Stanton Macdonald-Wright
American, 1890-1973
Person TypeIndividual
BiographyBorn in Charlottesville, Virginia, Stanton Macdonald-Wright's painting career began in Paris, where, between 1909 and 1914, he discovered Modern art while frequenting museums and private art academies. Macdonald-Wright is best known for the theory of Synchromism, which he proposed in 1913 with fellow American painter Morgan Russell (1886–1953). According to Synchromism, color is capable of generating abstract form and content in painting, in much the same way that musical instruments produce sound and emotional meaning through music. Macdonald-Wright settled in Los Angeles in 1919, intent on establishing his influence in California. There, he taught at the Art Students League and at the University of California, Los Angeles and supervised a Works Progress Administration public art project. He was deeply interested in Eastern aesthetics and philosophy, including Buddhism, and for three decades, his paintings fused Synchromism with Asian-inspired figurative art. He also experimented with color film processes and devised a kinetic colored light machine. He returned to painting abstract "Synchromies" from the 1950s until his death.