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LEE MULLICAN (1919-1998)

Lee Mullican studied at the University of Oklahoma and at the Kansas City Art Institute. During the second World War, he was inducted into the Army where he attended Topographic School in Virginia.  After moving to San Francisco in 1946, he became involved in the development of the Dynaton surrealistic school with fellow artists Gordon Onslow Ford and Wolfgang Paalen.  Mullican’s concepts were particularly influential as a transition between European modernism and American abstract expressionism.  He began to sees his work as an abstraction and reinterpretation of nature.

Aerial views of landscapes became a source of inspiration, seen while serving as a topographical draftsman during World War II.  Through the use of mapping techniques and aerial photography, he depicted nature in abstract weightless shapes of line and color. Influenced by Surrealism’s automatic approach to working, Mullican used similar methods as a point of departure.  Painting with a palette knife edge, he sought an emotional expression of cosmic freedom in form and meaning. From 1948-60, he traveled to Mexico and Europe before moving to New York for a brief stay. By 1961 Mullican moved to Los Angeles, where he served as art professor and curator of art exhibits at the University of California, Los Angeles between travels and art making.


Lee Mullican Chronology

Click to view images by Lee Mullican

For more images and biographical data, email: tobeymoss@earthlink.net

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