Alvin D. Loving facts for kids

Alvin D. Loving Jr. (born September 19, 1935 – died June 21, 2005), known as Al Loving, was an African-American painter. He was famous for his abstract art. His work often used bold shapes, fabric pieces, and large paper collages. He loved to explore how different colors looked together.

About Al Loving

Alvin Demar Loving Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan, on September 19, 1935. He went to college and earned degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A teacher named Al Mullen helped him get involved in art groups. In 1968, Loving moved to New York City, where he lived in the famous Hotel Chelsea.

Soon after moving to New York, Loving had his first solo art show. It was at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He also received special awards called National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in 1970, 1974, and 1984. In 1986, he won a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Al Loving created many large artworks for public places. These included a huge mural painting in Detroit called A Message to Demar and Lauri (1972). He also made a painting for the Empire State Collection in New York. In Detroit, he created a ceramic mural for a People Mover station. Another mural, Life, Growth, Continuity (1998), is in a library at Wayne State University. He designed a collage painting for the Sacramento Convention Center in 1996. Later, in 2001, he designed 70 stained-glass windows and mosaic walls. These are in the Broadway Junction subway station in Brooklyn.

Loving's art was shown in many places during his life. These included the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Studio Museum in Harlem. His work was also seen in France at the Fondation Maeght.

Al Loving passed away on June 21, 2005, in New York, New York.

Al Loving's Art Style

Hard-Edge Abstraction

Untitled (1975) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2022

In the 1960s, Loving was very interested in the paintings of another artist, Josef Albers. Albers painted squares inside other squares. Loving wanted to paint squares until they felt "complete" and had their own shape. He said the original square would disappear, and only he would know it was there. This idea gave him freedom to just paint and let his art grow.

His geometric paintings showed bright, broken light. They were more than just color tests. Loving often made many shapes of the same size but with different colors. He would hang them together in different ways on a wall. Sometimes, these artworks were made of dozens of canvases. They stretched out for many feet. To see the whole artwork, you needed time, not just a quick look. This made his paintings also show the idea of time. His geometric paintings were shown in his first solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Later, Loving stopped making hard-edge abstract paintings.

Fabric Artworks

In the early 1970s, Loving visited an art show about American quilts. This inspired him to try making art with fabric. He started hanging strips of canvas from walls and ceilings. He wanted to play with how we see flat pictures versus 3D sculptures. Then, he sewed the fabric pieces together. This created large, flowing fabric artworks. At first, he painted the canvas pieces. But later, he started dyeing the fabric instead. Other artists like Sam Gilliam also used sewing machines to make fabric art at this time. Loving saw himself as an "abstract expressionist" even when he wasn't painting. He was using materials in new ways.

Large Paper Collages

In the 1980s, Loving started adding other things to his art. He used materials like corrugated cardboard and rag paper. He liked how easy it was to tear cardboard and glue it onto other pieces. He felt this was also a type of abstract expressionism. Unlike his fabric art, the large paper collages gave him a feeling of freedom. He was exploring new ways to create art.

In these collages, Loving often added circles and spirals. These shapes were a way to connect to his African heritage. They also showed ideas of growth and ongoing life. For example, in his piece Perpetual Motion (1994), he used cardboard and print. The cardboard is cut and layered to make spirals. Each spiral is carefully painted to create exciting color mixes. These artworks don't have frames or glass. They lie flat against the wall.

Exhibition History

Alvin Loving had many art shows during his life. Here are a few examples:

Solo Exhibitions

• Alvin Loving at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (1969–1970)
• Al Loving: Departures at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (1986)
• Al Loving: Material Abstraction at June Kelly Gallery in New York (1992)
• Al Loving: Color Constructs at the Neuberger Museum of Art in New York (1998–1999)
• Spiral Play: Loving in the '80s at Art+Practice in Los Angeles (2017) and the Baltimore Museum of Art (2017–2018)

Group Exhibitions

Loving's work was also part of many group shows with other artists. Some of these include:

• Afro-American Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts (1968)
• Lamp Black: African-American Artists at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1970)
• Contemporary Black Artists in America at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1971)
• Afro-American Abstraction at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (1981)
• The Search for Freedom: African-American Abstract Painting, 1945–1975 at Kenkeleba Gallery, New York (1991)
• Paper Trails: Selected Works from the Collection, 1934–2001 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2011)
• America Is Hard to See at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2015)

Collections

You can find Al Loving's art in many important museums across America, such as:

• Akron Art Museum, Ohio
• Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas
• Detroit Institute of Arts
• Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Museum of Modern Art
• National Gallery of Art
• Philadelphia Museum of Art
• The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York