Lee Mullican: Drawings
Lee Mullican (b. 1919, Chickasha, OK; d. 1998, Santa Monica, CA) was an artist who, throughout his career, adopted the technique of automatism—a process consisting of letting the unconscious drive the production of an artwork—as his modus operandi. Interested in pushing forward the limits of Surrealism and the automatic drawing process, while infusing them with elements of spirituality drawn from Native American and Eastern sources.Mullican’s artistic practice was influenced by a diverse set of experiences which can be seen through this series of drawings, ranging from 1946 to 1957.
Mullican attended the Kansas City Art Institute, but found no commonality in the styles focused on Social Realism and Regionalism that were being taught at the Institute. Years later Mullican discovered a copy of Dyn, a periodical edited by Wolfgang Paalen (b. 1905, Vienna, Austria; d. 1959 Taxco, Mexico). With Dyn focusing on topics such as Mysticism, Surrealism, and Native American art, Mullican found his interests finally aligning with others in the art world.
After serving with the US Navy during World War II, Mullican moved to California and through common artistic interests, befriended Paal and Gordon Onslow Ford (b. 1912, Wendover, England; d. 2003, Iverness, CA), another similarly aligned artist. In 1951, Mullican, Paalen, and Ford showed their work together for the landmark exhibition Dynaton at The San Francisco Museum of Art, where the aim was to liberate thought and, in their words, develop “... a complex iconography that aimed to reintegrate man with the cosmos.” The group sought to accomplish this by developing a bridge between the European avant-gardes and Native American and Eastern philosophies, prevalent in California at the time.
Although the Dynaton group never showed together again, Mullican continued to make work that followed the group’s principles and drew from his varied life experiences and travels. Mullican steadfastly rejected being classified as a regionalist, but many of his influences, from Native American designs to Zen Buddhism, place him as a California regionalist, influenced by the melting pot of cultural and spiritual influences of postwar California.
Mullican developed an enormous output, with works spanning a variety of disciplines and practices, including drawing, painting, and sculpture. This diversity of expression makes it difficult to define his work. The swirling, monochromatic drawings on view here are not as easily recognizable as his better-known, later paintings, notable for their bright colors and crisp marks made with a palette knife. They do, however, allow viewers to see how Mullican’s early explorations continued to inform his practice for the rest of his life.
This exhibition celebrates the Art, Design and Architecture Museum’s recent acquisition of the drawings on view, generously donated by Jody Marsh, Zach Horowitz, and the Estate of Beverly Horowitz.
