Gene Vass (1922-1996)

Born in Buffalo, Gene Vass received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1952 from the University of Buffalo, where he taught from 1956 through 1958. He moved to New York City where his sculpture, paintings, and drawings were exhibited and collected by The Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art. Influenced by the advances made by the Abstract Expressionists in the 1950s, Vass developed a painting style that utilized black architectonic lines to serve as the structural framework for boldly and more organically painted areas of white, red, blue, and tan, reminiscent of work by Franz Kline. In contrast, these sculptures resonate with repetitive forms that are reminiscent of Brancusi’s early twentieth-century totemic abstractions. (Nancy Weekly, Head of Collections)