THE TITLE OF PFA GALLERY’S SECOND DOROTHY FRATT SHOW is accurate so far as it goes. Bold reds and cool greens are among the principal attractions of “Explorations of Color,” a selection of acrylic paintings on paper made between 1973 and 2001. But Fratt (1923-2017) was equally concerned with form, carefully placing blocks, bars, and other simple shapes mostly on monochromatic fields. The artist’s pictures can resemble streamlined landscapes, an affinity she acknowledged with scenic titles such as “Gulf of California” and “Quiet Estuary.”
A native Washingtonian, Fratt began her art career in her hometown, but relocated to Arizona in 1958, just as D.C’s Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland were establishing themselves as color field painters. Her style developed differently, with more sense of solidity and without the white space common in the paintings of her almost-peers back in Washington. Fratt’s pictures are usually characterized by a dominant hue that holds together elements in various colors, only some of which provide strong tonal opposition.
This show’s paintings include “Blue Jacob’s Ladder,” which fixes a vivid orange rectangle -- centered between purple and green ones -- in an expanse of contrasting blue. Equally striking is “Three Visitors,” which positions bars of purple and two shades inside a black box that’s floated above a pale-blue field in a manner that suggests Mark Rothko’s compositions.
The selection also includes seven pictures (six of them studies) in which the primary dialogue is between close shades of red: Scarlet backdrops diverge only slightly in hue from a rock-like slab or a jagged squiggle that hints at a mountain range. It’s possible to see these artworks as distilled scenes of desert sunsets, or just as formal experiments. Either way, the imagery is as delicate as the colors are forceful.
