Stanley Boxer (1926-2000)

Stanley Boxer was born in 1926 in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Boxer was a prolific artist, practicing in a variety of media including painting, printmaking, drawing, and sculpture. Returning to New York after his service in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Boxer enrolled at the Art Students League with funds he received from the G.I. Bill.

His work eventually caught the eye of renowned twentieth century art critic Clement Greenberg, who championed Boxer as one of the talented artists from the emerging Color Field movement. For his part, Boxer rejected any sort of stylistic labels or assignments; though he would come to be known for his heavily impastoed abstract style. He was a superb manipulator of surfaces, skillfully bonding texture and color. His often perplexing titles obscure any immediate understanding of the works. An affinity for language - particularly German - encouraged his playful use of words, combining nouns and adjectives in a manner similar to his painterly practice of merging color with form.

Boxer’s first solo exhibition occurred in 1953 at Perdalma Gallery in New York. He would continue to exhibit with some of the world’s leading gallerists up to and beyond his death in 2000. Boxer’s exhibition history is extensive, continuing to grow posthumously. His work is held in many private and public collections, most notably the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Hirshorn Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Boxer was a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975.

Source: Berry Campbell Gallery and Galerie d’Orsay