Tony DeLap

Tony DeLap’s artworks challenge the limitations of visual perception, exploring the point at which the illusion of three-dimensionality becomes reality. DeLap has been at the nexus of significant West Coast American art movements since the early 1960s. DeLap’s work investigates how the interaction of geometric shapes can create dimensionality and movement on static planes. His paintings are visually non-referential, containing the essential compositional architecture to create an effective illusory space. Their pristine and textureless surfaces play a critical role in this process, achieved through a combination of the densely layered application of acrylic paint and a saturated palette, maximising the retinal impact of the interlocking planes of colour. Tony DeLap (1927-2019) has exhibited extensively since 1963. His work resides in the permanent collections of Tate Modern (London), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles), and Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts (Lausanne, Switzerland) among many others.

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