Ernest Briggs (1923–1984) was an active participant in the later wave of Abstract Expressionism, the revolution in abstract painting that secured New York City's position as the art capital of the world in the post-World War II period.
Ernest Briggs was born 1923 in San Diego, CA. He went on to serve in the U.S. Army during World War II (1943–1946).
Briggs studied painting at the Schaeffer School of Design, San Francisco, CA (1946–47) and later at The California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco (1947-1951), where he thrived under the tutelage of such ab-ex greats as Clyfford Still, Ad Reinhardt, David Park, and Mark Rothko. According to New York Times critic Grace Glueck, Briggs was largely impacted by the "painterly rhetoric" of his teacher Clyfford Still during and after his time at CSFA.
Considered a member of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists, along with Giorgio Cavallon, Briggs left California for New York in 1953 where he began exhibiting at the Stable Gallery. During the 1950s, he was able to make a name for himself through his explosive and dynamic style as part of the New York City avant-garde. Briggs brought to the East Coast a fresh, lively aesthetic, reflecting what has been termed a "radical West Coast style" that he had continued to develop since his days at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. He participated in several Whitney Museum Annuals and in 1956 was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition “12 Americans” curated by Dorothy Miller. He taught painting and sculpture at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn from 1961 until the time of his death at age 61, and is survived by his wife Anne Arnold, who is also an artist.
The dynamism and at some points discord in Briggs' work is best suggested by the following quote from his obituary, published on June 14, 1984 in the New York Times:
"Sometimes Mr. Briggs's emphasis was on strong, lyrical color and thick brush strokes that called attention to the act of painting. Sometimes, as in his exhibition earlier this year at the Gruenebaum Gallery in New York, his work was more linear and geometric, and the expressive element was dependent upon a strong, almost translucent light within grays and blues."
1991: The Prevailing Fifties, also with Edward Dugmore, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
1992: The Tradition, also with Ibram Lassaw, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NY
1994: New York–Provincetown: A 50s Connection, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, MA; Maryland Art Institute, MD
1994/96: Josiah White Exhibition Center, Jim Thorpe, PA
1995: The Fifties, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
1996: Other Artists of the 50s, Kendall Campus Art Gallery, Miami–Dade Community College, FL; The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA
1997: Artists of the 1950s, Part 1 and 2, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
1998: Paper Works, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NY
1998-99: Artists of the 50s; The Development of Abstraction, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NY
1999: Abstract Expressionist Tradition, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NY
2000: Art For Art’s Sake–Credo of the Fifties, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
2004: San Francisco and the Second Wave: The Blair Collection of Bay Area Abstract Expressionism, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Re-Examining Abstract Art, Part 2, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC; New York School Artists: Works Of the 50's and 60's, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
2005: While Pollock Was Sleeping: Bay Area Abstract Expressionism from the Blair Collection, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA; The Invisible In The Visible, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
Marika Herskovic, American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 54–57
Marika Herskovic, New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 32; p. 36
Marika Herskovic, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless (New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 978-0-9677994-2-1. pp. 52–55
