American Art Collaborative

An abstract expressionist work from 1937, Untitled reflects an artistic approach John Ferren developed while working at Stanley William Hayter's influential Atelier 17 studio in Paris. Hayter introduced Ferren to a nineteenth-century printing technique in which an etched and inked plate is imprinted in wet plaster. The plaster is then carved and painted, using the etched lines as a guide. Pierre Matisse, son of the French painter Henri Matisse, showed several of these plasters in a 1936 exhibition of Ferren's work at Matisse's New York gallery and gave the young artist a contract to do more. (Mecklenburg, The Patricia and Phillip Frost Collection, American Abstraction, 1930-1945, 1989