Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 14, 2000

Volume 28, Number 28

Andrew Forge

El Greco will be the focus
of Yale painter's Rand Lecture

The Spanish painter El Greco will be the subject of the second Paul Rand Lecture in Design, which will be presented on Thursday, April 20, by Andrew Forge, professor emeritus of painting and former dean of the School of Art.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the lecture hall of the Yale University Art Gallery (use the High Street entrance). For access information, call (203) 432-0606.

Forge, a native of Kent, England, studied painting at the Camberwell School of Art and taught at the Slade School at University College in London, London University and the University of Reading before coming to the United States in 1973 as a visiting professor at Cooper Union in New York. He was associate dean of the New York Studio School before joining the Yale faculty in 1975 as dean of the School of Art. After leaving that post, he served as director of graduate studies in the painting department. He retired from the faculty in 1994.

Forge originally was a realist painter, but in 1963 began creating abstract art. He once described his new focus in painting by saying, "Each painting starts with a single dot, and it grows as dots accrue over the field of the canvas. During the early stages, the formative principle is simply the vibration of the dots, whether in ordered constellations or randomly dispersed. As the white field of the canvas is covered dot by dot, color reveals itself; the light of the canvas must be rediscovered and reconstructed out of the interaction of the dots. Slowly, ways of reading the painting come up. Areas press forward or drop back. There are alternatives of substance and transparency."

Forge's work has been featured in several one-person shows in the United States and abroad, including the Agnews and AIA galleries in London, the American Academy in Rome and the Robert Morrison Gallery in New York. The Yale Center for British Art held a retrospective exhibit of his paintings and works on paper in 1996. Forge's work has also been included in several mixed shows and is represented in private, corporate and public collections, including the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art.

Also well-known for his writing on art, Forge is the author of a number of books, including "Degas," "Monet" (with R. Gordon), "Painting & the Whole Self," "Monet at Giverny," and "Art/Nature." He has also written numerous articles and reviews in both popular and scholarly periodicals.

The Yale painter's honors include a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and a Merrill Foundation Award, among others.

The Paul Rand Lectureship in Design was created in 1999 through the generosity of the Cummins Engine Corporation. Rand, who was known for his designs for corporate logos and was a former faculty member at the School of Art, had a long career working with many major industries in the United States, including Cummins. The lectureship makes possible visits by distinguished individuals to talk about some aspect of design. The first Rand Lecturer was Kyle Cooper, a former student of Rand's, who has worked extensively in the motion picture industry.

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