Leo Valledor
Encyclopedia
Leo Valledor was a Filipino-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 painter who pioneered the Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...

 style. During the 1960s he was a member of the Park Place Gallery
Park Place Gallery
Park Place Gallery was a contemporary art gallery located in SoHo in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA, during the mid to late 1960s. Park Place Gallery was located at 542 West Broadway, on what is now LaGuardia Place just north of Houston Street in the neighborhood that is now called "SoHo"...

 in Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...

, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, which exhibited many influential and significant artists of the period. He exhibited in several prominent galleries and museums, like the Graham Gallery, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...

 and the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
The M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, commonly called simply the de Young Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H...

. He was the Exhibition Director and teacher at Lone Mountain College
Lone Mountain College
Lone Mountain College was a college acquired by the University of San Francisco in 1978. It was founded by the Religious of the Sacred Heart as Sacred Heart Academy in Menlo Park, California in 1898 and became College of the Sacred Heart in 1921...

. He is a two-time recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

 Artist Fellowship Grant. He was a leader of the minimalist movement in the 1970s.

Early life

Leo Valledor was born and raised in the Fillmore district of San Francisco. He was a student at the California School of Fine Arts from 1953 to 1955 under auspices of a scholarship, however, as art historian Paul J. Karlstrom writes, "Despite a year as a scholarship student at CSFA, Valledor was largely self-taught, but he was gifted and quickly developed a gestural abstract style reflecting the influence of Mark Tobey
Mark Tobey
Mark George Tobey was an American abstract expressionist painter, born in Centerville, Wisconsin. Widely recognized throughout the United States and Europe, Tobey is the most noted among the "mystical painters of the Northwest." Senior in age and experience, Tobey had a strong influence on the...

. In addition to Tobey, his earliest influences were Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...

, Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced of the Armenian genocide.-Early life:...

, and Bradley Walker Tomlin
Bradley Walker Tomlin
Bradley Walker Tomlin belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists. He participated in the famous ‘’Ninth Street Show.’’ According to John I. H...

." At the age of 19 in 1955 he had his first solo show "Compositions" at the historical Six Gallery. He showed his "Black and Blue Series." When he moved to New York City in 1961 he became a member of the influential Park Place Gallery
Park Place Gallery
Park Place Gallery was a contemporary art gallery located in SoHo in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA, during the mid to late 1960s. Park Place Gallery was located at 542 West Broadway, on what is now LaGuardia Place just north of Houston Street in the neighborhood that is now called "SoHo"...

 in SoHo
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...

, further delving into his avant garde interests of minimalism and conceptualism
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...

. It was considered the first gallery in SoHo
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...

, and included artists like Edwin Ruda, Mark di Suvero
Mark di Suvero
Marco Polo "Mark" di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor born Marco Polo Levi in Shanghai, China in 1933 to Italian expatriates. He immigrated to San Francisco, California in 1942 with his family. From 1953 to 1957, he attended the University of California, Berkeley to study...

, Peter Forakis
Peter Forakis
Peter Forakis was an American artist known as an abstract geometric sculptor. The son of a Greek immigrant, he grew up on the Wyoming prairie until the age of 10 when his family moved to Oakland, California. Eventually they settled in Modesto, California...

, and Forrest Myers.

In New York at the Kaymar Gallery in March and April 1964 Valledor also exhibited with Sol LeWitt
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....

 and Donald Judd
Donald Judd
Donald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism . In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy...

. He also had a solo show at the Graham Gallery on Madison Avenue in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. In 1968 Valledor left New York returning to San Francisco. He exhibited there at such establishments as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...

, and the San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...

. He was at the vanguard of the minimalist painting movement in the mid 1970s, and later in the seventies he exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
The M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, commonly called simply the de Young Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H...

, and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. In the late 1970s and early 1980s Valledor became the Art Exhibition Director and teacher at Lone Mountain College
Lone Mountain College
Lone Mountain College was a college acquired by the University of San Francisco in 1978. It was founded by the Religious of the Sacred Heart as Sacred Heart Academy in Menlo Park, California in 1898 and became College of the Sacred Heart in 1921...

 in San Francisco. He was a guest teacher at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. He created a roof mural for the Department of Public Works approved by the San Francisco Arts Commission
San Francisco Arts Commission
The San Francisco Arts Commission is the official San Francisco County, USA arts council.The San Francisco Arts Commission It was established in 1932 and runs under the California state arts council, the California Arts Council . The commission is appointed by the major...

. He received his first National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

 Artist Fellowship Grant in 1981, and received another grant in 1982. In the eighties he received a California Arts Council
California Arts Council
The California Arts Council is a state agency based in Sacramento. Its eleven council members are appointed by the Governor and the state Legislature...

 Artist in Residence grant in the South of Market community. He also taught at the San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...

. He lived in the city until his death in 1989.

Reflections on his work: Critics and Historians

Art critic
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...

s have placed his work in context with the work of Ellsworth Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly is an American painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the Minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin. Kelly often employs bright colors to...

, Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...

, and Leon Polk Smith
Leon Polk Smith
Leon Polk Smith was an American painter. His geometrically oriented abstract paintings were influenced by Piet Mondrian and his style has been associated with the Hard-edge school, of which he is considered one of the founders....

. Other art historians, like Frances Colpitt, have found his work to be in relation to Frank Stella
Frank Stella
Frank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...

