(New York 1922–1997)
Blue Swamp A, 1958–1985, titled, signed Stamos, signed and dated on the overlap and inscribed with continuation of 50’s work, oil on canvas, 105.5 x 86 cm, stretcher

This work is accompanied by a photo-certificate signed by the artist.

Provenance:
European Private Collection - acquired directly from the artist in 1989 (invoice available)

I am concerned with an image that will expand and excite the eye, even secure it. I want the painting to be sensuous, living on its own, devoid of biography and if vulgar, all right…this is my discovery: happiness, even joy, at finding something I want to look at.
Theodoros Stamos

Theodoros Stamos was a founding member of the Abstract Expressionist movement. During the late 1940s Stamos became a member of The Irascible, a group of abstract painters who protested the Metropolitan Museum of Art's policy towards American painting of the 1940s ; members of the group considered as the 'first generation' of abstract expressionists.

Around 1950, Stamos began exploring a new approach to abstraction. (…) He sought atmospheric effects by thinning his paints, simplifying his palette, feathering his strokes to soften boundaries, and opening out into ambiguous spaces, suggesting infinites (…) By the 1960s, Stamos had develo ped a palette that was his alone. (…) He had also enlarged his vocabulary of techniques, ranging from thinning his paints to veil-like consistency to cross-hatching and weaving to gether rich impasto strokes. There were fluttering passages and dense passages that spoke of his extensive experience with brush and canvas, and his willingness to explore the possibilities of his media to the fullest. Dore Ashton in: Theodoros Stamos, Crane Calman Gallery Ltd., 24 May – 16 July 2005, page 8.

Blue Swamp A is a paramount example of his artistic out put from the 1950s. During that period, Stamos resorted to an economy of means centered on colour, making it the preeminent subject of his paintings, enhancing it to its most powerful and evocative level, thus affording his work its new efficacy and power. Stamos shows his ability in the masterful deployment of chromatic hues, including filmy whites jux taposed with flaming reds, ocean blues, deep greens and violets, manipulating them with his brush to create a delica tely modulated surface, a composition of marvelous effect, characterised by a sense of light and an ethereal feel.

His works are included in countless private and public coll ections in the United States and internationally, among them The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Natio nal Picture Gallery, Athens, Greece; Tel Aviv Museum, Isra el; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; and Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich, Germany.