Bethesda Fine Art is proud to present #Corcoran1970s, an exhibition celebrating the circle of abstract artists who showed, taught, and were affiliated with the Corcoran Gallery of Art in the 1970s. The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an artistic center for Washington, D.C. artists, particularly abstractionists, during the 1970’s. Active in the Corcoran’s orbit were Washington Color School notables such as Leon Berkowitz, Cynthia Bickley-Green, Gene Davis, Sam Gilliam, Mimi Herbert, Dan Yellow Kuhne, Howard Mehring, Paul Reed, and Kenneth Young. While most showed in group shows, a select few, including Berkowitz, Davis, Mehring, Reed, and Young, had their own solo exhibitions.

Claudia Rousseau, Ph.D. reviews #Corcoran1970s on East City Art.

Kenneth Young’s painting is a stand-out in a room full of them.

When the National Gallery of Art reopened its East Building in 2016 following a three-year renovation, the museum devoted a chunk of gallery space to the legends who worked here in the District. Names like Gene Davis. Kenneth Noland. “Relative” (1968), one of Sam Gilliam’s drape paintings, sags from four knotted corners, loose abstract canvas pinned along one gallery wall. Morris Louis’ “Beta Kappa” (1961), maybe the single best-known painting of the Washington Color School, hangs on the adjacent wall, a soggy series of poured rainbow stripes.

These are titans of Washington art—Alma Thomas, Leon Berkowitz, Anne Truitt. Among their works hangs “Red Dance” (1970), a stain painting by Young. It’s a storm of acrylic dabs on an unprimed canvas, blotches of ochre and burnt orange, a red-shifted Milky Way. The mark-making is distinct, but the mode is easy to identify. This is a Washington Color School painting, like and unlike the rest.