Skip to main content
Stanton Macdonald-Wright
1890–1973
Death placePacific Palisades, California, United States of America
BirthplaceCharlottesville, Virginia, United States of America
BiographyBoth as a theorist and as a practicing artist, Stanton Macdonald-Wright was a pioneer in the development of American modernism—the creation of a wholly new, often non-objective artistic expression—in the early years of the twentieth century. Born Stanton Wright, the son of a businessman in Charlottesville, Virginia, Macdonald-Wright was given his first name to honor social reformer Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and he is said to have hyphenated his last name because he was tired of being asked if he was related to famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959). Macdonald-Wright spent his teenage years in coastal Santa Monica, California, where his father managed an elegant hotel, and he was given private lessons in painting. His brother, Willard Huntington Wright (1887–1939), would also go on to become an artist.
In 1909, Macdonald-Wright went to Paris for further study, where artistic conventions were being challenged by revolutionary ideas. With fellow American artist Morgan Russell (1886–1953), he formed a new movement, synchromism, based on ideas of correspondence between color and musical harmonies and in which conventional subject matter played no part. The synchromists' exhibitions in Munich and Paris in 1913 were considered scandalous, and the movement was cut short by the outbreak of World War I, which sent Macdonald-Wright back to the United States in 1915.
In New York, Stanton and Willard were among the avant-garde artists who organized the important "Forum Exhibition of American Modernists" in 1916. Discouraged by his poverty in New York, Macdonald-Wright returned to Southern California and dedicated himself to its burgeoning art world. He lectured, taught, and published on his artistic theories while working in a variety of media, including film and kinetic sculpture. He was instrumental in organizing the first exhibition of modern art in Los Angeles in 1920, and in 1923 he became director of the city's Art Students League. In the mid-1920s, he became deeply involved in theater and, as director of the Santa Monica Theater Guild, wrote, directed, designed sets for, and acted in plays by himself and others. In 1931, he returned to painting and to collaborating with Morgan Russell, then visiting from France, and the two exhibited together in California and New York.
In the mid-1930s, Macdonald-Wright began working in the federal artists' relief programs, serving as a local director of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project while continuing to paint and draw. Macdonald-Wright began his career as a popular instructor at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1942. When he resigned due to poor health in 1954, he returned to painting in a synchromist vein, but on a larger scale and with a greater sense of stability and clarity, and he also made woodcut prints. Macdonald-Wright exhibited actively in his last years and was the subject of several important museum exhibitions before his death at the age of eighty-three.
In 1909, Macdonald-Wright went to Paris for further study, where artistic conventions were being challenged by revolutionary ideas. With fellow American artist Morgan Russell (1886–1953), he formed a new movement, synchromism, based on ideas of correspondence between color and musical harmonies and in which conventional subject matter played no part. The synchromists' exhibitions in Munich and Paris in 1913 were considered scandalous, and the movement was cut short by the outbreak of World War I, which sent Macdonald-Wright back to the United States in 1915.
In New York, Stanton and Willard were among the avant-garde artists who organized the important "Forum Exhibition of American Modernists" in 1916. Discouraged by his poverty in New York, Macdonald-Wright returned to Southern California and dedicated himself to its burgeoning art world. He lectured, taught, and published on his artistic theories while working in a variety of media, including film and kinetic sculpture. He was instrumental in organizing the first exhibition of modern art in Los Angeles in 1920, and in 1923 he became director of the city's Art Students League. In the mid-1920s, he became deeply involved in theater and, as director of the Santa Monica Theater Guild, wrote, directed, designed sets for, and acted in plays by himself and others. In 1931, he returned to painting and to collaborating with Morgan Russell, then visiting from France, and the two exhibited together in California and New York.
In the mid-1930s, Macdonald-Wright began working in the federal artists' relief programs, serving as a local director of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project while continuing to paint and draw. Macdonald-Wright began his career as a popular instructor at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1942. When he resigned due to poor health in 1954, he returned to painting in a synchromist vein, but on a larger scale and with a greater sense of stability and clarity, and he also made woodcut prints. Macdonald-Wright exhibited actively in his last years and was the subject of several important museum exhibitions before his death at the age of eighty-three.