Philip Taaffe Biography
Philip Taaffe (1955 - ) is an American modern artist well known for his abstractions. He produces intricately patterned pieces by fusing iconography, design, art historical elements and personal experience. Each painting is a combination of various methods and materials, including collage paper, oil paint transferred from cardboard forms, acrylic stains, oil-based prints from linoleum blocks, scraping, degreasing, and swirls of acrylic. More recently, sheets of gold leaf, precisely cut and applied, have also been added.
Taaffe's practice involves the appropriation of works by famous artists such as Barnett Newman and Bridget Riley, as well as unidentified projects by independent artists. Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1955, he attended Cooper Union and graduated with a BFA in 1977. The artist's work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions around the world, including those at the Luhring Augustine in Brooklyn , the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris and many others. Taaffe currently divides his time between West Cornwall, Connecticut, and New York. His works are preserved in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Philadelphia Art Museum and the Reina Sofia in Madrid.
