Michael B. Gallagher

Michael B. "Mike" Gallagher (born 1945) is an American painter whose work is associated with Abstract Illusionism.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California. In 1964-68 he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California. In 1967 he was a Yale-Norfolk Summer School Grantee. In 1970 he received a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University.

Review of first one-man show in New York:

The Soho Weekly News: 1974 “On Art,” Frank, Peter.

“Michael Gallagher, whose paintings and drawings hang at Razor to the 14th, is not afraid to 'look like' several abstract expressionists, including de Kooning, Twombly, Goodnough, Richenburg, Held, and Knox Martin—and that's in one painting. Other pictures conjure up Hofmann, Tworkov, Gorky, Stella, et al. A varied ancestry, but Gallagher not only unites them successfully, he still emerges his own man. His drawings have more formal integrity and originality, they are more purely an expression of an aesthetic personality, while the paintings have that distinctly historical awareness to them. But their formulation, with its highly rhythmic choreographing of disparate forms and elements—straight edges, loops, squiggles, drips, grids, jagged strokes, calligraphic gestures, side by side parallel structures, interwoven forms, continuous and discontinuous lines—and especially their gala colour, with baby blues jammed up against hot reds, chalky greens, bloody flesh tones, etc! ., make for fresh, vivid, and extremely likeable pictures. Some are a bit more sober and regular than this, but hardly less attractive for it.”

Arts Magazine: 1981, “Michael Gallagher”, Freymann, Saxton.

"The strength of Michael Gallagher's work lies in its ability to engage our interest long after our first powerful encounter. Its meticulously crafted trompe l'oeil brushstrokes provide a seductive fanfare for the subtler strains that emerge as the initial blast subsides. The formal tension between control and abandon is generated both laterally, across the paintings' surface, and inwardly, from one receding level to the next. The brash, saturated strokes are anchored by the deeply rooted grids and framing devices at the primary or "deepest' surface of the strange space the paintings create. The charged, lyrical strokes echo and improvise on these."

Museums:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Beverly Hills, CA
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio
Albany Museum of Art, Georgia
University of Arizona Museum of Art (Tucson, AZ), Tucson, AZ
Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Wharton School of Business, Philadelphia, PA
Jewish Museum, New York, NY
Bryant University, Smithfield, RI

2008-9 “Art & Illusion,”Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA
2008 “Reflections from the Artist's Eye,”Frederick Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA
2008 “Inaugural exhibit at Roseville's Blue Line,” Blue Line Gallery, Roseville, CA
2006 “Art and Illusion: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation,” Bakersfield Museum of Art, Bakersfield, CA
2005 “Made in California,”Frederick Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA
2004 “Sketchbook 88,” Jean-Michel Basquiat, Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Dale Chihuly, Richard Diebenkorn, Ronald Davis, Richard Estes, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Michael Gallagher, Keith Haring, Michael Heizer, David Hockney, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Mark Kostabi, Alex Katz, Roy Lichtenstein, Mel Ramos, Robert Motherwell, Helmut Newton, Kenneth Noland, Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter, Susan Rothenberg, Todd Rundgren, Thomas Ruff, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, Julian Schnabel, Frank Stella, Donald Sultan, David Salle, Cy Twombly, Rufino Tamayo, William Wegman, Andy Warhol,” Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
1999 Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY
1995 Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY

Thorpe, Carole, Westways: May June, 2008, "Art that Moves You".
Belnapp, Susan, OC Metro Business: April, 2008, "The Art of Mike Gallagher".
Dalkey, Victoria, The Sacramento Bee: February 29, 2008, “Big space, big show Inaugural exhibit at Roseville's Blue Line suggests a bright future”.
Wylder, Greer, Greer's OC: November 21, 2007, "Art that Moves You".
Montgomery, Tiffany, Shop-Eat-Surf.com: ,November 14, 2007, "Surfing as Art,a Talk with Michael Gallagher".
Dr. Leda Cempellin. "Abstract Illusionism: A Perspective," Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities Honolulu: January 12–15, 2007, South Dakota State University.
Edward Lucie-Smith.“American Art Now”: 1986, William Morrow and Company, Inc.
Peter Frank (art critic). "Abstract inflected by Illusion: a Recent History, in Breaking the Plane: Stuart M. Speiser Collection" (New York: Louis K. Meisel Gallery), 1984.
Jane K. Bledsoe. "Centric 9 – Trompe L’Oeil Abstraction', The University Art Museum,California State University, Long Beach, October 11-30th,1983.
Atkins, Robert. Architectural Digest: 1983, April, “Art to Intrigue the Eye”.