Artist Edward Avedisian Dead at 71

Saturday, 25 August 2007 10:14

PHILMONT, N.Y.- Artist Edward Avedisian, who helped usher in the bright-but-cool abstract painting that succeeded Abstract Expressionism, has died in Philmont, N.Y., at age 71.

Avedisian, who died Aug. 17 in a nursing home, used a motif of clustering colorful globes at the center of a single-colored field surrounded by larger rings of color, The New York Times reported. The outcome was an image that could resemble a cross-section of fruit.

Avedisian was best known for his work in the 1960s that combined the rigor of Minimalism, the excitement of Pop and the tones of Color Field painting. He had six solo exhibitions in New York galleries between 1958 and 1963. His work was part of the "The Responsive Eye" exhibition of Op Art at the Museum of Modern Art four times in the annuals at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Avedisian was born in Lowell, Mass., studied art at the Boston Museum School and living in New York by the late 1950s. From 1958 to 1963, he had six solo shows in New York galleries, including two at the Robert Elkon Gallery, where he continued to exhibit until 1975, the Times said.

His last show, dominated by landscapes he painted later in his career, was in 2003 at the Mitchell Algus Gallery in New York.