biografia di John Millard FERREN (1905-1970)

Birth place: Pendleton, OR

Death place: East Hampton, NY

Addresses: San Fran. (1920s); Paris, France, (1931-38); NYC; Los Angeles, (1947); East Hampton, NY (1966)

Profession: Painter, sculptor, designer, graphic artist, teacher

Studied: Sorbonne, Paris; Univ. Florence, Italy; Univ. Salamanca, Spain; Atelier 17 with S.W. apprenticed to a stonecutter, San Francsico, 1920s; various classes in Paris, 1930s; S.W. Hayter

Exhibited: San Francisco AA and Los Angeles AA, annuals, 1923-1930; Corcoran Gal, 1941; MoMA, 1937; GGE, 1939; PAFA, 1939, 1946, 1958, 1964-66; Cal. PLH, 1931, 1945, 1949, 1952; Detroit Inst. A., 1946; CAM, 1946; AIC, 1947; Kleemann Gal., 1947-1949; Mus. New Mexico, 1950; Santa Barbara Mus. A., 1952; SFMA, 1952; Stanford Univ., 1952; Provincetown A. Festival,1958 (prize); solo: Matisse Gal., 1936-1938; Willard Gal., 1941; Minneapolis Inst. A., 1936; SFMA, 1937; Putzel Gal., Hollywood, Cal., 1936; Iolas Gal., 1953; Stable Gal., 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958; Pasadena Mus. A., 1955; Beirut, Lebanon, 1964; American Embassy Gallery, London, 1965; Snyder FA, NYC, 1998; WMAA. Awards: U.S. State Dept. grant, Beirut, Lebanon (Artist-in-Residence), 1963-64.

Member: Am. Abstract Artists, 1938 (quit in anger in 1940 when his name appeared on a pamphlet of picketers outside the MoMA)

Work: MOMA; WMAA; Univ. Nebraska; Vale Univ.; George Washington Univ.; Wadsworth Atheneum; PMA; SFMA; Detroit Inst. A.; Scripps Col.; Guggenheim Mus., N.Y.

Comments: He began as a sculptor, but after he lived in Paris from 1931-39 (where he knew Picasso, Miro, and Mondrian), he became a painter of biomorphic-geometric abstraction. After WWII, his style evolved toward the Abstract Expressionism of the New York School, and in the 1960s he experimented with Op Art. Contributor to Arts & Architecture; Art News. Position: Office of War Info. during WWII; Assoc. Prof., Queens Col., NYC; T., Brooklyn Mus Sch., 1946; CUASch.

Sources: WW47; WW66; Hughes, Artists of California, 180; American Abstract Art, 181; Falk, Exh. Record Series.