Haikus, Modernism and Stanton Macdonald-Wright

August 24, 2019 - April 4, 2020

Marie Eccles Caine Gallery

Stanton Macdonald-Wright’s Haiga Portfolio, 1966-1967, is an example of the artist’s most pronounced blending of Eastern and Western influences. Seventy-five years old when he did them they meld innovations of Western modern art with Japan’s greatest poetry. The term haiga refers to a style of Japanese painting done by haiku poets. Haiku poems are known for their extreme brevity and simplicity.  Each of the twenty prints that compose the Haiga Portfolio have a corresponding haiku written by one of Japan’s most important poets. 

In 1913 Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell cofounded the early 20^th century modernist movement Synchromism. Synchromism sought to arrange color in the same way that sound is composed in music and is considered the first American avant-guard movement to be accepted internationally.

Instead of using the subtle spare painting style of haiga artists Macdonald-Wright employs the use of energetic swirling shapes coupled with dense vivid colors orchestrated in the modernist style and rhythm of Synchromism.