Betty Blayton, In Search of Grace, 2006, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 inches (76.2 x 76.2 cm). © The Estate of Betty Blayton. Photography by: Timothy Doyon.
Mnuchin Gallery is proud to announce In Search of Grace, a solo exhibition of the work of Betty Blayton (1937-2016). The exhibition will feature paintings and works on paper from five decades of the artist’s career, spanning from the late 1960s until just before her passing in 2016. On view from September 8 until October 16, 2021, this presentation will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue authored by her close friend and art historian, Lowery Stokes Sims.
Betty Blayton was a native of Williamsburg, Virginia born in 1937. She expressed her desire to be an artist from the age of four, and with her father’s encouragement, went on to earn a degree in Painting and Illustration from Syracuse University, New York in 1959. As a Black woman, Blayton was unable to pursue an artistic education in Virginia, as the state’s higher institutions remained segregated following the historic Brown vs. Board of Education ruling. Instead, Virginia opted to pay for Black students to attend schools in other states that offered their chosen majors. Following her graduation, Blayton spent time in Washington DC and St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, before moving to New York City in 1960. At the time, a fervent debate was already underway regarding how to best depict the Black experience in art. Some believed this could only truly be achieved through figuration. Blayton, along with numerous other now-revered artists, upheld that abstraction could be used as a vehicle not only to discuss those experiences, but to transcend them and speak about both the personal and the universal.
Betty Blayton, Hard Edge #3 – Intermezzo, 1969, oil on canvas, 40 ¼ x 40 ¼ inches (102.2 x 102.2 cm). © The Estate of Betty Blayton. Photography by: Timothy Doyon.
A pioneering figure of abstraction, Blayton’s phantasmal, ethereal canvases defy easy categorization. In the late 1960s, she experimented with her style and technique by flirting with pure abstraction while remaining loosely tethered to figuration. Works such as Roots (1969) illustrate this balance between elongated, sensual forms that are faintly recognizable as figures yet entirely otherworldly. She likewise experimented with the hard-edge abstraction pioneered by artists such as Sam Gilliam and Al Loving, using bright, bold colors and crisp lines to create paintings such as Hard Edge #3 – Intermezzo (1969). The color and composition of works from this period nod to the influences of Impressionists like van Gogh and spiritualists such as Paul Klee.
By the 1970s, Blayton had found her unique vocabulary and method. Her aesthetic intentions became two-fold: first, through self-reflection, the artist hoped to reach a transcendental state where her moods and mindset were laid bare on the canvas; second, she intended this act of internal meditation to produce a similar experience of spiritual self-reflection in the viewer. This shift in conceptual focus led to what would be her mature style –– a kaleidoscopic merging of bright colors and organic forms.
Betty Blayton, Tarot, 1970, oil and paper collage on canvas, 29 ¾ x 29 ¾ inches (75.6 x 75.6 cm). © The Estate of Betty Blayton. Photography by: Timothy Doyon.
In works like Tarot (1970), Blayton utilized warm hues of yellows, oranges, and reds to capture the depth and fluidity of a spiritual awakening. Her use of the circular canvas, or tondo format, was similarly used as a symbol of the cyclical nature of life’s many stages and the continuity between man and nature. The metaphysical, mythological, and mystical themes that have come to define Blayton’s art stemmed from conversations she had begun with her father as early as age ten. Her discovery of the 17th century spiritual movement, Rosicrucianism, gave way to wider interests in Eastern religions and the Bhagavad Gita. She also drew inspiration from New Age practices popularized by figures such as Edgar Cayce, Shakti Gawain, Wayne Dyer, and Michael Newton.
In the service of this practice, Blayton developed a highly stylized and specific technique. She began each painting with a sketch, and working from this outline, she began blocking out the primary forms with chalk. This was followed by thin washes of color that ground the composition, on top of which she placed thin layers of rice paper. Going over these with further layers of wash, she completed each painting by adding the heavier accents of color that lend a vibrancy to the finished painting. She was thus able to create veil-like compositions of indeterminate depth that yield to an almost trance-like experience in the viewer.
(Left to Right) Eleanor Holmes Norton, Carter Burden, Charles Inniss, Campbell Wylly, Betty Blayton-Tyalor, Frank Donnelly at The Studio Museum in Harlem on opening night in 1968. Courtesy the Studio Museum in Harlem Archives. Photograph by: Jill Krementz.
While maintaining an avid painting practice and showing regularly in New York City and elsewhere throughout the United States, Blayton was also a pioneer in the Harlem art scene and in the realm of arts education. Today, she is best known as a co-founder of The Studio Museum in Harlem where she served as Board Secretary from 1965-1977. She also served as co-founder and Executive Director of the Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem from 1968-1998, an outgrowth of the initiative begun by the Museum of Modern Art’s Education Department that aimed to foster creative thinking through visual arts and instill a love of learning in the children of Harlem –– even teaching a young Jean-Michel Basquiat. In addition to these major achievements, Blayton acted as a consultant for the Board of Education of the City of New York (1968-1994), served on the board of The Arts & Business Council of New York City (1975-1996), and was a member of the New York City Commission for Cultural Affairs (1979-1988).
