ASPASIA VOULIS, (1926-2001)

One of the first artists to follow the tenets of the "New Art", Aspasia Voulis died at age 74 on June 11th, 2001.

She was educated at the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Chicago,and the Institute of Design, Chicago, and received a B.F.A degree in 1949. Earlier, in 1943, while studying both painting and music at Interlocken, Michigan, she had begun diverse experiments toward creating "visual music" in painting and had developed interests in architecture, stage design, light, optics, etc.

Seminal to her development was reading Charles Biederman's " Art as the Evolution of Visual Knowledge" soon after it's publication in 1948. In 1949 she visited the artist in Red Wing and had the opportunity to see and discuss his work and theory. Deeply impressed by the experience, she began a lively correspondence with her friend Joan Saugrain, on Biederman's theory and method. Over a period of a year and a half , 1950-1951, the animated exchanges between these two young artists struggling with the new concepts, provided considerable source-material for Biederman's "Letters on the New Art", which appeared in 1951.

Aspasia began producing her first reliefs in 1951 and continued working in the field for the next several decades Although in ill health, Aspasia joined our group last September and participated actively via e-mail, in the challenging formation of this web-site. Fortunately she was able to celebrate the launching of the site on March 26th of this year and share in our collective relief at having achieved a difficult but rewarding task.

We shall all miss her.

Over the years, she was a fellow at the following art foundations:

• The MacDowell Colony, Petersborough, New Hampshire.
• Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York.
• The Ossabaw Island Project, Savannah, Georgia.
• The Hambidge Foundation, Rabun Gap, Georgia.

In 1970, Voulis together with Saugrain, shared an exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia.

At the end of her "Acknowledgements" in the 1970 High Museum catalogue, she wrote:

"And always, thanks to all human beings,everywhere, everywhen, who have wondered, searched, lived and worked toward understanding our world and ourselves: who may have seen in life a seemingly perpetual intermeshing of 'creative' and 'destructive' processes; and who have nevertheless sustained the intuition and courage to seek further, and have chosen to live and work, in whatever way, toward creative affirmation."