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| Phil Sims' signature brushstroke is delicate and subtle; the inclusion of clay in his pigments gives his paintings a soft matte texture that lets the viewer experience the full intensity of a beautiful color. A member of the Radical Painting Group, he exhibits in private and public venues all over Europe and the United States. His work forms an important part of the Panza di Biumo Collection |
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Installation view, Santa Fe Studio |
UNTITLED RED # 497,
Red Oil on linen, 2003 18 x 16 inches |
| Born in Richmond, California 1940 Lives in New York SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2001 Red Spectrum Paintings, Kunstverein Grafschaft Bentheim, Neuenhaus, Germany Paintings, Galerie Krohn, Badenweiler, Germany Paintings, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA 2000 Paintings, Galerie Rupert Walser, Munich, Germany Paintings, Stark Gallery, New York, NY 1999 Paintings, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM 1998 Paintings, Stark Gallery, New York, NY 1997 Paintings, Galeries Rupert Walser, Munich, Germany 1996 Paintings, Galerij S65, Aalst Marienbad Paintings, Stadtische Ausstellungshalle Marienbad, Freiburg 1995 Stable Paintings, Crosby Street, New York Paintings, ARS NOVA Gallerie, Goteborg Paintings, Galerie Dr. Luise Krohn, Badenweiler 1994 Recent Paintings, Stark Gallery, New York 1993 Umbrian Paintings, Galerie Rupert Walser, Munchen Painting: Into Blue, Artothek, Koln Umbrian Paintings, Quaderni Perugini di Musica Contemporanea, Pieve Caina 1992 Paintings and Drawings, Galerie Dr. Luise Krohn, Badenweiler Two Black Paintings, Galerie Kunstraum Kassel, Kassel 1991 Paintings, Galerie Conrads, Neuss Malerei Pur, Raume von Prima Kunst, Kiel Paintings, Galerie Rupert Walser, Munchen 1990 April, Julian Pretto Gallery, New York October, Julian Pretto Gallery, New York 1988 Now Color, Genovese Gallery, Boston 1986 Die Gegenwart der Farbe, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld Drawings, Kingsborough College Art Gallery, City University of New York 1986 New Paintings, Malmo Konsthall, Malmo Paintings, 1979-1985, Queens Museum, NY 1984 Oscarsson-Hood Gallery, New York Galerie Nemo, Eckernforde Galerie Rupert Walser/ Druckwerk, Munchen 1983 Oscarsson-Hood Gallery, New York Bluxome Gallery, San Francisco Galerie Rupert Walser/ Druckwerk, Munchen 1982 Raum fur Malerei, Koln Galerie Nordenhake, Malmo 1980 Shirley Cerf Gallery, San Franciso 1979 Casat Gallery, La Jolla 1977 Casat Gallery, La Jolla 1975 Wenger-Casat Gallery, La Jolla SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2000 Bonn Paintings, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany Grau ist nicht Grau, Galerie Gisele Linder, Basel, Switzerland More American Artists, Ausstellungsraum Harry Sellweger, Basel, Switzerland Die Farbe hat mich, Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum, Hagen, Germany Painting, Esso Gallery, New York, New York 1999 The Tao of Painting: Principles of Monochrome, McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas, TX Yellow: The First Color, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA Early Radical Painters, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM Color-Based Painting: High Modernism, Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco, CA Color-Based Painting: The Root of the Actual, Jan Maiden Fine Art, Columbus, Ohio 1998 The Panza di Biumo Collection, Artists of the Eighties and Nineties, Gubbio/The Museum of the Ducal Palace, Gubbio, Italy (Five paintings created for a specific room. Paintings on view through2003.) Charlotte Jackson Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM Galerie Gisele Linder , Basel, Switzerland Color Painting, Howard Yezerski Gallery, Boston, MA 1997 Collection Panza di Biumo, 1980-1990, Llonear, Palma de Mallorca, Spain Galerie Gisele Linder, Basel Switzerland 1996 N'oublions Pas le Blanc, Galerie Gisele Linder, Basel Switzerland Pittura Contemporanea in Galleria, Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugina, Italy La Collezione Panza Di Biumo-artisti degli anni '80 e '90, Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Roverto, Trento, Italy 1995 Color: Sign, System, Sensibility, Stark Gallery, New York 1994 Esposizione Scelsi, Palazzo dei Priori, quaderni Perugini di Musica Contemporanea, Perugia 1988 La Couleur Seule, l'Experience du Monochrome, Musee D'Art Contemporian, Lyon 1987 Rigor, John Good Gallery, New York 10 Jahre Kunst, Galerie Rupert Walser, Munchen 1984 Radical Painting, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts New Abstraction, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee New Abstraction, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York Color Painting: Three New York Painters, Galerie Rupert Walser/ Druckwerk, Munchen Von der Ungleichheit des Ahnlichen in der Kunst Stadtische Galerie, Ludenscheid Stadtische Museum, Gelsenkirchen Kunstverein Unna Color: Four Painters, Oscarsson-Hood Gallery, New York and GalerieNordenhake, Malmo 1981 Painting: Seven New York Painters, Sarah Lawrence College Gallery, Bronxville 1980 Color Painting, Galerie Enstrom, Stockholm and Shirley Cerf Gallery, San Francisco 1979 Fundamental Color, Galerie Nordenhake, Malmo SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY San Francisco Chronicle March 29, 2001, "Phil Sims at Gross," David Bonetti Santa Fe New Mexican October 1, 1999, "New Mexico Light Goes Beyond Surface", Joe Quattro Albuquerque Journal North July 4, 1999, "Artist's Goal is to Create 'Color Experience'," Craig Sullivan Albuquerque Journal North July 2, 1999, "Sims Works Offer One-on-One