Robert McNown, began his gallery career with Seders in 1992 after five years with another renowned Seattle gallery, Woodside/Braseth, and shows at The Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington; and The Bellevue Art Museum. During his twenty years with Francine Seders, clearly a gallerist who recognized great talent, expressive skill, and cutting edge creativity, produced ten solo shows of Robert McNown’s work!

Frederick Holmes And Company began exhibiting McNown’s paintings in 2018, after being referred to his work and career by a trusted and enthusiastic collector. In the Summer of 2020, during the “lockdown” period of the CoVid-19 pandemic, McNown was featured in the gallery’s virtual three-person group exhibition, “AN ARTIST NEEDS AN AUDIENCE”. His paintings were a welcome emotional relief among beleaguered internet visitors and collectors, desperate for the spiritually rejuvenating, optimistic power of art, with several paintings placed with collectors around the country.

Now eighty, McNown continues to energetically and prolifically paint in ever-changing modes of abstract expressionism. One would never guess when viewing his recent work that these are the paintings of a man well into his “golden years”. The paintings burst with robust color, energetic brushwork, and mark-making one might easily assume were painted by an artist in the prime of their youth. But the artist’s age is only relevant in that McNown is a profoundly intuitive painter; a level of creative consciousness usually only attained through a strong foundation of fundamentals, practice, and maturity. McNown is ever restless and compelled to eclectically create, to evolve, to consistently push himself beyond the boundaries of his, or others, expectations. This, the artist’s first solo show in Seattle since 2012, represents a carefully curated selection of ten of McNown’s most compelling works out of a prodigious body of paintings, which I’m proud to present.

Painters are often described as possessing a “visual vocabulary” or language. Rolph Scarlett (1889-1984), one of the leading non-objective (now known as “abstract expressionism”) painters of the mid-20th century, would advise those unfamiliar with what was then an unfamiliar and very radical new genre of painting, to “listen with your eyes.” In McNown’s oeuvre, we find ourselves experiencing the work of an articulate and eloquent polylinguist. Listen.

Frederick R. Holmes, Sept. 2024