Vivian Springford

Vivian Springford was a painter and assemblage artist born in 1913 in Milwaukee, who has spent the majority of her career in New York City. Springford has created a singular style of abstract painting, experimenting with Abstract Expressionist and Color Field influences throughout her career. Central to her artistic lexicon are influences of Asian philosophy and artmaking initially introduced to her by Chinese American artist and poet Walasse Ting, where she takes inspiration from the patterns, brushstrokes, philosophy, and spontaneity found in Chinese calligraphy, landscape scroll painting, Taoism, and Confucianism.

Springford’s early work, centrally made of broad black brushstrokes, finds its influence both in the lyrical landscape ink paintings and calligraphy of East Asian traditions along with the action paintings of modern masters such as Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock. Her paintings and their gestural pouring, brushing, dripping, and splattering of pigment found its zenith in the 1970s as she began using thinned paint on unprimed canvas with rich, intense colors, leading to more translucent and vibrant compositions that recall the canvases of Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis. Testament to the significance of her practice, her paintings can be found in institutional collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.