To help warm us up during this cold winter season, we celebrate George McNeil’s (1908–1995) birthday on Feb 21st, with his bright, color-saturated painting Beach Picture, 1963, featuring a figure lounging on a sunny beach. The artist evokes a sense of dynamism in the composition with his rich color palette, use of impasto, and lively brushwork. He once said that his aim was to create forms that were “plastically and psychologically alive by having lines, shapes, and colors bounce with energy.” Beach Picture was previously owned by Howard Wise, a respected art patron and New York gallerist who presented four solo exhibitions of McNeil’s paintings between 1960 and 1967.

McNeil was an essential part of the Abstract Expressionist movement and an original member of the American Abstract Artists, alongside Josef Albers, lIya Bolotowsky, Giorgio Cavallon, and Werner Drewes. He began his career studying under Hans Hofmann, from 1932 to 1937, and later served as his assistant. In 1935, he was commissioned by the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project to create sketches for the Williamsburg Housing Projects in New York. One year later, in 1936, The Museum of Modern Art included McNeil’s work in its exhibition, New Horizons in American Art, showcasing the work of Federal Art Project artists across the country. His work is held in numerous private and public collections, among them MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

In 1948, McNeil became the director of the Evening Art School at the Pratt Institute, where he hired Adolph Gottlieb, Philip Guston, and Franz Kline to teach. He and Guston formed a fast friendship. "George McNeil is the real painter!" Guston once declared. A lifelong educator who mentored many young artists, McNeil remains ingrained in the history of Abstract Expressionism.

-- Achim Moeller.