Alice Baber
(1928-1982)
"Red + Blue Deluge"
Watercolor on paper
Signed lower left: Baber; titled verso
Image/Sheet: 14.25" H x 11.125" W
Other Notes: Alice Baber, who was born in Charleston, Illinois in 1928, began exhibiting her work in New York City in 1957 when she was included in the Stable Gallery's Sixth Annual Exhibition of New York artists. Baber, as one of the approximately twenty women included on the Annual's extensive roster, was shown alongside Grace Hartigan, Louise Nevelson, Lee Krasner, Mary Abbott, Joan Mitchell, and Elaine de Kooning. While many of the male artists featured in this exhibition have been recognized as key figures of the Abstract Expressionist movement, Baber, who died at the age of fifty-four in 1982, has long been overlooked by museums and the art market at large.

In a 1970s article for "Art in America," Al Brunelle wrote of Baber's work,"Her paintings are romantic and lyrics - but they are also reductive and systematic; she regulates the component elements in each work but not the overall structures. Transparent spectrum color is applied over a luminous white ground, to form irregular elliptical shapes of roughly similar size. They are generally more transparent in their centers, which gives them an effect of buoyancy. They tend to draw together, with considerable overlapping, into rather casual clusters that seem almost accidental or naive... [E]ach painting is experienced as a single phenomenon largely because of the paint handling, and which floods the entire work with a pulse of unified feeling."

Baber was diagnosed with cancer in the late 1970s and continued to paint until her death on February 2, 1982, in New York City. Her work is held in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Today, she is recognized as an important figure in the development of abstract art in the United States and is celebrated for her unique and innovative style.

Alice Baber's work has been exhibited alongside many key members of the Abstract Expressionist movement, including (but not limited to): Mary Abbott, William Baziotes, Norman Bluhm, Louise Bourgeoise, Friedel Dzubas, Perle Fine, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Dorothy Gillespie, Sam Gilliam, Michael Goldberg, Adolph Gottlieb, Grace Hartigan, Hans Hofmann, Paul Jenkins, Ray Johnson, Franz Kline, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Morris Louis, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Robert Natkin, Louise Nevelson, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Charlotte Park, Ray Parker, Betty Parsons, Jackson Pollock, Richard Pousette-Dart, Ad Reinhardt, Milton Resnick, David Smith, Theodoros Stamos, Alma Woodsey Thomas, Bob Thompson, Jack Tworkov, Esteban Vicente

Select Museum Collections:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

For additional information on the historical context of this painting, please see Joan Marter, "Women of Abstract Expressionism," published by the Denver Art Museum in conjunction with Yale University Press, 2016.

Overall good condition. A vertical 14" crease with attendant pigment loss running through the work. The sheet is framed floating and hinged to the back mat.

Framed under glass: 16.25" H x 12.25" x 0.75" D Condition reports are offered as a courtesy and are typically published in Moran's catalogue or can be made available upon request. The absence of a condition report does not imply that an item is free from defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of others. Buyers are responsible for determining to their own satisfaction the true nature and condition of any lot prior to bidding. Though buyers are not legally required to inspect lots prior to purchase, failure to do so may constitute a waiver of complaint that an item was not delivered in a condition equal to the existent condition at the auction.