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A Concise Dictionary of Lesser-Known Abstract Painters

ABNER: Believed himself to be the only non-figurative Egyptian painter
ACCARDI: Graphic signs inscribed direct on black ground
AFRO: Practised with a vigorous feeling for colour
BARTA: Became a mosaicist
BAUER: Founded a private museum of abstract art
BERKE: Member of the ‘Zen’ group
CALLIYANNIS: Skilfully organized his rich material in solid compositions
CALMIS: Advised by her friend Jacques Villon
COULON: Spent a considerable time in Amsterdam
DAVRING: Precociously exhibited at Flechtheim’s gallery
DEGOTTEX: Sought to reveal self-sufficient personal vision spontaneously
DORFLES: Born in Trieste, lived in Milan
ENGEL-PAK: A chequered career as a young man
ERZINGER: Worked under Lhote
ESTÈVE: A particular fondness for red
FALCHI: Began as a music-hall performer
FLEXOR: Father was an agricultural officer
FREIST: Large compositions in dulled colours
GALLATIN: Began painting without instruction
GLARNER: Handled greys with great virtuosity
GRAESER: An architect and interior decorator
HAMOUDI: Sent to study the art situation in Paris on behalf of the government of Iraq
HLITO: An art stripped to the bone
HULBECK: Managed to paint vigorous abstract works in the intervals between interviews
IDOUX: Mostly interested in fresco painting
ISTRATI: Great monochromatic panels voluptuously laden with paint
JANCO: Drew and composed masks for Dadaist sessions
JAREMA: Soldati converted him to abstraction
JOBIN: Progressed in the neo-plastic direction from 1953
KAYLER: Geometrical compositions of great sobriety
LATASTER: Brief smears of paint combined with graphisms
LAZZARI: Painted in Greenwich Village: no affiliations
LECK: Progressed slowly towards painting in swathes
MACRIS: Studied drawing in Leger’s studio. Then worked on his own
MAGNELLI: Reverted to representational painting, for a period of almost twenty years
MILO: Brother of the Parisian critic R. van Gindertael
MORITA: Black patches, spread wide on paper, having an interior vibration
NEBEL: Geometrical fantasies, rectilinear or curved
NEMOURS: Blacks and greys, ‘inseminated to the point of tears’, in her own words
NEY: Oscillated constantly between representation and abstraction
OUBORG: Taught drawing in the Dutch West Indies
PFRIEM: Painted first in the academic manner
POUSETTE-DART: Self-educated in matters of art
PRAMPOLINI: Took active part in the Futurist Congress in Milan
RAYMO: A doctor in Sao Paolo. Began painting on his own
RIOPELLE: Colour fizzles, sparks, radiates, falls into place, breaks loose again, surrenders
SERPAN: Commas or squiggles, gathered in compact masses
SERVRANCKX: The first Belgian painter to launch into abstraction
STAMOS: Turned to painting and took up many trades in order to live
TAL-COAT: Glistening lines, voluntarily hesitant
TOMLIN: Dancing signs, both precise and supple
VANTONGERLOO: Adopted the curve about 1935
WARB: Very much under the influence of Vantongerloo
WOLFF: A sort of fireworks assembled by an optimistic and sensitive mind
WOLS: His natural anarchy found a favourable climate in Chinese mysticism
XCERON: Strongly built, yet without excessive rigour

With thanks to Michel Seuphor’s A Dictionary of Abstract Painting (1958)