MINUS SPACE’s chronology includes major events, exhibitions, and writings regarding the development of reductive art on the international level.
To contribute information, please email MINUS SPACE.
| year | europe | south america | north america | australia / asia / africa |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1910 | Wassily Kandinsky makes first abstract paintings in Munich, Germany Frantisek Kupka moves to Paris, France Richard Mortensen is born in Copenhagen, Denmark Aurélie Nemours is born in Paris, France Roman Clemens is born on February 11 in Dessau Hubert Döllner is born on July 11 in Elbing Jean Leppien is born in Luneburg, Germany |
Arthur Dove begins producing "extractions" or non-objective abstract compositions based on pulsating forms in nature; Dove also produces images expressive of sounds The Independents Show is mounted Paul Feeley is born in Des Moines, Iowa |
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| 1911 | In Paris, Frantisek Kupka makes first experiments in pure color abstraction Marcel Duchamp paints "Nude Descending a Staircase" "Group of Plastic Artists (Skupina Vytvarnych Umelcu)", a Bohemian avant-garde group, is founded; In February a fundamental rift between the older and younger generations in the "Mánes Union of Artists" is occasioned by the fall in subscriptions to the union’s journal "Volné smery" after its new editors, Emil Filla and Antonín Matejcek, reproduced Picasso’s work and published Filla’s article on the virtues of the new primitivism; The majority of the young contributors to the journal pointedly withdraw from the "Mánes Union of Artists"; Towards the end of 1911, they establish the "Group of Plastic Artists", oriented towards Cubism; Its members areVincenc Benes, V. H. Brunner, Josef Capek, Emil Filla, Josef Gocár, Otto Gutfreund, Vlastislav Hofman, Josef Chochol, Pavel Janák, Zdenek Kratochvíl, Frantisek Kysela, Antonín Procházka, Ladislav Síma, Václav Spála, the writers Karel Capek and Frantisek Langer, and the art historian V. V. Stech; For personal reasons and differences of opinion, Bohumil Kubista, Otokar Kubín and Matejcek remained outside the group and soon returned to the Mánes Union; Gocár was elected the group’s first president Piet Mondrian moves to Paris, France Olle Baertling is born in Halmstad, Sweden Jo Delahaut is born in Vottem-Lez-Liège, Belgium Jean Deyrolle is born in Nogent-sur-Marne, France Franz Weissmann is born in Knittefeld, Austria |
Raúl Lozza is born in Buenos Aires, Argentina | Suzy Frelinghuysen is born in New Jersey | |
| 1912 | Wassily Kandinsky publishes "On the Spiritual in Art" based on a non-scientific approach to color and feeling Robert Delaunay begins painting "Windows" series Giacomo Balla makes first paintings concerned with the representation of movement Marcel Duchamp makes first "ready-made" sculpture "Bicycle Wheel" "Rayonism", an abstract style of painting, is developed by the Russian artist Mikhail Larionov Wyndham Lewis makes first non-objective print portfolio; Lewis is part of the English "Vorticists" who are developing abstract works using precision and machine aesthetics Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt (Gego) is born on August 1 in Hamburg, Germany Robert Jacobsen is born in Copenhagen, Denmark Verena Loewensberg is born in Zurich, Switzerland Adolf Luther is born in Krefeld, Germany Max Hermann Mahlmann is born in Hamburg, Germany Nicolas Schöffer is born in Kalocsa, Hungary Alexander Liberman is born on September 4 in Kiev, Russia |
Círculo de Bellas Artes is founded in Caracas, Venezuela, in reaction to the reigning tradition of academic painting; Artists set up an independent studio without teachers or prescribed aesthetic boundaries, with an emphasis on open-air painting; Artists travel to Europe and bring back latest artistic trends Xul Solar relocates from Argentina to Europe (until 1924) |
Arthur Dove's mounts first solo exhibition at Alfred Stieglitz's 291 Gallery, New York, NY; Exhibits 10 pastel drawings showing organic Futurism Marsden Hartley leaves to study in Europe Agnes Martin is born on March 22 in Macklin, Saskatchewan, Canada Tony Smith is born in Orange, New Jersey Morris Louis is born in Baltimore, Maryland John Cage is born in Los Angeles, California |
