H E R T E R
A R T
G A L L E R Y
JOHN GRILLO—SIX DECADES:
PAINTINGS, PRINTS AND DRAWINGS, 1945 -2005
11 SEPTEMBER - 11 OCTOBER, 2014—Reception: Thursday10h, from 4 -7pm
PRESS RELEASE
It is with great pleasure that Herter Art Gallery presents, John Grillo: Five Decades, Paintings Prints and
Drawings, from 1945-1995, a survey exhibition tracing the formal and conceptual evolution of the artist's
expansive oeuvre across a period of fifty years. Like many artists of his generation, Grillo drew
inspiration from working across mediums, producing a diverse body of both abstract and figurative art
rooted in a dialogue between the great traditions of the 20th century avant-garde - Cubism, Surrealism,
and Abstract Expressionism. Grillo was also drawn to Folk art, and to non-Western modes such as
African sculpture, and Asian painting that paralleled his eagerness to work with unfamiliar techniques
in order to create a constantly changing repertoire of forms and images.
He was born in 1917, the elder of three sons to Sicilian immigrant parents, in the small
industrial town of Lawrence, Massachusetts. The 1930s saw the family relocate to Hartford,
Connecticut, where frequent visits to the city's Wadsworth Athenaeum, whose impressive collection of
eighteenth and nineteenth century European and American portraiture awakened in him a desire to
become an artist. In 1935, he enrolled in Hartford School of Fine Arts where he studied landscape and
figure painting. Among his major influences the time were the artists of the Ashcan School—Luks,
Robert Henri, Thomas Hart Benton and Reginald Marsh, whose focus upon poverty and the gritty
realities of urban life found an echo in Grillo's own work at the time.
With the outbreak of World War II, in 1944, Grillo enlisted in the Navy and was sent to
Okinawa in the South Pacific where he continued to paint landscapes and scenes of daily life in the
service. A chance encounter with a reproduction of Robert Motherwell’s collage, “Pancho Villa”, proved
inspirational, and led to the creation of his first spontaneous abstractions, some of which were included
in a post-war exhibition entitled, “Soldier Art” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. Upon
his discharge from the Navy in 1946, Grillo arrived in San Francisco and enrolled in the San Francisco
School of Fine Arts under the G.I. Bill. At the time the school was under the directorship of the
venerable Douglas MacAgy, who was impressed by Grillo's recent forays into abstraction and promptly
gave him his own studio and free reign to experiment. Among Grillo's principal influences at the school
were Elmer Bischoff, Hassell Smith, and Clay Spohn, artists with whom he shared a personal chemistry
and a passion both intellectual and visceral for abstract art. Although he resided in the Bay Area for just
two short years, Grillo is viewed as having played a seminal role in the northern California branch of
Abstract Expression, a movement that came to define American art in the mid- 20th century.
"Hades", 1962. 67 x 78" oil on canvas.
In 1948, Grillo left San Francisco for the East Coast. Arriving in New York City, he entered the
academy established by Hans Hofmann, a kindred spirit who shared his passion for color. In the 1950’s,
he continued his experiments with symbolism and action painting, as well as grid-like works consisting
of small painted squares that reflected the influence of Hofmann’s teachings. During this time in New
York, Grillo’s circle of friends included many of the figures associated with the 'New York School' —
Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Edward Dugmore, and Lester Johnson. For Grillo, the
1960's in New York were about a personal search for a more strongly individuated approach to painting.
Scale, and improvisatory gesture now began to play a more important role in his calculations resulting
in the creation of a series of oversize canvases and collages in a range of vibrant, luminous yellows,
that seemed to evoke the power of light and sunshine, leading some critics to compare him with Turner
and to the Venetian painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. With their odd combination of
sensuality, and rugged, mysterious tact, Grillo's works from this period must remain amongst his most
significant accomplishments.
The acceptance in 1967 of an invitation to join the faculty at the University of Massachusetts in
Amherst, saw Grillo leave New York to embark on a teaching career that would last 25 years. During
the time spent in Amherst, he became a much-beloved and inspirational instructor, initiating
participatory events such as mural projects in public places, thematic performances and arts carnivals,
which subsequently led to the creation of the seminal Circus paintings from 1981-83. The lengthy period
spent by Grillo in Amherst was characterized by a number of rather dramatic shifts in style and subject
matter. In the early 1970s, he continued to work mainly on geometrically-themed paintings,
culminating toward the later part of the decade in his Kaleidoscope series, in which he elaborated still
further on the interaction of geometry and color but on a much larger scale and in a less exclusively
constructivist manner. Paradoxically, it was during this period, from circa 1973, when at the zenith of
his accomplishments as an abstract artist, that Grillo began gradually to re-engage with the figure.
These experiments in figuration took the form of drawings, prints and paintings of the female form that
often exuded a strong erotic aspect.
It was around this time - the late 1970's and early 80's - that Grillo's paintings came to reflect
an almost exclusive involvement with figurative subject matter. His first major works in this new mode
took as previously noted, the idea of the 'Circus' as their principal theme. A further source of inspiration
came when Grillo, at the urging of his faculty colleague and close friend, the Columbian painter, Leonel
Góngora, visited South America for the first time. The trip proved cathartic for him and served as the
genesis for the subsequent El Dorado and Tango series that were his major preoccupation for the
remainder of the decade. The style Grillo cultivated in these, and in other of his figurative works from
the period, was at once extremely decorative and somewhat racy. There was about them a slightly
unreal, unearthly quality, and in the treatment of the female figure - particularly in the Tango series - a
heady eroticism placed the pictures in a realm where fantasy, memory, and a highly developed
decorative impulse combine to evoke the figment of a dream.
Circus Series, 1983, 78 ½ x 94 ¼”, oil on canvas
Just before his retirement in 1991, Grillo created a large mural-size canvas installed in the Jones Public
Library depicting the agrarian and academic aspects of Amherst's history, in which the illustrious poet
Emily Dickinson, the 'belle of Amherst', is seen levitating appropriately over the scene. It was his gift to
the town and community in which he lived and worked as an artist and teacher for almost a quarter
century. After retiring, Grillo relocated to the seaside town of Wellfleet, on Cape Cod, where he
maintains a studio practice and continues to paint each day. In 2002, he was honored by the Museo
Italo-Americano in San Francisco, who hosted a retrospective exhibition of the artist's work entitled
John Grillo: A Painter's Life of Expression. Works from 1938-2002.
Throughout the long course of his rich and prolific career, John Grillo has sought an art of
simplicity and richness He has also sought an art whose primary motivation was the 'poetic idea', and
the poetic idea that had always governed his work has proved sufficiently robust and capacious to
accommodate a wide range of emotion and invention. In this quest, he has proven himself to be an artist
of uncommon aesthetic intelligence and originality who has kept painting alive - kept it vital and
inventive as well as amusing and telling - as a medium of humanistic discourse.
We are all the richer for having experienced it.
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The exhibition was made possible in part though a grant from the U.Mass. Arts Council, with
further financial support from: The University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Humanities
and Fine Arts; the Richard and Rebecca Evans Foundation; and Steven and Wendy Evans.
Invaluable cooperation and assistance was also provided by the David Findlay Gallery, New York,
and from John and Cathy Grillo.
The exhibition and reception are free and open to the general public as well as to all Five
College students, faculty, and staff.
Regular Gallery hours are: Mon - Fri: 11 am - 4 pm and Sun: 1 pm - 4 pm.
For further information, contact gallery director, Trevor Richardson, at Herter Art Gallery,
125a Herter Hall, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Tel. 413- 545-0976.
http://www.umass.edu /art/studio_arts.html