American painter and sculptor. From 1960 Olitski devised various ways of staining colour into the canvas, pouring paint or applying areas of bright colour with brushes, sponges, and rollers, as in Cleopatra Flesh (1962; New York, MOMA). It was these works that brought him to prominence as a major exponent of COLOUR FIELD PAINTING. In 1964, after a conversation with Kenneth Noland and Anthony Caro, he started to spray the paint on to the canvas, a method he had experimented with previously and one that became his dominant method by 1965. In works such as Pink Alert (1966; Washington, DC, Corcoran Gal. A.) this technique enabled him to effect subtle variations of colour.
In his paintings of the 1970s Olitski moved away from the spray-paint technique and instead began to use thickened paint to create a textural effect, as in Greek Princess—8 (1976; Washington, DC, Hirshhorn). The colours were now muted, dull, and largely monochrome. He continued painting in a similar vein in the 1980s, using even thicker paint and still dull, though slightly more modulated, colours, as in Elysium (1988; see 1988 exh. cat., pl. 6). The critical acclaim that Olitski had received in the 1960s, particularly from Clement Greenberg and other formalist writers, gave way in the 1980s to a violent reaction against his painting, especially among New York critics who found his work monotonous and passé. Nevertheless his work continued to be highly regarded by younger abstract artists in the USA.
SOURCE: Oxford Art Online http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T063439?q=jules+olitski&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit (Accessed 31st Jan 2017)
