1. Theodoros Stamos is one of the youngest painters of the original group of abstract expressionist painters, which included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko.
15 Facts About Theodoros Stamos
1. 2.
Theodoros Stamos was born on Manhattan's Lower East Side to Greek immigrant parents; his mother was from Sparta, and his father was raised in Lefkada.
3.
Theodoros Stamos's instructor Joseph Solman, who was a member of the group The Ten, became a mentor to Stamos.
4.
At Solman's urging, Theodoros Stamos visited Alfred Stieglitz's influential An American Place Gallery, where he encountered the work of Arthur Dove and Georgia O'Keeffe, among others.
5.
In 1943, when Theodoros Stamos was 21 years old, prominent dealer Betty Parsons gave him a solo exhibition at her Wakefield Gallery and Bookshop.
6.
Parsons became an important ally and connection to the contemporary New York art world; Theodoros Stamos would show regularly with her until 1957.
7.
Also during this period, Theodoros Stamos' work began attracting the attention of collectors.
8.
The Museum of Modern art purchased Theodoros Stamos' Sounds in the Rock in 1946.
9.
Theodoros Stamos re-defines the pastoral experience as one of participation with the inner life of the natural phenomenon.
10.
Around 1950, Theodoros Stamos began exploring a new approach to abstraction.
11.
Later in the 1950s, Theodoros Stamos worked with compositions that became increasingly reductive and simplified.
12.
Theodoros Stamos explored the use of layers of thin pigment, carefully worked, to create depth in his broad expanses of color.
13.
Theodoros Stamos taught at Black Mountain College from 1950 until 1954 and from 1955 to 1975 he taught at the Art Students League of New York and the Cummington School of Fine Arts.
14.
Theodoros Stamos willingly joined the conspiracy, and was enticed to switch his representation from the Andre Emmerich Gallery by a more generous contract with the Marlborough.
15.
The defendants were found guilty and fined over $9 million; Theodoros Stamos paid his share of the fine by signing over his house to the Rothko estate, but he was granted life tenancy.