John Mendelsohn

John Mendelsohn is a New York-based abstract painter with a career spanning more than three decades. He holds a BA from Columbia University (1971) and an MFA from Rutgers University (1974), and participated in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

His paintings work in cycles or series — Color Wheel, Black/White/Dark Color Wheel, Tenebrae, Erotic Geometry, The Alice Paintings, Six Movements — built around recurring geometric devices worked through with acrylic, oil, latex enamel, modeling paste, and colored sand on canvas or panel. Critics have described his work as combining hard-edge painting and color-field sensibility with tightly controlled, rule-governed brushwork.

He has shown in solo and two-person exhibitions at Artists Space, 57W57 Arts, Kook Projects, Sideshow Gallery, and David Richard Gallery in New York, with group-show inclusion at institutions including MoMA PS1 and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Tree of Life Foundation. Alongside his studio practice, he teaches as an Adjunct Professor in the Studio Art Program at Fairfield University.