Blayton has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York (2017); and William Burgess Fine Arts, New York (2010); as well as important group exhibitions such as Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today at the Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas City (2017); Surface Work at Victoria Miro Gallery, London (2018); and She Persists: A Century of Women Artists in New York at Gracie Mansion, New York (2019). Her work can be found in the permanent collections of The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Spelman College, Atlanta, among other institutions. She was the recipient of such awards as the Eugene Grigsby Award for Excellent Contributions in Art Education from the National Arts Education Association (1990), the CBS Martin Luther King Jr., Fulfilling the Dream Award (1995), and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for the Arts (2005).
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Installation view of Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace. Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc. All Artworks © The Estate of Betty Blayton.
Betty Blayton
No Fun No Game
1967
oil on canvas
55 ½ x 37 inches (141 x 94 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Moving with Energies
1968
acrylic and colored rice paper collage on canvas
40 x 40 inches (101.6 x 101.6 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Roots
1969
oil on canvas
60 x 40 inches (152.4 x 101.6 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Astro Dance
1969
acrylic and colored rice paper collage on canvas
40 x 40 inches (101.6 x 101.6 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Hard Edge #3 - Intermezzo
1969
oil on canvas
40 ¼ x 40 ¼ inches (102.2 x 102.2 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Hard Edge #9 - Form/Fractured Movement
1969
oil on canvas
58 x 39 ¾ inches (147.3 x 101 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
At Onement
1970
acrylic on canvas
39 ½ x 39 ½ inches (100.3 x 100.3 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Major Arcanum
1970
acrylic and colored rice paper colalge on canvas
35 x 35 inches (88.9 x 88.9 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
World Within Worlds
1970
oil and paper collage on canvas
58 ½ x 58 ½ inches (148.6 x 148.6 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Venus
1970
oil on canvas with rice paper collage
35 ½ x 35 ½ inches (90.2 x 90.2 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Tarot
1970
oil and paper collage on canvas
29 ¾ x 29 ¾ inches (75.6 x 75.6 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Reaching for Center
1970
acrylic and oil pastel on canvas
58 ½ x 58 ½ inches (148.6 x 148.6 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Iconograph
1970
oil and paper collage on canvas
39 1/2 x 39 1/2 inches (100.3 x 100.3 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Major Arcanum
1970
acrylic and colored rice paper collage on canvas
35 x 35 inches (88.9 x 88.9 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Earth Dance
1971
oil and paper collage on canvas
39 1/2 x 39 1/2 inches (100.3 x 100.3 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Time Freeze
1972
oil on canvas
39 ½ x 39 ½ inches (100.3 x 100.3 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Becoming
1974
oil and paper collage on canvas
30 x 30 inches (76.2 x 76.2 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
A Long Way from Home
1977
acrylic on canvas
29 x 29 inches (73.7 x 73.7 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Fact
1977
acrylic and colored rice paper collage on canvas
35 x 35 inches (88.9 x 88.9 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
To Soar
1977
oil and paper collage on canvas
40 x 40 inches (101.6 x 101.6 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Mental Maze
1979
oil and paper collage on canvas
31 ½ x 31 ½ inches (80 x 80 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Sound Intruding
1980
acrylic and colored rice paper collage on canvas
35 ½ x 35 ½ inches (90.2 x 90.2 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Breaking Through Enter Level #1
1986
acrylic on canvas
39 x 39 inches (99.1 x 99.1 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Jewels of Thought
1989
acrylic on canvas
41 x 41 inches (104.1 x 104.1 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Flight
1996
acrylic and oil pastel on canvas
58 ½ x 58 ½ inches (148.6 x 148.6 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Dream Symbols After Image
1999
oil and paper collage on canvas
39 ¼ x 39 ¼ inches (99.7 x 99.7 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Fractured Thought
1999
acrylic and oil pastel on canvas
58 ½ x 58 ½ inches (148.6 x 148.6 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Big Band/Jazzman Mind
2004
acrylic and oil pastel on canvas
47 ½ x 47 ½ inches (120.7 x 120.7 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Souls Transcending
2005
acrylic on canvas
40 x 40 inches (101.6 x 101.6 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
In Search of Grace
2006
acrylic on canvas
30 x 30 inches (76.2 x 76.2 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Oversoul and Protective Spirit
2006
acrylic on canvas
46 x 38 inches (116.8 x 96.5 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
No Entry
2006
acrylic and paper collage on canvas
29 ¾ x 29 ¾ inches (75.6 x 75.6 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
In Search of the Gap
2007
acrylic on canvas
36 x 36 inches (91.4 x 91.4 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Positive Thought Becoming a Thing
2007
acrylic on canvas
36 x 36 inches (91.4 x 91.4 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Ancestors Bearing Light