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| 1913 | Kazimir Malevich designs set for "Victory over the Sun" opera; His drawing for the curtain anticipated his painting "Black Square" two years later Sonia Delaunay begins making abstract paintings Mikhail Larionov publishes his manifesto on "Rayonism"; Based on Futurist ideas, "Rayonism" stresses individual lines or "rays" as the core element of a painting; Signed by Natalia Gontcharova In Paris, Americans Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell develop a color theory known as "Synchromism"; The name was chosen to suggest musical associations (symphony) through color (chrome); It was Russell’s idea that paintings could be created based on sculptural forms interpreted two-dimensionally through a knowledge of colour properties. Synchromist paintings, stressing an emphasis on colour rhythms, were composed of abstract shapes, often concealing the submerged forms of figures; The two artists first attracted attention at the Neue Kunstsalon in Munich in June 1913; Their second exhibition of Synchromist painting was at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris from October to November 1913 |
Carmelo Arden Quin is born in Rivera, Uruguay | The Armory Show exhibition takes place in New York, New York Ad Reinhardt is born on December 24 in Buffalo, New York |
Kenzo Tange is born in Osaka, Japan |
| 1914 | Gino Severini begins making Divisionist paintings, such as "Sea=Dancer" Umberto Boccioni makes first sculptures evoking physical movement "Vorticism", a British artistic and literary movement, is founded by the editor of Blast magazine, Wyndham Lewis, and members of the Rebel Art Centre; It encompassed not only painting, drawing and printmaking, but also the sculpture of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Jacob Epstein and the photographs of Alvin Langdon Coburn; Notable literary allies were Ezra Pound, who coined the term "Vorticism" early in 1914, and T. S. Eliot Franz Weissmann is born in Knittefeld, Austria Marcel Floris is born in Hyères, France Ernst Hermanns is born in Münster, Germany Hans Wegner is born on April 2 in Tønder, Denmark Walter Kaitna is born in Vienna, Austria Jan J. Schoonhoven is born in Delft, The Netherlands |
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney founds the Whitney Studio at 8 W. 8th Street in New York City adjoining her own studio to exhibit her collection of American artists Jean Crotti moves to New York City (1914-16) |
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| 1915 | Kazimir Malevich begins making Suprematist paintings, including "Black Square," "Black Circle," "Black Cross" and other black-and-white and red-and-white works; Malevich's "The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0.10 (Zero-Ten)" at Galerie Dobychina, Petrograd, Russia (December 19 - January 19, 1916) Iwan Puni (Jean Pougny) organizes the exhibitions "0.10" and "Tramway V" in Russia Vladimir Tatlin makes his "Complex Corner Relief," a metal construction suspended from wires that projects into the gallery space Natalia Gontcharova leaves Russia Mathias Goeritz is born in Danzig, Germany |
Luis Tomasello is born in La Plata, Argentina Carmen Herrera is born in May in Havana, Cuba |
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| 1916 | "MA" group, an Hungarian group of artists and writers, active, is founded (1916-26); It was associated with the journal "MA", whose name was derived from the Hungarian for "today"; Founded by the writer and artist Lajos Kassák, "MA" first appeared in November 1916, and it was banned in Hungary on 14 July 1919; It was published in Budapest, at first edited solely by Kassák, and by 1917 also by Béla Uitz. From May 1, 1920 until its demise in mid-1926 it was published in Vienna under Kassák’s sole editorship; It was the most important forum for Hungarian Activism, and over the years its members included Sándor Bortnyik, Péter Dobrovic, Lajos Gulácsy, János Kmetty, János Máttis Teutsch, László Moholy-Nagy, Jószef Nemes Lampérth, and Béla Uitz, among others.; The first