd Floor
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Dapple Thomas Downing 1959
Vincent Melzac Collection Washington Color School
In this painting, Downing uses the dot as a module of color. Each
dot is a unit of pure color, but together they create an overall
pulsating field, where they seem to float in front of the canvas in a
unified space, with no sense of fore- or background. The color is
similarly closely keyed in the blue-green range, without sharp
differences of light and dark, creating a feeling of openness, space,
and movement. This is perhaps the Agency's best example of what
the Washington Color School artists meant when they spoke of
their interest in "color as light" -- a reference to the late 19th
century French movement known as Pointillism, pioneered by
Georges Seurat. Downing and his Color School colleagues were
aware of Seurat's color theories, and indeed, saw a work such as
Dapple as "exploded pointillism."
#9 NHB 2nd floor
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Untitled Thomas Downing 1959
Vincent Melzac Collection Washington Color School
This is the earliest of the Agency's seven paintings by Downing.
At first glance it appears solid, geometric,.. .even flat, but the many
variations in the surface give it a velvety quality, which is most
evident in the creamy border but is effectively carried throughout
the work. The square-inside-the-square motif recalls the idea of
the quilt -- a very American object. The inside of the three squares
is itself the subject of this painting, with the red-orange square
field resting or sitting inside of the blue, which is in turn nested on
top of the milky white gesso, which is itself inside a slender band
of red-violent, and only finally does the orange band -- of uneven
width -- echo the color of the center square. The artist allows the
viewer to "see" the canvas underneath, in the two opposite corners
that appear to be left unpainted. The staining technique allows for
an unevenness and spatial quality in the color, which would not
have been possible had the artist used the more traditional oil
technique, which over time actually rots the canvas. It is
interesting to follow Downing's style from this poured wash, to the
overall patterns of dots of color, to his later shaped canvases.
#17 NHB 3rd floor
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Planks Thomas Downing 1967
Vincent Melzac Collection Washington Color School
By this time in his career, Downing has abandoned his circles or
modules of color entirely, in order to create color compositions
that extend the paintings into real space. The painting no longer
exists simply contained within its rectangular or square frame. He
initially began his shaped paintings with basic parallelogram
shapes, followed by the series called Planks represented by this
example, which gives the illusion of unfolding from the wall. The
color is presented in as uncomplicated a manner as possible, and
the sequence of greens is subtle and pleasing to the eye. In
contrast to the general aim of the Washington Color School artists
to avoid the sensation of depth, Downing here uses what amounts
to a traditional vanishing point, creating the impression of a
recession into space.
#19 NHB 1st floor
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Rudder Thomas Downing 1965
Vincent Melzac Collection (on loan) Washington Color School
This work illustrates Downing's transition from rectangular to
shaped canvases, while he continues his effort to find the perfect
way to communicate the expressive qualities of color. Downing
here still uses the dot -- now enlarged -- as color module, but he is
trying to "unlock" the color by giving the canvas an
unconventional shape. The parallelogram creates an illusion of
moving diagonally upward, while the bottom edge of the canvas
appears to move closer to the viewer than does the top. While the
simplification of his dot pattern may have reduced the activity or
sense of movement within the painting, it results in an increased
dramatic impact.
#18 NHB 1st floor
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The Melzac Collection is located throughout both CIA's Original Headquarters Building and
New Headquarters Building.
The 29 Modern paintings at CIA represent an elemental approach to art, a swashbuckling donor,
and a correlation to the art movement contemporary with the OHB architecture. These paintings
within our compound affirm the original intention of DCI Allen Dulles that the CIA be campus-
like in character. Such an is a perfect and necessary complement of the multi-faceted academic
pursuit of understanding ourselves and others. It reinforces the Agency's unity of purpose and
unifying theme. The paintings within our walls and the architecture that surrounds them
complement each other.
The way the eye perceives color and pattern was the subject of Norman Bluhm, Gene Davis,
Howard Mehring, Kenneth Noland, Thomas Downing, Alma Thomas, and the other artists of the
Washington Color School. These artists worked in Washington, DC, at the same time as the
better known and more gestural abstract expressionists Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning
worked in New York City. The Color School work was part of a new minimalism in American
art.
For the first time, color and the raw materials of painting�paint and the raw, unprimed canvas�
became the subject matter. As artist Kenneth Noland advocated, "The thing is to get that color
down onto the thinnest conceivable surface, a surface sliced into air as if by a razor. It's all color
and surface." These artists poured the paint onto the canvas in layers of thin washes and repeated
color in patterns of stripes or dots or rhythmic paint strokes. Standing in front of these paintings,
you will sense the rhythm of the layered colors and the movement of the paint. Many of the
paintings are so large that they tend to absorb the viewer. The collection's patron�the late
Vincent Melzac�was a larger-than-life figure. A Washington business executive who began
collecting art at age 16, he collected work by promising new artists and grew to love it. Every
major collection in Washington, including the National Museum of American Art and the
Phillips Collection, eventually benefited from his largesse.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Melzac made more contacts in the art world and filled his
collection with many works by the artists represented here at the Agency today. He became the
CEO of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in the early 1970s. He raised prize cattle and Arabian horses
on his West Virginia farm until his death in 1989.
Melzac's first loan of art to the CIA came in 1968 when eight large paintings by Norman Blulun,
Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, and Jack Bush were selected by officials of the Corcoran Gallery
to fit the large open spaces of OHB. At that time, he also loaned a sculpture by Giorgio
Spaventa; it now resides in the Vatican. Melzac also donated sculptor Marc Mellon's bust of
George H. W. Bush that stands at the top of the stairs of the OHB lobby. In 1982, DC] Casey
awarded Melzac the Agency Seal Medallion for his generous support to the CIA.
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