Channa Horwitz

Channa Horwitz (1932-2013) was a key figure in the development of Conceptual Art and West Coast Minimalism. Though like many other female contemporaries of hers, she only received credit from the art world much later in life when she was selected for the Whitney Biennial in 2014 and created the American pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013. Working predominantly across canvas and paper, her geometric studies are a joy to encounter, giving elasticity and vitality to repetitive linework with their bold use of colour and handwritten inscriptions. Horwitz began her career studying graphic design in the early 1950s at Art Centre College of Design and later beginning Fine Art studies at Cal State Northbridge in the early 1960s, fusing the graphic skills acquired at the former with the experimental spirit developed at the latter. Whilst completing a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1972, Horwitz studied with peers such as John Baldessari and Allan Kaprow— taking part in Kaprow’s ‘Happenings’ and hosting her own events. With a career that spanned over five decades, Horwitz continued to stretch the emotive capacities of her graphic motifs, remaining committed to the conceptual, repetitive processes which brought about each new work.