"Color, Myth and Music: Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Synchromism," is currently on display at the N.C. Museum of Art in Raleigh. The 63-piece exhibit honors the vision of the influential but unheralded modernist painter.
The exhibit tracks his work chronologically, from his interest in the brash synchromism of his early work, the subtler brand toward the end of his life and the less abstract still-lifes and murals of the middle period of his life. Art Taylor, assistant director of communications at the museum, said the exhibit is one of the first major efforts to revive Macdonald-Wright's work.
"This is the first work that tackles his career completely," he said. "Synchromism is his main claim to fame."
Founded by Macdonald-Wright in the early 1900s, synchromism is a style of art that combines painting with musical structures. Twelve colors of the color wheel correspond with one of the 12 tones in the Western music scale, which allows a painter to select colors like a musician selects musical notes.
Also like musicians, synchromist painters construct each work in a "musical" key. For instance, a painting in the key of C, the base color of which is red, could incorporate yellow (E) and blue-green (G), or various other harmonic combinations.
The exhibit reflects a new wave of interest in synchromism and other contributions of Macdonald-Wright to modern art, said Henry Hopkins, a professor of art at University of California at Los Angeles, where Macdonald-Wright taught for 13 years.
"He's becoming increasingly important in modern art, more important than he was 30 or 40 years ago," he said.
Hopkins added that one of Macdonald-Wright's contributions was simply to spread modernism itself, as well as introducing Eastern art into the country. "He was one of the first (American) artists to be influenced by European modern art and bring it back to the U.S.," he said. "He was kind of a lone voice for modernism in California, which was quite a conservative place."
Because he was in many ways an anachronism, his work has not been adequately recognized until now, Hopkins said. "I'm delighted that even at this late date he's getting a degree, at least, of the attention he deserves."
