John Plumb 1927-2008

JOHN PLUMB

 

John Plumb was an English abstract painter who emerged in Britain after World War II. He was represented in the American Institute of Architects’ abstract exhibitions of 1953 and 1957, and in the Situation exhibitions in 1960 and 1961, alongside Bridget Riley, William Turnbull, Robyn Denny, and other notable artists. At that time, Plumb was making bold, handsome, and colorful compositions, characterized by hard-edged, intense, single-hued shapes and an immaculately crafted finish, produced by methods that were partly improvisational.

 

Plumb’s works reflected his admiration for American Color Field painting and hard-edge painting. In the mid-1960s Plumb produced paintings with large fields of a single color; with narrow, strips on the edge of different colors intended to optically enhance the emotional impact of the central, major, and usually intense hue.