Ernest Briggs' Three Decades
of Abstract Expressionist Painting
Ernest Briggs, a second generation Abstract Expressionist painter
known for his strong, lyrical, expressive brushstrokes, use of color and
sometimes geometric composition, first came to New York in late 1953.
He had been a student of Clyfford Still at the California School of Fine
Arts. Frank O’Hara first experienced the mystery in the way Ernest
Briggs’ splendid paintings transform, and the inability to see the shape
as a shape apart from interpretation. Early in 1954, viewing Briggs’ first
one man show at the Stable Gallery in New York, O’Hara said in Art
in America “From the contrast between the surface bravura and the
half-seen abstract shapes, a surprising intimacy arises which is like
seeing a public statue, thinking itself unobserved, move.”
Ernest Briggs, 1984, Maine,
Image courtesy of Bob Brooks.
Ernest P. Briggs, Jr. was born Decem“When Briggs first started
ber 24, 1923 in San Diego, California.
painting he was painting in
He spent his childhood and youth in
a figurative symbolic style,
California, and then served in the
and not really knowing
Army during WW11. He spent about
where he was headed.”
18 months in Tampa as part of the
Army Air and Signal corps, where he
got to read Dali’s Secret Life. He would later serve a year in India. After
the service he moved back to San Francisco. As a child, Briggs had
taken up drawing and design, and was exposed to and had met Mark
Tobey. His major influence early in life was that of Paul Klee’s work.
He would carry Sweeny’s book on Klee around with him during his
Army service abroad. But Briggs was totally lacking in any historical art
orientation. After the Army, he had initially intended to attend
Cranbrook, but because San Francisco was a beautiful city and
environment, and knowing there was an art school locally “up there
on the Hill”, decided not to leave the area. In 1946-47, while working
at Gumps trimming windows, he attended Rudolph Schaeffer’s School
of Design, managed by his uncle. But Briggs realized that something
psychological had occurred, and he knew he couldn’t fit in with those
areas of graphic and industrial design. He inadvertently fell into an
exciting situation in 1948 where Douglas McAgy had started a program,
primarily for WW11 veterans at the California School of Fine Arts. He
would study there until 1951. The G.I Bill cannot be underestimated for
its help in allowing artists of the period to go to school. They were set
free economically, and were allowed to live comfortably with tuition
and supplies paid for. The Fine Arts School would last about 3 years
under McAgy. The program took off due to the presence of Clyfford
Still, Ad Reinhardt, along with David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer
Bischoff and others. Most of the students at the school, about 40-50
taking painting, such luminaries as Dugmore, Hultberg, Schueler and
Crehan, had had some exposure to art through university or art school.
But there had been no exposure to what was going on in New York or in
Europe in the art world, and Briggs and the others were little prepared
for the onslaught that was to come.
The California Years
With the entry of Still, the art program would “blow apart”. It was
Clyfford Still who would galvanize the Fine Art school’s art
program. Mark Rothko would also arrive in 1949 to teach during the
summer months. Still had been at the School for one semester teaching a
design and composition class, and by the time McAgy knew who he was
and more about him, Still turned the program over to those working
abstractly. Briggs would later recall that the real stimulation, the
excitement of the California School was the tension that arose when
David Park (and Elmer Bishoff) switched back to figuration. Still and
Park were the central figures at the school, and although they socialized
together were not much in agreement on anything in their approach
to art. An interesting argument was set up between the disciples of
Still, Rothko, and Pollock and the new figurative artists. Park was a
taciturn, New England quiet person; Still was a hyper-Romantic, very
articulate and historically oriented person. Briggs knew he had lucked
out in the mix of the students and that this was the opening phase in his
commitment to painting. After one semester, Briggs switched to Still’s
class because he had a reputation for having something to say to the
students. According to Briggs, Park would just come around, slap the
students on the back and disappear back into his private studio.
When Briggs first started painting he was painting in a figurative
symbolic style, and not really knowing where he was headed. Park, one
of his first instructors, said “We don’t have a model; we don’t have still
life; we just paint.” Among the 30 or so students, they all just painted
and didn’t look at anything, but they all influenced each other. It was
a revelation to Briggs, as he had thought there had to be a “subject”,
as in the Ashcan or Regionalist style. The fact that one could include
their own imagination as the starting point or as the interpretative or
dominant element and that one could just paint was liberating for him.
