For Mike, 1968
Acrylic on Canvas

Larry Poons, by the mid-sixties, moved away from the optical, scientific aspect of his work in a more poetic and painterly direction. His dots and ellipses began to be adjusted and hand-painted, and his expressive color sense asserted itself in some of the most interesting and beautiful paintings of the decade. His dots and ellipses took on an identity, like a familiar voice in a song or a character in literature. The paintings perfectly embody the painter's artistic soul. In his large ellipse paintings of 1967 Poons made dramatic pictorial and compositional changes that moved away from his all over dot paintings. When Poons, always a great colorist, stained over his ellipse paintings in 1968 he achieved some of the most beautiful, free spirited and innovative abstractions of the decade. The artistic character that Poons had developed in his pictures had achieved a nirvana of expressive lyricism. Larry Poons began to exhibit his paintings in important group exhibitions in 1963. Beginning with his first solo show in 1963 at the Green Gallery, New York, Larry Poons has had more than 60 solo shows of his paintings in galleries around the world. Achieving enormous success early in his career he has been represented by the finest contemporary art galleries. His work has been in major group exhibitions and in museums all over the world. His paintings are in many major private and museum collections as well. There are numerous important publications that include his work.

Born in 1937, in Tokyo, Japan

Resides in New York and Florida.