(b Baltimore, 28 Nov. 1912; d Washington, DC, 7 Sept. 1962). American painter, a major pioneer of the movement from Abstract Expressionism to Colour Stain Painting (see Colour Field Painting). Almost all his career was spent first in Baltimore and then from 1947 in the Washington area. He isolated himself from the New York art world, concentrating on his own experiments and supporting himself by teaching. However, it was a visit to New York in 1953 with Kenneth Noland that led to the breakthrough in his art. He and Noland went to Helen Frankenthaler's studio, where they were immensely impressed by her painting Mountains and Sea, and Louis immediately began experimenting with her technique of applying liquid paint to unprimed canvas, allowing it to flow over and soak into the canvas so that it acted as a stain and not as an overlaid surface.

Text source: The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford University Press)


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