(1915-1994) was a Berlin-born, American abstract painter and a key artist associated with both the New York School and the Color Field movement. 

Dzubas studied art in Germany before fleeing the Nazi regime in 1939 and settling in New York City. During the 1940s, Dzubas circulated with some of the leading abstract painters in the city's vital art scene. One of Dzubas' first major exhibitions took place at the 9th Street Art Exhibition in 1951, a groundbreaking and historical art exhibit featuring a number of his boundary-pushing contemporaries. This exhibition acted as an introduction to the New York School of postwar avant-garde artists. 

Dzubas worked adjacent to and strongly influenced the emerging color field painters. He shared a studio with Helen Frankenthaler as she began pouring and staining her canvases. The two rejected/evolved the techniques embraced by the Abstract Expressionists. 

Dzubas’ technique involved applying thick layers of color over washes, and scrubbing the Magna paint he used into the unprimed canvas. He then used various methods, often including brushing and at times staining, to apply further color to the canvas.

This work is an excellent example of Dzubas' signature abstract aesthetic and technique. Bold, banner-shaped swaths of cobalt, periwinkle, sky blue, and olive glide together, collide and layer in an organic vertical arrangement. 

Dzubas would create mini-paintings before executing the same design on a much larger scale and it is most likely that a larger version of this work exists. This small sketch painting was included in two major Dzubas exhibitions first at the Rose Museum (at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts) and at the Nassau County Museum of Art. 

Friedel Dzubas' works hang in the permanent collections of some of the most prestigious art institutions in the world; including the Whitney Museum (NYC), the Guggenheim (NYC), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (DC), and the Albright-Knox Gallery (NY).

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“Merging Darkness”

USA, 1974

Magna acrylic on canvas

Titled verso

6.5”H 6.5”W (work)

9.5"H 9.5"W (framed)

Very good condition