Edward Corbett

Born in Chicago, IL (1919). Family settled in Bay Area (1934). Attended California School of Fine Arts (1936- 41). Served in Merchant Marine running arms; participated in Battle of the Coral Sea
(1941-44). Lived and painted in New York City; studied collections at the Museum of Modern Art; joined Communist Party; met Ad Reinhardt (1944-45).
Returned to San Francisco; joined American Abstract Artists (1946). Taught at California School of Fine Arts and University of California, Berkeley (1947-50). Lived with Robert McChesney, Hassel Smith, sculptor Mary Fuller, and poet Weldon Kees in Point Richmond, CA; began Black Paintings and resigned from California School of Fine Arts (1950).
Visited Taos NM the summers of (1948-1950). Settled in Taos in (1951), following a managerial and aesthetic coup at CSFA, The same year Richard Diebenkorn move to Albuquerque to get his MFA, Corbett attended Louis Ribak's Taos Valley Art School, on the GI Bill, and later that year Received a Abraham Rosenberg Fellowship to work in the American Southwest. In the spring of 1952, Corbett was included in a group exhibition “15 Americans”, at the New York Museum of Modern Art, along with William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Bradley Tomlin and others. This was a major turning point in his career. Taught at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass. (1953-63). Began Paintings for Puritans series (1955). Lived and painted principally in Washington, D.C. (1964-71). Taught at University of California, Santa Barbara (1967-68). Died in Provincetown, Mass. (1971).

Submitted by 203 Fine Art