One could start with a stretched canvas; paint big color shapes and
just feel one’s way through the process. The interaction with the other
students was sustaining in this. Students had come from New York,
Chicago, Seattle, and various parts of the country, and most of
them had different kinds of experience in the service; it was an
extraordinary experience for Briggs. Students socialized and saw each
other five days a week at school, and they worked after school and at
home. Some had very clear ambitions to get to New York as soon as they
could. Others opted to eventually stick it out on the West Coast. About
two dozen would go on to continue painting and sculpture. The Fine Arts
program would subsequently close due to its focus on abstraction,
McAgy’s departure and Still’s move to New York. By this time, the
Annuals had begun at the Legion of Honor, and one room would be
devoted to the New York School; included would be the works of Still,
Rothko, Pollock, Gottlieb, Baziotes, and Motherwell. The California
School would be considered the counterpart to the Hoffman School in
New York.
in terms of personalities. Rothko was the epitome of the New York
Jewish intellectual artist/painter who exuded an entirely different kind
of energy. He was urbane, deeply intent, and a quintessential New
Yorker. This was a complete contrast to Still’s Puritanism, almost
Calvinistic manner. Rothko would pay attention to each student and
his work, and would have something to say to each, whereas Still would
stand in the room and declaim. The importance of Rothko’s presence
was his weekly lecture to all the students, not just the painting class,
taking questions and getting into conversations with the students. In
the studio, his attitude was very similar to Still’s. In 1949 there were
no ideological programs yet in terms of their esthetics. It was more
in terms that they knew what they did not want. It was an attempt
to eliminate, from their imagery and from their practice in order to
arrive at what was their big image, their big style. They were trying
to work away from the past, eliminate all temporal images, whether
transparency, movement, or space. Still and Rothko were very tight and
were a tremendous stimulus to each other and each in their own way,
in their kind of poetics, stimulated each other to a high degree. But it
was Still’s influence on Rothko, as well, that comes out of the period, the
arrival of a big style, big form painting, and the confidence to move away
from the significant influences of Rothko’s mentor Milton Avery, as well
as Baziotes’ and Gottlieb’s work of the time. Briggs was engrossed and
in the mix. By 1949 Rothko would start his large rectangle paintings
Briggs reminiscenced in a 1982 Smithsonian oral history interview
with entirely different surfaces. Their attitude was to paint and then
noting: “Still’s main thrust was characteristic of his own problem which
after the fact figure out what had been done. It was totally visual, not in
was to know what he didn’t want to do. It ranged all the way from
terms of some idea, but to circumvent what had been done. It was not
philosophical, psychological, political, economic, all the aspects of the
just to find some novelty but to take your life, your experience and what
way art is dealt with. He didn’t like to talk about
it was about”. While Still and Rothko would subsequently have
anyone else’s work directly, including student’s
a falling out, they continued to be lifelong friend and influences
“That one could include
work. He did not criticize student’s work. He
on Briggs’ work and career.
their own imagination as
talked on broad issues, art politics and the
the starting point and that
politics of art historically and whatever he
Briggs first exhibited while a student in San Francisco in 1949 at
one could just paint was
knew about all the gossip of the moment. His
the Metart Gallery which he had helped co-found. His work was
liberating for Briggs.”
attitude was populist and radical, but
subsequently included in three San Francisco Museum Annuals
not leftist. In fact Briggs considered it
and in the 1953 Legion of Honor’s “Five Bay Area Artists”. His
conservative and very stimulating. Still considered his position, his
painting continued to evolve. He had finished school in 1951, but stayed
real function, to be an irritant and to get the student to question and
in San Francisco painting and exhibiting until 1953, working odd jobs
to develop some position in terms of a philosophical approach or
as a builder of exhibit display cabinets, contract house painting, and
stance in terms of the world or wherever their ambition was going to
carpentry. He had married by that time, but that was soon to end. After
lead them. Mark Rothko’s arrival from New York was a total difference
this early, initial success in San Francisco, Briggs saved enough money
and wanted to move to New York. Alan Frumkin, a Chicago dealer,
offered not only to include Briggs in a group show there, but also to
pay the expenses of shipping his art to Chicago and on to New York in
the fall of 1953. While landing in Hoboken, he and Edward Dugmore
would take a couple floors above a bar in the Fulton Fish Market. He
was soon to have his first show at Eleanor Ward’s Stable Gallery in the
winter of 1954.
