Alan Fenton (1927-2000)

Alan Fenton was born on July 29, 1927 in Cleveland, Ohio. A middle child of three, he grew up during the Depression in the difficult "Kinsman" neighborhood. As a child, Alan was a poor student and a dreamer, spending much of his day drawing. His teachers repeatedly rapped his offending hand with a ruler, not to punish him for drawing, but to "cure" his left-handedness. When he was 17 years old, he joined the merchant marines and was stationed in Florida. Upon his discharge, he supported himself himself by boxing. In the interest of preserving his good looks and sharp mind, he hung up his gloves and returned to Cleveland to design the interior of a clothing store one of his high school buddies had just opened.

By the time he was 22 years old, Fenton had a successful career as a commercial artist and designer. He had legally changed his birth surname of "Freedman" to Fenton, presumably to avert assumptions regarding his ethnic heritage. In 1955, he married fellow Clevelander Naomi Feigenbaum, and the two newlyweds moved to New York so that he could attend Pratt Institute. He studied privately with Jack Tworkov and Adolph Gottlieb, with both remaining lifelong friends and mentors.

After the birth of his daughter Danielle, Fenton graduated with a degree in fine arts from Pratt at the age of 33. Instead of getting a job on Madison Avenue, he elected to become an abstract painter. During this period, he frequented Max's Kansas City, writing absurdist theater, poetry, and hanging with influential figures such as art dealer Dick Belamy, filmmaker/photographer Jerry Shatzberg, photographer Diane Arbus, and artists Mark Rothko, Paul Jenkins, Morris Louis, David Budd, Carl Holty, and Kyle Morris.

In 1959, Morris invited Fenton to participate in a group show of the New York School in the March Gallery on 10th Street. Shortly after the March Gallery Invitational, Fenton met the well known collector Vincent Melzac, who would later become CEO of the Corcoran Gallery. By 1960, Fenton's work was included in the Melzac Collection, alongside names such as Jack Bush, Willem de Kooning, Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis, Franz Kline, and Jackson Pollock.

In the 1960s, Fenton participated in group shows in New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Connecticut, including a well-received solo exhibition at Pace Gallery. His work throughout this decade was large in scale, shifting away from expressionistic brush strokes andinto color field lines and squares.

In 1966, he persuaded his real estate developer father-in-law to purchase the historic Tiffany factory at 333 Park Avenue South, and to convert into loft spaces for artists. Attracting an array of luminaries, Fenton created and managed one of Manhattan's first live/work buildings. This landmark building attracted many famous residents, visitors, and events, and became know as "Alan's factory." In 1968, Fenton's son David was born, and he began to teach at his alma mater, Pratt.

In 1977, the Phillips Collection, in coordination with the University of Iowa Museum of Art, gave Fenton a solo exhibition entitled Alan Fenton: Washes and Drawings. This significant show ran in Washington from August 6-28, before traveling to the Iowa Museum of Art, the North Carolina Art Museum, and finally the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.

Since their introduction in 1959, Vincent Melzac was Fenton's collector, champion, dealer, and close personal friend. After Melzac passed away unexpectedly in 1989, the devastated Fenton sold his New York studio and returned to Cleveland to raise his family. He would spend the remainder of his life in his hometown, ultimately passing away on New Year's Day, 2000.

Fenton's solo exhibitions included the Pace Gallery, Phillips Collection, Isetan Galleries (Tokyo), the New York Cultural Center Museum, Barbara Fiedler Gallery, and at several state, municipal, and university art museums. Selected group shows included the Corcoran Gallery, Aldrich Museum, Pace Galleries (Boston and New York), Cleveland Museum, and numerous other galleries throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. His work has been reviewed in Art News, Arts Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times, the New York Post, the Village Voice and Art International.‍

Source: Danielle Fenton (accessed via askART)