issue had a Cubist cover by the Czech artist Vincenc Benes and an article by Kassák entitled "A plakát es az uj festészet (The poster and the new painting", which set the revolutionary tone of the group; The article suggested that painting should aspire to the same aggressive power as that achieved by posters: "The new painter is a moral individual, full of faith and a desire for unity! And his pictures are weapons of war!."; Many members of the "MA" group did produce posters during the short Communist regime under Béla Kun in 1919 Peter Keetman is born in Wuppertal-Elberfeld, Germany Umberto Boccioni dies on August 17 in Sorte, Verona, Italy |
Círculo de Bellas Artes is dissolved in Caracas, Venezuela | Richard Pousette-Dart is born Harold Cousins is born in Washington, DC |
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| 1917 | "De Stijl", the Dutch periodical is founded in Leiden by Theo van Doesburg (published until 1932); The name was also applied from the 1920s to a distinctive movement and to the group of artists associated with it; The periodical’s subtitle, "Maandblad voor de beeldende vakken (Monthly Journal of the Expressive Professions)", indicates the range of artists to which it was appealing, and van Doesburg’s intention was that it be a platform for all those who were concerned with a new art: painters, sculptors, architects, urban planners, typographers, interior designers and decoratve artists, musicians, poets and dramatists. The search for a "nieuwe beelding (new imagery)" was characterized by the elementary components of the primary colours, flat, rectangular areas and only straight, horizontal and vertical lines; Members include Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, Bart van der Leck, Georges Vantongerloo, and J.J.P. Oud Kazimir Malevich paints "White on White" works (thru 1918) Laszló Moholy-Nagy becomes a member of the "MA" group in Budapest, Hungary Gottfried Honegger is born in Zurich, Switzerland Michael Kidner is born in Kettering, England Mario Nigro is born in Pistoia, Italy Jean Legros is born in Paris, France |
Alfred Stieglitz closes his gallery 291 (1905-1917) Edna Andrade is born in Portsmouth, Virginia Manny Farber is born |
Gudrun Piper is born in Kobe, Japan | |
| 1918 | Camille Graeser moves to Stuttgart and opens a interior decorating and design studio (1918-33) Bart van der Leck leaves the "De Stijl" group and begins applying geometric principals to figurative work Olga Rozanova dies on November 8 in Moscow, Russia |
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney transforms her Whitney Studio to the Whitney Studio Club Ronald Bladen is born in Vancouver, Canada |
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| 1919 | The Bauhaus, the German art, design and architecture school, is founded by Walter Gropius; It was active in Weimar from 1919 to 1925, in Dessau from 1925 to 1932 and in Berlin from 1932 to 1933, when it was closed down by the Nazi authorities; The Bauhaus’s name referred to the medieval Bauhütten or masons’ lodges; The school re-established workshop training, as opposed to impractical academic studio education; Its contribution to the development of Functionalism in architecture was widely influential; It exemplified the contemporary desire to form unified academies incorporating art colleges, colleges of arts and crafts and schools of architecture, thus promoting a closer cooperation between the practice of "fine" and "applied" art and architecture; Mies van der Rohe invites Johannes Itten to teach the foundation course at the Bauhaus and to develop his color theories Kazimir Malevich begins producing Suprematist fabric designs The journal "MA", founded by the writer and artist Lajos Kassák, is banned in Hungary on July 14, 1919 Nikolaj Michajlovich Suetin becomes a member of the group "Unowis" Sándor Bortnyik moves to Vienna and then to Weimar Mira Schendel is born in Zurich, Switzerland Ib Geertsen is born on January 19 in Denmark |
Frederick Hammersley is born in Salt Lake City, Utah | Gordon Walters is born in Wellington, New Zealand Colin McCahon is born in Timaru, New Zealand |
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