The New York Years
Briggs’ arrival in New York late in 1953, and early 1954, was
exciting. Fantastic things happened to him in a city where things
can click and where one was suddenly swept into a whole milieu
meeting dozens of new people in an art world that was very small. Philip
Pavia immediately helped him get a job to help with expenses, and
he also invited Briggs to join “The Club”. This was a scene where
artists were still fighting the battle of modern art, where there was a lot
still to develop. Abstract Expressionism was in its height, and things
were moving fast. Everybody traveled and moved fast where there
was a pressure of anticipation of showing, and in ways of showing art.
Galleries were evolving, and the whole business of presentation and
building reputations was under pressure and refined during this period.
along with Pollock, de Kooning and Kline. Briggs would observe the
“cold war mentality”, paranoia and anxiety – the very characteristic of
the individuals involved. However, nobody was really well served by all
the conflict.
Brigg’s 1954 Stable Gallery show was important to his career. Mark
Rothko, John Ferren, and David Smith, among others came to the opening and were very supportive and gave him the recognition to establish
him in the art world. Several of the pieces in his first show had been
done on the West Coast. By that time through a view of de Kooning’s
work, he would become aware of the possibility of gesture and thinking
in terms of the quality of color, and in trying to use color to eliminate or
recapture and restore some kind of quality to his work that eliminated
and freed it from some of the decorative aspects. While reading much
literary criticism, and trying to educate himself in the activity of the art
world, Briggs would turn completely away from any reference to the
French School of Bonnard and Matisse. Ward would show Briggs once
more at the Stable Gallery, his second show was in 1955. Her attitude
was that it took three – seven years to build a reputation. It entailed a
certain amount of critical appraisal and articles, a consistent showing of
progress to establish an artist’s name in relation to the older generation.
Through the intervention of Still, Dorothy Miller from the Modern
came and looked at his work and would include him in her landmark
1956 “Twelve Americans” show.
In retrospect to Briggs, it was similar to the rest of society. By
the time Briggs arrived in New York the abstract art world was
Ordinarily this would have been Brigg’s stepping stone and the launch
evolving into separate manners, though not in ambition. Pavia was
of his career. However, Briggs still wasn’t making much money, and he
managing The Club, and it was dominated by Kline and de Kooning.
was struggling along with subsistence jobs. He also found the attitudes
Still, Rothko and Pollock had moved out to eastern Long Island; and
of both dealers and curators nerve-wracking. The work he was proBarnett Newman represented another path. Still argued with Newman,
ducing wasn’t what they wanted; it was what they could see and hope
Rothko and Motherwell about possibly circumventing the whole gallery
to see on the horizon. More than anything, Briggs was feeling by this
system and going straight to the top – to museums and then
time the beginnings of the true commercial nature
becoming
commercially
viable,
establishing
a
of the art world. He felt that more than most in his
career without going through a commercial
“Abstract Expressionism
generation, he poked around and “journeyed” to
gallery. He felt that artists had potentially
was in its height, and things
different shores. He always felt that this was sort
enormous
power in the cultural world of the
were moving fast.
of a possibility rather than something to shy away
moment, and that they had a choice to really buck the
from. At times he would make radical changes in
system. He was willing to pay the dues, but he also made
his
work;
at
times
he
would grind away and changes would be deliberenormous demands on his colleagues. Still and Rothko’s actual
ate and a way to refine his style. But he felt overall there was a consisfalling out came when Rothko accepted Sidney Janis’ offer to show
tency. During this period Briggs was very much influenced by Clyfford
Still’s attitudes about the art world, and he believed that he probably
switched back to using oil paint again.
took on more than he should have. He took them on strongly. It was an
ideology that Still had struggled with and that had come out of his exIn the early 1960’s many of the art ideas were being rethought and
perience but which was totally different from Briggs’ experience. Briggs
questioned, partly by the advent of Pop art, but also Minimalhad a relationship to society as a whole and to other artists, and he
ism and Hard-edged painting. Those painting in the abstract exfound warmth in their acceptance, much like in Art School after the
pressionist and improvisational styles felt the onslaught very sigwar. He also found an awful anxiety and comnificantly. Many abstract artists moved onto hard edge
petitiveness with all the gossip that was ongopainting and other styles. The criticism of the time dogmati“Briggs believed that he
ing at the Cedar Bar, in who was selling at the
cally attacked abstract expressionism. Donald Judd made
probably took on more
time. It wasn’t great conversation by this point,
his reputation with his endless diatribes against and “snotty”
than he should have.”