. Colpitt states, "Less assimilable to Op art
Op art
Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...

 experiments of the early 1960s, Valledor's shaped canvas
Shaped canvas
Shaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...

es are more reminiscent of Frank Stella's contemporaneous work... But Skeedo (1965) is so quirky and radically shaped that it seems without precedent..." Art critic Knute Stiles reviewed Valledor's shows in San Francisco in the 1976: "He is one of a dozen modernists
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

 who subscribe to one or another of the subgroups of what might be called International Style Geometric abstraction. His work has a classical or pure form-oriented bent, but in the early '60s he emerged as a pioneer of the Minimalism which was to dominate that decade." Valledor’s work explores the juxtapositions of colors and geometric forms as metaphors for the interplay of elements in the natural world, as Lawrence Rinder
Lawrence Rinder
Lawrence R. Rinder is the Director of Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive , a position to which he was appointed in 2008.Previously, he was the Dean of the College at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco...

 explains:

We all know that at one time (especially in San Francisco) jazz, abstract expressionism and what's known as Beat poetry were all part of one culture. It may be a cliche but it was a powerful reality. One thing helped to explain the other: one thought, different languages. I can imagine how great Leo must have felt to show his art at the Six Gallery in 1955... the same year Ginsberg first read his culture-shaking poem Howl. Where Leo's art gets hard for some is right where it ought to get easy. Abandoning the gestural language of abstract expressionism (which would linger in the Bay Area for decades), he started to explore reduced palettes, geometric shapes, and the spatial dimension of color. This wasn't the end of his dive into the jazz-like spirit, it was the beginning. Geometry was his style and color was his tone.
Valledor's work is in the collections of the Achenbach Collection of San Francisco, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California or Oakland Museum is a museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California located in Oakland, California....

, Seattle Art Museum
Seattle Art Museum
The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It maintains three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened on...

, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...

, Crocker Art Museum
Crocker Art Museum
The Crocker Art Museum is one of the leading arts institutions in California, and the longest continuously operating art museum in the West. Located in Sacramento, California, the Crocker has been an art innovator since 1885...

, National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...

, Yale University Art Gallery
Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery houses a significant and encyclopedic collection of art in several buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the Gallery possesses especially renowned collections of early Italian painting,...

, St. Louis Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...

, Allentown Art Museum
Allentown Art Museum
The Allentown Art Museum is an art museum located in the city of Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It was founded in 1934 by a group organized by noted Pennsylvania impressionist painter, Walter Emerson Baum. With its collection of over 13,000 works of art, the Allentown Art Museum...

. and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...


Selected Solo & Two-person Exhibitions

The Six Gallery, 1955, 1956, 1957 – Jazzuz Series;
California School of Fine Arts, 1958;
Dilexi Gallery – Blue & Black Series, 1959;
Park Place Gallery
Park Place Gallery
Park Place Gallery was a contemporary art gallery located in SoHo in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA, during the mid to late 1960s. Park Place Gallery was located at 542 West Broadway, on what is now LaGuardia Place just north of Houston Street in the neighborhood that is now called "SoHo"...

, New York, exhibits with Sol Lewitt and Robert Smithson, 1965;
Graham Gallery, New York, 1966;
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...

, 1971;
M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, 1974;
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...

, 1974;
Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, 1976;
Daniel Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1973, 1976;
Modernism, San Francisco, CA 1980, 1982-83;
Mitchell Algus Gallery, Chelsea, NY, 2006;
Togonon Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2006, 2008.

Selected Group Exhibitions

The Six Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1955, 1956;
Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, MN, 1955;
Dilexi, San Francisco, CA 1958, 1959;
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...

 1961, 1965, 1974, 1977;
Kaymar Gallery, NY, 1964 American Express Pavillon, 1964 New York World's Fair
1964 New York World's Fair
The 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was the third major world's fair to be held in New York City. Hailing itself as a "universal and international" exposition, the fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding," dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe";...

, 1965;
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

, Washington DC, 1965;
Lannan Foundation Museum, Palm Beach, 1966;
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Conn, 1966;
Art in the City, Institute of Contemporary Art, Penn, PA, 1967;
Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art is a major art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, USA, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In 1984, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Arts District, Dallas, Texas...

, 1967;
Institute of Contemporary Art, PA, 1967;
Tocuato de Tella Instituto, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1967;
Museo del Arte, Caracas, Venezuela;
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...

, 1968, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1985;
Belca House, Kyoto Japan, 1982;
Sun Gallery, Hayward, 1985;
Redding Museum and Art Center, Shasta College, CA, 1985;
John Berggruen Gallery, 1985;
San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, 1985;
Bluxome Gallery, 1987, 1988;
871 Fine Arts, San Francisco, 1988;
Mitchell Algus, NY, 1995;
Mendelhall Sobieski Gallery, Los Angeles, Shangai, 2006;
Togonon Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011;
Blanton Museum of Art
Blanton Museum of Art
The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art is the art museum and research center of the University of Texas at Austin. Formerly under the College of Fine Arts, the museum director now reports to the University's...

, Austin, TX – The Park Place Group, 2008 - 2009;
M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
The M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, commonly called simply the de Young Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H...

, San Francisco, CA – Asian American Modern Art, October 2008 - 2009.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art- Abstract Art in the U.S. 1955-1965, January 2011

External links

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