The
generation of artists of which Ronald Davis is a part has made
a lasting
contribution to the field and in fact continues to inspire the art
of the new century. But very few of Davis’s contemporaries
can claim to have affected the course of events to the extent that
this California-born
painter has, in both substance as well as style. And perhaps no other
painter of his era explored media with as much intensity or investigated
new approaches to abstraction with such depth.
Despite
enormous success with his early, visually masterful canvases he pushed
full speed ahead in developing ways to express his ideas in newly
developed
resins, new material developed for industrial applications. These extraordinarily
complex works soon became among the most exhibited and critically
acclaimed
works of the Post War era. They pointed to the future and to its possibilities
with the same significance of Gabo’s and Pevsner’s constructivist
works of decades before. Davis’s resin works in fact proved to
be a high water mark for American geometric based abstraction, rivaling
in importance Modrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie.
Given
Ronald Davis’s history in taking risks and in exploring new
modes of visual expression, it is not shocking to learn of his
early plunge
into electronic media. His reach into computer graphic works was
undoubtedly the earliest serious work done in this new media. Certainly
he was
the
very first established artist to recognize the importance and the
wide-ranging possibilities of this, the most exciting new media
since the creation
of oil paint. This, like the previous trendsetting departure from
tradition,
has shown the world that Ronald Davis should rank as one of the great
innovators of the twentieth century and clearly is an artist whose
work
will ul-timately help define the art of the new century.
On
a personal level, this exhibition represents a special mo-m-ent
in my
career. I have admired the work of Ronald Davis for nearly four decades
since I first experienced its amazing beauty and power at the Leo
Castelli
Gallery. His work from that moment on would remain for me a standard
of achievement by which I would compare other abstract works. I
am honored
and most proud that The Butler Institute of American Art would play
host to Ronald Davis’s first major museum show in recent
years. He is an American classic and a star of our visual arts
heritage
who
deserves all the recognition and acclaim we can give.