it was about the careers of individuals. While
reviews of abstract shows during this time. Curators at the Met
there would be drinks and dancing and some
were saying that painting was an obsolete medium. With this
discussions, inevitably talk turned toward what was happening to the
attitude, artists in Briggs’ circle were backed into a very hostile environcareers of the various people. It was the reality of the business of art and
ment. Briggs would note that the artists had to physically stand there to
the competitiveness. Kline and de Kooning were being handled and
protect their work. It was also the beginning of the commercial exploipromoted and they themselves were on call. Things were happening
tation of the art world. Simultaneously, sources that had been supportto them so everyone felt it could happen to the others. Briggs felt, in
ive of abstract artists began looking elsewhere. He felt that “ well, now
his innocence, that he had the work so it could happen to him. But, he
that we got rid of abstract expressionism, we can make some money,
also felt a foreboding and withdrew showing at galleries during the late
too.” He found parallels with the “end” of jazz and the beginning of
1950’s while continuing to paint and do odd jobs.
rock and roll, where these musicians started making money. Briggs
would chuckle, “thousands of ex-painters and ex-musicians were lolling
around the streets of Manhattan.”
The 1960’s
Briggs started showing again with Howard Wise in 1960. He had three
years of consistently good shows and modest sales, good coverage and
reviews. The gallery was quite grand and handsome and was the envy
of most other galleries of the era. It set the stage for large, extensive installations. However, the gallery would only last a few years. Briggs felt
Wise, while sincere, not very good at business and the ways of surviving
in it. Wise would switch from representing painting to other kinds of
art such as kinetic and pop, and he eventually phased out of business.
Briggs was disappointed and thought Wise made a mistake, and that he
could have stuck it out with the financial resources he had and very fine
artists. He represented: Dugmore, Resnick, McNeil, and Von Wiegand.
Briggs produced large canvasses, generally six feet and up during the
1950’s and 1960’s. In early 1963 he would begin working with acrylics,
making the paints up himself out of the basic materials, using dried
dye pigments. It was exciting for him to be using a new medium which
allowed him to experiment and work on a smaller scale. By 1975 he
In 1961, Briggs began regularly teaching, initially at Pratt, and a year
at Yale with stints at Florida, Penn, Hopkins and Maryland. This was
the sustenance that allowed him to continue painting. He would continue exhibiting at various galleries and invitational’s throughout the
1960’s and 70’s. He jumped at the chance during these years when he
had an opportunity to show, even though there probably might not be
commercial prospects in the effort. In 1980, Briggs joined the Gruenebaum Gallery where he had two shows with decent financial success
prior to his death in 1984. The Anita Shapolsky Gallery (established
1982), which specializes in all artists of the 1950's, has been exhibiting
his work since 1991.
As he infused the New York art scene with Still’s raw and spirited technique, he explored, reworked and developed a multiplicity of compositional arrangements and painterly strategies. His work is distinguished
by its bold, sensual use of form and color. Briggs exposed his intentions with a crushing, heavy technical structure of his material, paint
and canvas, freeing his work from
conventional forms to reach the
highest level of conceptual expression. Raw, heavy pigment smears
across unprimed canvas expose the
image-making process and the rugged intensity of human nature, going
beyond beauty and reason in illusionary impulse. At times he erupted
into lyrical outbursts, at others he
brooded with dark forces interrupted
by brilliant flashes. He was inspired
by the fundamental forms of nature,
architecture, and Oriental calligraphy, references which can be found
throughout his work.
Firmly grounded in the fundamentals of the Abstract Expressionist
tradition, Briggs’ active involvement
in the development of the scene has
had a lasting influence on successive
generations. Briggs’ final works were
permeated with a deeply reflective
personal metaphor. These penetrative works provided satisfying dignity
to his final years. He died of cancer at
age 61 in New York. He was survived
by his wife, Anne Arnold Briggs, his
father, Ernest Briggs, Sr., and a sister,
Susan Torres.
Thanks is given to Ernest Briggs.
