Leon Berkowitz (1911–1987): Cathedrals of Color

March 17 through April 18, 2026

ACA Galleries

173 10th Avenue, New York

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 19, 6 to 8pm

ACA Galleries is pleased to announce Leon Berkowitz: Cathedrals of Color on view March 17 through April 18, 2026.

Leon Berkowitz (1911–1987) was an American Color Field painter and educator. Born in Philadelphia, Leon Berkowitz spent much of his career in Washington, DC. As the co-founder and director of the Washington Workshop Center as well as an influential teacher and mentor, he emerged as one of the leading figures of the Washington Color Field School.

Berkowitz developed a singular method of applying 30 to 60 layers of thin glazes which allowed him to achieve a subtle visual luminosity that defines his work. Working with a mixture of approximately 10% oil paint to 90% turpentine, his paintings developed into radiant tapestries of color and light, praised for both their technical skill and spiritual resonance. 

While deeply expressive, his abstract paintings– serene, contemplative and meditative– stood apart from the gestural intensity of his Abstract Expressionist peers. For Berkowitz, color was a vehicle for light, and light was a vehicle for spirit. Berkowitz's paintings investigate ways color and light can convey spirit and the passage of time.

          I want to find the real dimension in which color invokes life.

                                                                        Leon Berkowitz

In 1969 Berkowitz had his first solo museum exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC where he later served as the chairman of the painting department for almost twenty years. Berkowitz's work remains vital to American abstraction and continues to resonate with contemporary painters exploring the spiritual and perceptual capacities of color.

Throughout his career, Berkowitz has received numerous awards and honors including a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. Berkowitz’s paintings can be found in many private and public collections including Museum of Modern Art, NY; High Museum of Art, GA; Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, DC; National Museum of American Art, DC; Smithsonian American art Museum, DC; The Phillips Collection, DC; Phoenix Art Museum, AZ; Ringling Museum, FL; Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT and Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, among others.