Jack Youngerman

Jack Youngerman, 1926 - 2020 - is an American painter and sculptor. From 1948, he became lifelong friends with his compatriot Ellsworth Kelly. The same year, he presented his first group exhibition, at the Galerie Maeght in Paris, with Pierre Alechinsky, Eduardo Chillida and Corneille. He visited the studios of Constantin Brancusi and Jean Arp with Kelly, and found himself influenced by their sense of organic form. He met Alexander Calder, Arman, César, and François Morellet. In 1950, he married the actress Delphine Seyrig. In 1956 he returned to the US where his neighbors were Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana, Agnes Martin, as well as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Jim Rosenquist, all still unknown at the time. In December 1958, the major exhibition "Sixteen Americans" at the MoMA brought him recognition, along with other painters of his generation: Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Stella. In February 1986, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York dedicated a retrospective to his work.