Experience with Color," Craig Sullivan San Francisco Examiner May 7, 1999, "Abstraction's Remarkable Return, David Bonetti Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung April 20, 1999, "Im Studiolo herrscht jetzt die Monochromie", Georg Imdahl The New York Times April 24, 1998, "Phil Sims," Ken Johnson Art In America May 1996 "Phil Sims at the Crosby Street Project," Lilly Wei The New York Times July 21, 1995, "Color: Sign, System, Sensibility," Pepe Karmal Quaderni Perugini di Musica Contemporane, "Nuove Prospettive per L' Osservazione Tra Immagine e Musica," Perugia, Italia Cataloguo 1994, Prof. Michael Bockemuhl Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger 8 September, 1993, "Farbe als Lebenselixier," Marianne Stockebrand Kunstforum International Bd. 118, 1992, Phil Sims "Two Black Paintings," Michael Hubl Malerei Pur Gesellschaft fur akustische Levenshilfe, Kiel, Deutschland, Katalog1991, Jurgen Paatz La Couleur Seule L' Experience du Monochrome, Musee St. Pierre, Lyon, France, Catalogue 1988, Thierry Raspail Phil Sims, Malmo Konsthall, Malmo, Sweden, Catalogue 1986, Stephen Westfall Die Gegenwart der Farbe, Kunstalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Deutschland, Katalog 1986, Erich Franz Phil Sims, Galerie Nemo, Eckernforde, Deutschland, Katalog 1984, Erich Franz Radical Painting, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, Catalogue 1984, Lilly Wei Flash Art , February 1982, "Color: Four Painters," Michele Meyers Arts, March 1982, "Monochrome Met", Ann Schoenfeld Color: Four Painters, Oscarsson Hood Gallery, New York, Galeria Nordenhake, Malmo, Sweden, Catalogue 1982, Jesse Murphy Art in America, April 1981, "Getting on with Painting," Marcia Hafif Flash Art, No. 92-93, October-November 1979, "Monochrome in New York" SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum, Hagen, Germany Collection Panza di Biumo, Varese, Italia Collection of Julian Pretto, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum, Hartford, Connecticut, USA Kiel Kunsthalle, Kiel, Germany Musee d'Art Contemporain, Lyon, France Malmo Konsthall, Malmo, Sweden Scripps Institute, La Jolla, California, USA University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA |
| International is a word that Phil Sims understands very well. His global perspective got an early start when his family spent five years in Bahrain, then a British protectorate, from the time Phil was five until he was ten. These early experiences contributed to a love of travel and an understanding of its importance. After studying painting at the San Francisco Art Institute, Sims spent three years traveling and painting in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He recalls the impact of experiences such as his first visit to the Cairo Museum, and the deepening of his knowledge of art history through seeing great works of art at first hand. He was particularly inspired by the painters of Renaissance Europe, and by the way in which artists in India used heightened color as a vehicle to impart meaning. His contact with masterpieces of art all over the world led him to a deeper commitment to painting, as well as an understanding of the relationship of his own work to the Western artistic tradition. Sims returned to the United States and painted for almost a decade in Northern California, but he became increasingly aware of a need for more of a critical dialogue regarding his work. In 1977 he moved his studio to New York. The change of location was exactly what he needed: in New York there was the opportunity to discuss his work with a broad spectrum of painters. He found encouragement there for painting, and in particular one-color painting, that had been missing on the West Coast. Within six months of moving to New York, he had produced his first one-color painting, a development that set his work on the course it has followed to the present time. Around the same time as his move to New York, Sims paintings achieved recognition in Europe, beginning with an exhibition in Malmö, Sweden. Shows followed in Germany and other Western European countries. The response in the U.S. to one-color painting was more tentative; but in 1984, Radical Painting, a groundbreaking exhibition of monochromatic work, was mounted at the Williams College Museum of Art, effectively introducing this tradition into the mainstream of American art. Europe continued to be an important venue for Sims's paintings. His work was included in La Couleur Seule: l'Experience du Monochrome, a comprehensive exhibition of one-color painting at the Musee d'Art Contemporain in Lyon in 1988. This exhibition was the result of a groundswell of European interest in monochromatic painting; Sims responded to this opportunity by moving his studio to Germany, where he painted and exhibited for several years. Since that time, Sims's reputation as a painter has continued to grow on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1992, a Sims exhibit at the Stark Gallery in New York attracted the attention of Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, who subsequently became an enthusiastic collector of Sims paintings. Panza's commissions enabled Sims to fill entire rooms of European palaces and renovated Renaissance houses with his paintings. More recently, a room of Sims paintings was installed at the Bonn Museum and has remained in place over the past two years. Sims's paintings, with their intricate interplay of color and surface texture, speak a language understood all over the United States and Europe. Drawing on the rich history of Western painting, he creates work that extends that tradition into contemporary life and makes it live in our present-day, global world. |
