Alice Baber: Color Hunger

The paintings of Alice Baber (1928-1982) have long been considered within the context of American Abstract Expressionism due to the artist’s social affiliations as well as her unorthodox methods of paint application. Yet Baber’s life-long dedication to the study of biomorphic forms and the infinite possibilities of light and color through painting reveal a more complex positioning within the history of modern painting. This publication – the first monographic catalogue dedicated to Baber since the 1980s – presents a selection of significant works in oil and watercolor by Baber spanning from 1964 to just a year before her untimely death in 1981. Alice Baber: Color Hunger brings to light a new essay by curator and art writer Lydia Yee that chronicles Baber’s experimentation in different mediums, intensities of color, saturation, composition, and forms. It also provides examples of Baber’s unique method of ‘sinking’ (or ‘staining’) and ‘lifting’ tissue papers dipped in watercolour in order to obtain a sense of organic-like expansion in her shapes; an attribute that is now regarded as her signature style.