This essay is derived directly from Ernest
Briggs' words given in an 1982 Oral History
Interview with Barbara Shikler for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
Ernest Briggs, Untitled, 1950s, Oil on canvas,
Ernest Briggs (1923-1984)
Biography
1923
Born in San Diego, CA
1943-46 US Army Signal Corps, in India during 1945-46
1946-47
Studied at Schaeffer School of Design, San
Francisco, CA
1947-51
Studied at California School of Fine Art, San
Francisco, CA
1953
Moved to New York, lived and worked in NY and
Maine
Solo Exhibitions
1949
Metart Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1954 & 55
Stable Gallery, NYC
1956
San Francisco Art Association Gallery, CA
1960, 62, 63 The Howard Wise Gallery, NY
1968
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
1969
Alonzo Gallery, NYC
1973
Green Mountain Gallery, NY
1975
Susan Caldwell Gallery, NYC
1977 Aaron Berman Gallery, NYC
1980
Landmark Gallery, NY
1980 & 82
Gruenebaum Gallery, NYC
1984
Memorial Exhibition, Gruenebaum Gallery, NYC
1991
With Edward Dugmore, Anita Shapolsky Gallery,
NYC
1992
With lbram Lassaw, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
1994
With Clement Meadmore and Erik van der Grijn, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
1996
Two Painters and a Sculptor, with Clement
Meadmore and Erik van der Grijn, Anita
Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
Solo Exhibitions (cont.)
1998
Abstract Paintings from the 1950s to the 1970s,
with Michael Loew, Anita Shapolsky Gallery,
NYC
2001
Artist of the Fifties, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
2002
Artist of the Fifties, Baruch College/Mishkin
Gallery, NYC
2004
Ernest Briggs: Paintings of the 50th and 60th’s,
Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
2007
Nassos Daphnis & Ernest Briggs: OPPOSING
FORCES, Anita Shaplosky Gallery, NYC
2012
Ernest Briggs’ Three Decades of Abstract
Expressionist Painting, Anita Shaplosky Gallery,
NYC
Group Exhibitions
1948, 49, 53 San Francisco Art Association Annuals
1953
Five Bay Area Artists, California Palace of the
Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA
Allan Frumkin Gallery, Chicago, IL
1955
US Painting: Some Recent Directions, Stable
Gallery, NYC
Vanguard 1955, Stable Gallery, NY
1956
Twelve Americans, Museum of Modern Art, NY
1955, 56, 61 Annuals and Biennials, Whitney Museum of
American Art, NYC
1961
International, Carnegie Institute of Technology,
Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Corcoran Biennial, Corcoran Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C.
1962
Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art, Dallas, TX
Contemporary Art Exhibition, San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art
1963
Directions-Painting-USA, San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art
Group Exhibitions (cont.)
Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, ME
Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Large-Scale American Painting, Jewish Museum,
NYC
1969
Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, ME
1969 & 70 American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY
1970
Proctor Art Center, Bard College,
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
San Francisco 1945-50, Oakland Art Museum,
CA
1976
California Painting and Sculpture: The Modern
Era, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
1977
Bay Area Update, Huntsville Museum of Art, AL
1978
Gallery Group, Cape Split Place, Addison, ME
Spring Show, Cape Split Place, Addison, ME
1984 Underknown, Institute for Art & Urban
Resources, PS 1, Long Island City, NY
1989
Anne Weber Gallery, Georgetown, ME
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
1991
The Prevailing Fifties, Anita Shapolsky Gallery,
NYC
1992
The Tradition, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
1994
New York-Provincetown: A 50s Connection,
Provincetown, Museum, MA
Josiah White Exhibition Center, Jim Thorpe, PA
Maryland Art Institute
1995
The Fifties, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
1996
Other Artists of the 50s, Kendall Campus Art
Gallery, Miami-Dade Community College, FL
Group Show, Josiah White Exhibition Center,
Jim Thorpe, PA
The San Francisco School of Abstract
Expressionism, San Francisco Museum of Art,
CA
1965
1967
Group Exhibitions (cont.)
1997
Artists of the 1950s, Part 1 and 2, Anita Shapolsky
Gallery, NYC
1997
Special Collection, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
1998 Paper Works, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
1998-99
Artists of the 50s; The Development of Abstraction,
Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
1999 The Abstract Expressionist Tradition, Anita
Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
2000
Art for Art’s Sake – Credo of the Fifties, Anita
Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
2002
Anita Shapolsky Art Foundation, Jim Thorpe, PA
2004
New York School Artists – Work of the 50’s and
60’s, Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
2004
Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL
2004
Crocker Museum, Sacramento, CA
2005 Ernest Briggs: Paintings of the 50th and 60th and
Sculptures by Thomas Beckman, Hayden, Anita
Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
Llevellyn Davies, Ibram Lassaw, Clement
Meadmore, Edgar Negret and Nancy Steinson,
Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC
2005
New York School: Another View, Opalka Gallery
of the Sage Colleges/Parish Art Museum, South
Hampton, NY
2005 Ernest Briggs, Imagination and Eloquence: From
the Jan Verhoeven Collection, Woudrichem Tower
Exhibition, Stichting Yellow Fellow, Woudrichem,
Netherlands.
