William Kienbusch

American, 1914–1980

Abstract landscape of Dogtown, Massachusetts in green, yellow, blue, and red

Abstract scene in casein on paper of a house in the woods.

Red patterns with different colors entwined with a black background

red buildings and a tree with red details

Abstract work on paper (white vertical line down middle, blue horizontal shapes coming out from central line)

Abstract red, blue, and green swirling shapes

Abstract black and white brushstrokes on black background with green brushstrokes on top right corner

Abstract image with black outlined rectangles and black solid rectangles

Abstract craypas drawing of blue shapes containing blue, pink, yellow, and orange lines with surrounding yellow markings

Abstract image of black, white, and grey brushstrokes. Top right and left with wider black brushstrokes.

Click on image for details

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EDUCATION
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, BA, 1936
Art Students League, New York, 1936-7
Colorado Springs Art Center, Colorado, 1937
Academie Colarossi, Paris, 1937-8
American Artists School, New York, 1941
New School for Social Research (with Stuart Davis), New York, 1942

AWARDS AND GRANTS
First prize, drawing, The Brooklyn Museum, New York, 1952
First prize, drawing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1952
Honorable Mention, Boston Arts Festival, Massachusetts, 1957
First purchase prize, watercolor, Columbia Museums of Art and Science, South Carolina, 1957
Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for travel in Greece, 1958
First prize, watercolor, New York State Exposition, New York, 1958
Provincetown Arts Festival, Massachusetts, 1958
First purchase prize, watercolor, Portland Summer Art Festival, Maine, 1960
First prize, watercolor, Boston Arts Festival, Massachusetts, 1961
Ford Foundation Purchase Award, 1961
Purchase Award, Hassam and Speicher Fund, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, New York, 1971,1974
Award in Art, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, 1976

EXHIBITIONS
One Person
Kraushaar Galleries, New York, 1949, 1952, 1956, 1959, 1962, 1965, 1969, 1972, 1975, 1978,1983 (Memorial Exhibition), 1989, 1992, 1997, 2004.
Boothbay Harbor Congregational Church, Maine, William Kienbusch, 1949.
University of Maine at Orono, Caseins, William Kienbusch, 1956.
Andrew Dickson White Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, William Kienbusch, 1958.
The Art Museum, Princeton University, New Jersey, Paintings by William Kienbusch ‘36, 1962.
Stamford Museum and Nature Center, Connecticut, William Kienbusch, 1965.
Brothers College, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, William Kienbusch, 1973.
Portland Museum of Art, Maine, William Kienbusch, 1973.
Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine and The Art Museum, Princeton University, New Jersey, William Kienbusch, 1981.
Round Top Center for the Arts, Damariscotta, Maine, William Kienbusch: A Family Collects, 1994.
Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine, William Kienbusch, A Retrospective Exhibition, 1946-1979, 1996.
O’Farrell Gallery, Brunswick, Maine, William Kienbusch, A Last Look From Nature, 2000.

Two Person
Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, William Kienbusch, Paintings, Adolph Dioda, Sculpture, 1954. Fort Worth Art Center, Texas, Geometric Abstraction, Romantic Abstraction, 1964 (with John Guerin). Carlin Galleries, Fort Worth, Texas, Exhibition of Paintings by John Guerin, William Kienbusch, 1964

Group (selected)- Annuals of the University of Nebraska, University of Illinois, The Brooklyn Museum, Toledo Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art throughout the fifties and sixties; Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1954; American Watercolors, American Federation of Arts, tour of France, 1954; Nature in Abstraction, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1955; Five Painters, Currier Gallery, Manchester, New Hampshire, 1956; Masters of American Watercolor, Corcoran Gallery, 1960; Art in Maine, Museum of Art, Colby College, Waterville, Maine, Portland Art Museum, Maine, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1963; Fort Worth Art Center, Fort Worth, Texas, 1964; American Painting III, Cincinnati Art Museum, 1964; Maine Artists, American Federation of Arts Traveling Exhibition, 1964; Contemporary Art USA, Norfolk Museum, 1966; Painting and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis Museum, 1969; A Sense of Place, the Artist and the American Land, traveling exhibition organized by the University of Nebraska, 1973; American Marine Painting, Virginia Museum, 1976; A Selection of American Art: The Skowhegan School 1946-1976, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 1976; Landscape & Abstract Art, Museum of Art, Colby College, Waterville, Maine, 1985; Scent of Recollection: The Flower in American Art, St. John’s Museum of Art, 1991; Nature As Muse, Sordoni Art Gallery, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, 1992, Forty Years of Painting in Maine, Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, Maine, Portland Museum of Art, Maine,1992; The Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland Maine, An Eye for Maine, Paintings from a Private Collection, 1994. Exhibition traveled to the Portland Art Museum, Maine. Frost Gully Gallery, Portland, Maine, Celebrating Maine's Heritage and Tradition: The Casco Northern Bank Collection, 1994; Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Unpainted to the Last: Moby Dick in American Art 1940 - 1990, 1995. Exhibition traveled. Maine and the Modern Spirit, Katonah Museum of Art, New York. 2000.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Brooklyn Museum Art School, 1948-1969.
University of Maine, artist in residence, 1968.

Tape Recordings
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC
Karl Fortess Collection of Tape Recordings of Painters, Sculptors and Printmakers, Special Collections, Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University, Massachusetts

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock
Atlanta University
Boston Athenaeum. Massachusetts
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Maine
The Brooklyn Museum, New York
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Museum of Art, Colby College, Waterville, Maine
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center
Columbia Museums of Art and Science, South Carolina
The Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia
Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, New York
Cummer Museum of Art, Florida
The Currier Gallery of Art, New Hampshire
Hood Art Museum, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
University of Delaware, Newark
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington
Des Moines Art Center, Iowa
Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan
Fort Worth Art Museum, Texas
Museum of Fine Arts of Houston
Lehigh University Galleries, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
University of Maine, Orono
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor
Christian A. Johnson Memorial Gallery, Middlebury College, Vermont
Minnesota Museum of Art
University of Minnesota Gallery
Montgomery Museum of Art, Alabama
Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska
William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Kansas City
Neuberger Museum, State University of New York, Purchase
Newark Museum, New Jersey
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey
Portland Museum of Art, Maine
Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, New York
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California
J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio
Robert Hull Fleming Museum, University of Vermont
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Wichita State University, Kansas
Roland P. Murdock Collection, Wichita Art Museum
Williams College Museum of Art, Massachusetts