Works from the George Mason University Art Collection

Walter Kravitz: The Living Line presents a selection of works by Walter Kravitz (b. 1947), recently acquired for George Mason University’s permanent art collection. Drawn from his later practice, the exhibition brings together paintings and drawings characterized by dense layered compositions, biomorphic forms, and fluid shifts between drawing and painting, highlighting an approach defined by movement, transformation, and the generative force of the line. 
 
Across his practice, drawing traces relationships between figure and ground, motion and stillness. Forms emerge through accumulation and repetition, building visual fields that are precise yet fluid. Inspired by dancers, natural processes, and abstraction itself, Kravitz’s work rewards sustained looking and attention to subtle shifts and transformations. Together, the works presented here reveal a sustained commitment to exploring how line can generate movement, structure space, and give visual form to processes of change and becoming. At times recalling the imaginative vocabulary of Surrealism, these works explore the unstable boundary between abstraction and representation, embodying processes of growth, decay, and renewal. Throughout, Kravitz approaches the picture as a living environment, in which form and phenomena remain in constant motion. 
 
Born in Chicago and based in Washington, D.C., Walter Kravitz earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Syracuse University. He taught drawing and painting at George Mason University for more than three decades while maintaining an active exhibition career. His work has been exhibited at institutions including MoMA PS1, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Katzen Art Center, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and he has completed numerous public art commissions throughout the United States. As an artist, educator, and mentor, Kravitz has made a lasting contribution to the cultural life of the Washington region and to generations of artists and students.

November 3– January 19

Image caption: Walter Kravitz, Way In, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 90” x 66