Robert Mattison

Research interests: modern and contemporary art; 19th-century art, and the history of architecture.

I am interested in using modern art and architecture as lenses through which to investigate the cultural, social, political, ethnic, and gender issues of our day. I have spent much of my career working directly with artists, including such pivotal figures as Robert Motherwell, Grace Hartigan and Robert Rauschenberg. I also work with dancers, writers, musicians, curators, and gallerists. I bring these experiences to the students both in the classroom and through field trips to artists’ studios, museums, galleries, collectors’ homes, auction houses, and architectural walking tours. I utilize Lafayette’s proximity to New York City and Philadelphia as well as overseas study tours to Berlin, London, Paris, Vienna, and other cities. I encourage students to think and write incisively about modern art and architecture. Many students have been invited to participate in research for my books and exhibition catalogues.

Awards: Samuel H. Kress Foundation (2), Princeton University Dissertation Grant, Dedalus Foundation Exhibition Grant, Recipient of Sears-Roebuck Award for Teaching and Scholarship, the Jones Lecture Award, the Jones Award, the Daniel L. Golden Faculty Service Award (2), the Marquis Distinguished Teaching Award for distinctive and extraordinary teaching, and the Mary Louise Van Artsdalen Prize for outstanding scholarly achievement

Books and Extended Catalogs:

Franz Kline, Paintings 1950 – 1962, Catalogue  Raisonné, Director and Author, Hauser & Wirth Institute

Ronald Bladen: Sculpture, Abbeville Press, 2019

Franz Kline: Coal and Steel, Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, 2012/13 and Sidney Mishkin Art Gallery, CUNY, New York, 2013.

Theodoros Stamos: A Communion with Nature, Hollis Taggart Art Galleries, New York, 2010.

Arshile Gorky: Works, Writings, Editiones Poligrafa, Barcelona, 2010.

Robert Rauschenberg: Breaking Boundaries, Yale University Press, London, 2004.

Masterworks: Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, and Frank Stella in the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, Hudson Hills Press, New York, 1995.

Grace Hartigan: A Painter’s World, Hudson Hills Press, New York, 1990.

Robert Motherwell: The Formative Years, UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor, 1987.

Selected recent exhibition catalogs and articles:

“Joan Miró: Intuition and Metamorphosis,” Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich and New York, 2021

“Arnulf Rainer: Paintings, Drawings, Books,” Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich and New York, 2021

“Roberto Matta Odisseano: A Voyage,” Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich and New York, 2021

Emil Lukas: Walking the Earth, Sperone Westwater  Gallery, New York City, 2020

Thom Cooney Crawford: The Inner Eye of Art, Nurture Nature Foundation, 2019

Stephen Antonakos: Late Light, Loretta Howard Gallery, New York City, 2019

Carol Brown Goldberg: Entanglement (exhibition catalogue), American University, Washington, D.C. 2018.

Thomas Chimes: Alchemy Machine (exhibition catalogue), Locks Gallery, Philadelphia 2018.

Expanding Space: Ronald Bladen, Al Held, Yvonne Rainer, and George Sugarman (exhibition catalogue), Loretta Howard Gallery 2017.

“Frank Stella: Vortices, Turbulence and Chaos Theory,” SciArt in America. February 2018.

Alert!: The Recent Art of Hasan Elahi (exhibition catalogue), C. Grimaldis Gallery,Baltimore 2016

Robert Rauschenberg: Making Tracks (exhibition catalogue), Jim Kempner Fine Arts, New York 2015.

“Emil Lukas: The Ringing of Distant Events” (exhibition catalog) Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, 2015.

“Brandon Ballengée: Art, Science, Activism,” (book chapter) From Scales to Feathers: The Avian Works of Brandon Ballengée, Shropshire Museum and Art Gallery, 2015.

Heroines: Audrey Flack’s Transcendent Drawings and Prints (exhibition catalog), Lafayette College Art Galleries and Hyde Museum, 2015.

Audrey Flack: The Abstract Expressionist Years (exhibition catalog) Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, 2015.

William Baziotes:The Surrealist Watercolors” (exhibition catalog), Allentown Art Museum, 2015.

Why Nature?: Hofmann, Mitchell, Pousette-Dart and Stamos (exhibition catalog), Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, 2014.

“Grace Hartigan: A Survey 1966-2007” (exhibition catalog) Strathmore Art Foundation, 2014.

“Robert Motherwell’s Early Collages” (exhibition review) Journal of the College Art Association, 2014.

In Arcadia: The Paintings of Bill Scott, Hollis Taggart Galleries, 2013.

“Robert Rauschenberg: Sleep for Yvonne Rainer, The Rauschenberg Research Project, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and J.P. Getty Foundation, 2013.

“Robert Rauschenberg: Pyramid Series,” The Rauschenberg Research Project, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and J.P. Getty Foundation, 2013.

Richard Anuszkiewicz: New Work 2003-2013, Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, 2013.

Black Mountain College and Its Legacy, Loretta Howard Gallery, New York, 2011.

Terry Winters: A New Description of Nature, Lafayette College Art Galleries, 2011.

Helen Frankenthaler: Paper Is Painting, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, 2010.

“Robert Motherwell’s Opens in Context,” for exhibition catalog Motherwell: The Opens, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, 2009.

Stephen Antonakos: The Power of Light, Allentown Art Museum, 2008.

“Robert Rauschenberg” in Robert Rauschenberg Critica e Obra de 1949 a 1974, Publico Serrivales, Lisbon, Portugal, 2008.

Robert Rauschenberg’s Environmental Activism in Last Turn, Your Turn: Robert Rauschenberg and the Environmental Crisis, Jacobson Howard Gallery, New York, 2008.

After Image: Op Art of the 1960s, Jacobson Howard Gallery, New york, 2007.