Richard Bowman / The Landing

Radiant Abstractions, a  retrospective of paintings by Bay Area artist Richard Bowman (1918-2001) at The Landing.

In the 1950s and 60s, Bowman pioneered the use of  fluorescent paints, incorporating them into wildly energetic abstract  works profoundly influenced by scientific phenomena.

Gerard O'Brien, the owner of The Landing and a longtime friend. I made him pose.

An early Bowman hanging in the office.

Bowman  was a pivotal figure in the art scene in Northern California in  mid-twentieth century; he had solo shows at the San Francisco Museum of  Art (now called SFMOMA) in 1961 and 1970, and a two-person show there in  1959, with Gordon Onslow Ford; his first retrospective in the region  was at Stanford in 1956. In 1962, two of Bowman’s paintings were  included in the seminal exhibition 50 California Artists at the  Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. (Bowman was also included  in the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1953-1954.) His circle in the Bay Area  included Lee Mullican, J.B. Blunk, Fred Reichman, Gordon Onslow Ford,  and Ruth Asawa, as well as poet Kenneth Patchen; he was active in the  region from the time he settled there in the 50s until his death in  2001.

More information on Bowman can be found at The Landing.