Draft:William Pettet

William "Bill" Pettet (born October 10, 1942–died May 4, 2019) was an American postwar & contemporary painter whose work is associated with Lyrical Abstraction, Colorfield painting and Abstract Expressionism. His work is associated with and characterized by large canvases of fluid color applied in broad strokes to create the illusion of deep space within a flat surface. Pettet laid his canvases on a flat surface and applied paint in layers, allowing some layers to soak into the canvas, or forcing other colors around the surface using an air gun, squeegees and brushes.

Bill Pettet's paintings were represented in Los Angeles by the Nicholas Wilder Gallery for several years and initially in New York City by the Robert Elkon Gallery. After Pettet moved to New York City in 1969, he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and after David Whitney closed, by the Willard Gallery.

Career
William Pettet from the earliest days of his career had a significant impact on abstract painting of the mid-1960s. As a major figure in the art world for over four decades, William Pettet has long been a pioneer of alternative painting techniques. He began his career as a painter in the early 1960s, living in Los Angeles, and experimenting with the emerging Minimalist genre. Employing spare and geometric compositions, Pettet generally confined his palette to a single color, cultivating a somber and austere aesthetic. In 1969, Pettet moved to New York City, and into a loft building in Tribeca. He radically altered his technique. He adopted much of the Abstract Expressionist approach, by painting on unstretched canvases laid over the floor, but quickly pushed past the bounds of Abstract Expressionism by infusing his work with new methodologies - incorporating spray guns, air compressors, knives and squeegees into his process. The results were stunning, as Pettet crafted highly lyrical canvases that expanded the asceticism of his early work.

The artist also began to imbue his painting with a dynamic sense of color, which afforded a more natural appearance and lent the work a strong emotional and psychological depth. Furthermore, Pettet demonstrated a newfound appreciation for art's theoretical components, as he neatly folded color in sumptuous layers while maintaining the integrity of the flat canvas -- a technique that embraced the art world's fascination with an art object's 'truthfulness' but exacted a more fluid appearance from the two-dimensional surface.

Pettet's early success on both coasts proved an integral component of art history's course over the last fifty years, as the attention he received in New York prompted artists and collectors alike to look Westward for further innovation.

He has been honored with many solo exhibitions and is featured in the collections of numerous important museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Collections
Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Art and many others.

Personal life
Donald William 'Bill' Pettet was born in Whittier, California in October 1942. He was raised there by his parents Donald and Grace Pettet. After graduating from college and having several exhibitions of his work in Los Angeles and New York, he moved to Manhattan, and then to Brooklyn. He married Marilee Cosentino in the 80s and started a family. They had three children: Joanna Grace Pettet, Donald William Pettet III, and Maria Jean Pettet. On May 4, 2019 Bill Pettet died as a result of illness, he was 76 years old.

Distinguished Mentions

 * Abstract Art writes
 * William Pettet by 1968 widened his range of interest and radically changed his painting methods. He extended his scale, worked unstretched on the floor and the wall and began using his spray guns and air compressors to vary the surfaces of his pictures. He began to paint large, lyrical, free spirited, Monet-like, sprayed acrylic stain paintings. Many of the pictures maintained a sense of monochromatic color but the range of surface and value created by his use of his spray guns lent tremendous expression to the paintings through drawing. These were Pettet's first Lyrical Abstractions; and he painted with astonishing lucidity. When Pettet moved to New York City in 1969 his work grew more direct as he brushed and drew large flowing shapes into his stained and sprayed surfaces. Throughout the 70's Pettet made beautiful abstract paintings with knives, squeegees, and stains. He has a particular ability to juxtapose odd colors together and make them work. Many of his paintings recall the great English Landscape painter Turner. I can't see the ironical Lyrical Abstraction of Gerhardt Richter of the last few years, without immediately thinking of William Pettet, although Pettet predates Richter by more than a decade. William Pettet began to exhibit his paintings in Los Angeles in 1966. By the time he moved to New York City in 1969 he had had several solo exhibitions of his paintings and his work had been included in major group shows around the world. William Pettet's work is in many important museum and private collections in the United States and abroad. His work has been included in important publications and he has had several solo exhibitions in the United States and Canada
 * Mutual Art writes
 * William Pettet is an American Postwar & Contemporary painter who was born in 1942. William Pettet's work has been offered at auction multiple times, with realized prices ranging from $144 USD to $1,410 USD, depending on the size and medium of the artwork. Since 2011 the record price for this artist at auction is $1,410 USD for Color Field Painting, sold at Cowan's Cincinnati in 2011.
 * Susan Snyder with Nicholas Wilder Gallery writes
 * As opposed to the dedication to flatness and deductive structure of, say, Noland or Stella, a group of painters, deriving perhaps most directly from Mark Rothko, and including such artists as Robert Irwin, Jules Olitski and Agnes Martin, continue to work within the confines of a tense, only partially resolved, shallow three-dimensional space. William Pettet’s paintings, in his first one-man show, fall into this latter category. Like Olitski, Pettet shifts the emphasis to the possibilities of a structure based on color alone. One sees, at first, a group of monochromatic green spray paintings, which shortly become differentiated into an experience of many different hues, fusing into a nostalgic color-light. At their best, they communicate a tingling sensation of color, free from a residue of the rational; but at their worst they degenerate into flat color samples, impassively accepting their surroundings. A few monochromatic painters have felt it necessary to pull the square out into a shape upon the wall, like the emblematic, wall-gridded picture-puzzles of David Novros. Pettet’s reliance upon the unaltered square declines a gambit; one of the brilliant things about, for example, Olitski, is the successful manner in which he dynamizes the passive rectangle. When Pettet’s paintings are successful, one sees an underlying tightness within the unimaginative square format; a faint, over-all gridding of hue concentration, with light-sweeping passages of color variations. The show is a handsome and controlled first exhibition.

Exhibitions & Events

 * Whitney Biennial 1973 Jan 10–Mar 18, 1973
 * https://archive.org/details/1973biennialexhi
 * 1969 Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Painting Dec 16, 1969–Feb 1, 1970
 * https://archive.org/details/1969annualwhit
 * 1967 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Painting Dec 13, 1967–Feb 4, 1968
 * https://archive.org/details/1967annualwhit

= Further reading & External Links =


 * MoMA- https://www.moma.org/artists/4586
 * https://www.moma.org/collection/works/74429?artist_id=4586&page=1&sov_referrer=artist
 * Whitney- https://whitney.org/artists/1019?q%5Bs%5D=sort_date%20desc
 * AskArt- https://www.askart.com/artist/William_Pettet/31593/William_Pettet.aspx
 * National Gallery of Art- https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.5811.html
 * Carter Museum of American Art- https://www.cartermuseum.org/artists/william-pettet
 * Art Forum- https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/196701/william-pettet-75881
 * Emire State Plaza and NY State Capital- https://empirestateplaza.ny.gov/art/william-pettet
 * Ro Gallery- https://www.rogallery.com/artists/william-pettet/
 * Invaluable Auctions- https://www.invaluable.com/artist/pettet-william-3reinki1wp/sold-at-auction-prices/
 * Wright Art- https://www.wright20.com/auctions/2021/02/art-design/258
 * Abstract Art- http://www.abstract-art.com/pettet/WP_About.html
 * Art net- http://www.artnet.com/artists/william-pettet/
 * Bid Square- https://www.bidsquare.com/online-auctions/hindman-auctions/william-pettet-american-b-1942-untitled-1968-797765
 * Youtube- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA3zUBaIDcu1fL_u4f5sFcTq-vN2JmODL