2005
The Invisible in the Visible, Anita Shapolsky
Gallery, NYC
2008
Masters of Abstraction, Anita Shapolsky Gallery,
NYC
Selected Collections
San Jose Museum, San Jose, CA
Blair Collection of Bay Area Abstract Expressionism
Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA
Ciba-Geigy Corporation, Ardsley, NY
Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institute,
Washington, DC
Housatonic Community College, CT
Michigan State University, East Lansing, NU
Oakland Art Museum, Oakland, CA
Portland Museum of Maine
Rockefeller Institute, NY
San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
San Jose Museum of Art, CA
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
Jan Verhoeven Collection, Stichting Yellow Fellow,
Woudrichem, Netherlands
Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC
Selected Bibliography
12 Americans, 1956, Dorothy Canning Miller
The New School: The Painters & Sculptors of the Fifties,
1978, Irving Sandler
The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism, 1996,
Susan Landauer
New York School Abstract Expressionists: Artists Choice by
Artists, 2000, ed. Marika Herskovic
American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s: An
Illustrated Survey, 2003, ed. Marika Herskovic
American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style:
Is Timely Art Is Timeless, 2009, ed. Marika
Herskovic
Selected Bibliography (cont.)
San Francisco and the Second Wave : the Blair collection
of Bay Area Abstract Expressionism, 2004,
Crocker Art Museum & Laguna Art Museum
(Laguna Beach, California).
“The Artist’s World in Pictures,” 1960, Fred W. McDarrah
“Painting and sculpture in California, the modern era,”
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
September 3-November 21, 1976, National
Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C., May 20-September 11, 1977.
“A Period of Exploration,” Mary Fuller McChesney, 1973,
Oakland Museum
“Sunshine Muse,” Peter Plagens, 1974, Praeger Artforum,
February 1970, Robert Pincus-Whitten
“Ernest Briggs interview,” 1982 July 12 - Oct. 21. Mark
Rothko and His Times Oral History Project,
Barbara Shikler
“Ernest Briggs,” August 6th 1984, Lawrence Campbell,
Grunebaum Gallery Memorial Exhibition,
October 1984
New York Times, June 14th 1984, “Ernest Briggs, Artist
and for 2 Decades a Teacher at Pratt”
Art in America, February 1992, Lawrence Campbell
ARTnews, 1992, “In the Tradition,” Sue Scott
ARTnews, October 1994, Sue Scott
ARTnews, October 1994, “Ernest Briggs, Clement
Meadmore, Erik van der Grijin, Seymour
Boardman,” Anita Shapolsky
The New York Review of Art, Summer 1994, JCW
San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism, 1996,
Susan Landauer
New York Times, Friday, October 26th 2001, Grace
Glueck
Selected Bibliography (cont.)
New York School: Another View, January 24-March 20,
2005, Opalka Gallery, The Sage Collages, 140
New Scotland Avenue, Albany, New York
Art in America, May 2002, Gerrit Henry
Art Matters, December 2004, “At Last Obscure Briggs
Paintings Unearthed,” Ellen Slupe
Art in America, June/July 2005, “Ernest Briggs at Anita
Shapolsky”
Art in America, September 2007, “Nassos Daphnis and
Ernest Briggs at Anita Shapolsky”
Art in America, March 2011, Faye Hirsch
Wikipedia, “Ernest Briggs”
Teaching & Visiting Critic
1958
University of Florida
1961-84 Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
1967-68
Graduate School of Art, Yale University
1967
Philadelphia College of Art Graduate School of
Art, University of Pennsylvania
Graduate School of Art, Maryland Institute,
Baltimore, MD
1968
Art History Department, Johns Hopkins,
Baltimore, MD
Graduate School of Painting, Pratt Institute,
Brooklyn, NY
Ernest Briggs, Untitled, July 1961, Oil on canvas, 89” x 106”