"ART IS MAKING SOMETHING BETTER WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT BETTER IS UNTIL YOU MAKE IT."
Walter Darby Bannard, known as Darby Bannard, was a significant figure in the evolution of Color Field painting, architecting the movement for over five decades. Emerging from the late 1950s art scene, Bannard, alongside influential peers like Frank Stella and Michael Fried, pushed the boundaries of color and opticality in painting.
Bannard's career was marked by a constant search for innovative and expressive methods, evident in his exploration of color, paint, and surface. He was an active writer on formalist art issues, contributing to Artforum and Art International, and held a position as professor and head of painting at the University of Miami in the early 1990s.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1934, Bannard was educated at Princeton University and began his artistic career by drawing inspiration from artists such as William Baziotes and Clyfford Still. His early works transitioned from expressionism to minimalism, utilizing large areas of contrasting color. By the 1960s, Bannard was at the forefront of blending artist’s materials with commercial paints, gaining recognition through exhibitions like Post-Painterly Abstraction and The Responsive Eye. His innovative use of tinted alkyd resin and his 1964 solo exhibitions solidified his place in the art world, earning him accolades such as a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1968.
In the 1970s, Bannard’s focus shifted to the fluidity of paint, experimenting with new acrylic mediums and employing techniques that allowed colors to mix and settle on textured surfaces. His method of applying paint through gel and polymer layers, and later his "brush and cut" paintings, highlighted his ongoing engagement with color and texture. His later works in Miami incorporated vibrant colors and mixed-media landscapes inspired by the Florida Everglades.
Bannard's career, characterized by a dynamic interplay between Expressionism and Color Field painting, included nearly a hundred solo exhibitions and numerous group shows.