Jack Youngerman, the American painter known for his geometric abstraction, has died. The artist’s paintings, often on shaped canvases and utilising an evenly-applied primary palette, hovered between Constructivism and Hard-edge, with hints of psychedelia thrown in. As with many of his generation, his formative education in art occurred in Paris, where he attended the École des Beaux-Arts on a stipend from the GI Bill having served in the navy during World War Two. In France Youngerman came across the work of Matisse, a lasting influence. On his return to New York in 1956 he had an exhibition with Betty Parson two years later. In 1959 he was included in the seminal Sixteen Americans exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art alongside the likes of Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Ellsworth Kelly, the latter a lifelong friend. He was part of another much-historicised show in 1966, the Lawrence Alloway-curated Systemic Painting at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the institution which would give Youngerman a retrospective in 1986.
For many years Youngerman was married to Delphine Seyrig, the actress and social activist best known for her starring role in Alain Resnais’s Last Year at Marienbad (1961).
25 February 2020