2007
acrylic and colored rice paper collage on canvas
30 x 30 inches (76.2 x 76.2 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Gathering Source Energies
2010
acrylic on canvas
48 x 48 inches (121.9 x 121.9 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Consciousness Traveling
2012
acrylic on canvas
59 ½ x 59 ½ inches (151.1 x 151.1 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Flutist Landscape
2014
acrylic and collage on canvas
36 x 36 inches (91.4 x 91.4 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Thoughts of Grief
1968
ink and oil pastel on paper
18 ½ x 18 ½ inches (47 x 47 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Arriving together
1970
color tissue collage on paper
10 ½ x 10 ½ inches (26.7 x 26.7 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Sound in Abstraction
1970
color tissue collage on paper
10 ½ x 10 ½ inches (26.7 x 26.7 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
Betty Blayton
Introduction to the spirit council
1979
acrylic on paper
13 x 19 inches (33 x 48.3 cm)
© The Estate of Betty Blayton
By Victoria Valentine
The exhibition "In Search of Grace” provides a rare opportunity to explore the work of Betty Blayton (1937-2016) across five decades. Known for her “spiritual abstractions,” Blayton employed poetic palettes and often worked in a tondo format. Possessed with beauty and grace, her images speak to nature and invoke metaphysical themes. Paintings and works on paper dating from the late 1960s to 2014 are on view at Mnuchin Gallery.
A pioneering artist and institution builder, Blayton pushed back against norms throughout her life and career. She was born in Williamsburg, Va., where higher education institutions remained segregated after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Eschewing integration, Virginia opted instead to pay for African American students to attend out-of-state schools. Blayton took advantage of the opportunity, earning a degree in painting and illustration from Syracuse University (1959).
Living in New York City in the 1960s, she pursued abstraction when figuration was the expected form of expression for Black artists. When artists of African descent were largely shut out of exhibition opportunities at mainstream museums and galleries, Blayton helped establish the historic Studio Museum in Harlem. She also co-founded and served for 30 years as executive director of the Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem (1968-98), an offshoot of a Museum of Modern Art education program, where her students included a young artist named Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog authored by art historian Lowery Stokes Sims, a close friend of Blayton.
©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette
These are powerfully soothing works. Peaceful, pastel colors at times heightened with earth tones, all painted in the round. The Mnuchin Gallery in New York City is currently presenting a solo exhibition of the work of the American contemporary artist Betty Blayton who was born in Virginia in 1937 and died in New York City in 2016. Entitled in Search of Grace, the show, running through to October 16th, celebrates the work of this pioneering figure of abstraction. So if you can’t be in New York right now, The Gourmet Gazette gives you a glimpse of the show here.
Her use of the circular canvas was used as a symbol of the cyclical nature of life’s many stages and the continuity between man and nature. Her themes were often metaphysical, mythological and mystical stemming from her early conversations as a child with her father, her discovery of the 17th century Rosicrucianism spiritual movement and an interest in the Eastern Relgions and the New Age movement including the writings of Edgar Cayce.
The artist would continue painting throughout her life, showing regularly in New York City and throughout the United States, but Betty Blayton was also a pioneer of the Harlem art scene as well as in the field of arts education. She was the co-founder of The Studio Museum in Harlem and the co-founder and Executive Director of the Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem for 30 years. One of her most successful students was Jean-Michel Basquiat. The museum-quality exhibition at the Mnuchin Gallery was curated by Sukanya Rajaratnam and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue authored by Betty Blayton’s close friend and art historian, Lowery Stokes Sims.
Blayton came to New York City in the early ’60s and, not long after, moved to a loft on Bond Street in the Lower East Side, reasoning that she needed to be close to where Andy Warhol hung out if she “was going to be the first famous Black artist in America,” as she said in a 2003 interview.
“I had to be where it was happening,” she continued. “But I ended up spending the next 35 years working in Harlem.”
Blayton came to the city yearning to be part of something. And then the community she joined ended up looking a lot different than she’d imagined. Nearly a half century later, many of the visual artists in her circle are getting the mainstream attention they never had back then—people like Norman Lewis and Richard Mayhew.
Now, New York’s Mnuchin Gallery is presenting a survey of Blayton’s work, including more than 50 mostly abstract paintings dating from the 1960s to 2015, the year before her death.
The show reflects the holistic, mind-body-and-soul approach she also applied to her work as an education and institution builder—including as the co-founder of the Studio Museum in Harlem.
By: Dodie Kazanjian
Betty Blayton: In Search of Grace at Mnuchin Gallery, the largest exhibition to date of Blayton’s work. (September 8–October 16)
