CINCINNATI.- This winter, experience the power of emotion through the art of American artist Richard Pousette-Dart at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Transparent Reflections: Richard Pousette-Dart, Works on Paper, 1940-1992 represents the full range of Pousette-Dart's career from the 1940s to the 1990s. The Cincinnati Art Museum presents the exhibition Feb. 3 through April 9 and is only venue outside of California to display the exhibition.

As a member of the Abstract Expressionists, Pousette-Dart was the youngest of this loosely knit group that flourished between the 1940s and 1960s, which also included popular artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and William de Kooning. Influenced by Eastern philosophy and American transcendental thought, the art of Pousette-Dart differed from that of his peers in that it was deeply rooted in philosophy and intellectual concerns.

Pousette-Dart was not only a painter, but a sculptor, photographer and draftsman who created works on paper throughout his life using a variety of media, including watercolor, ink, oil, acrylic and graphite. The exhibition will feature a selection of his finest drawings, paintings on paper and painted prints, which will examine the importance of line and color in his art.

"These dense, textured works on paper will give visitors an introduction to the intensity, craft and transcending power of Pousette-Dart's art," said Aaron Betsky, director of the Cincinnati Art Museum. "At the same time, Pousette-Dart connoisseurs will gain a deeper understanding of his full body of work."

The exhibition will also examine Pousette-Dart's use of emotion and expression through a constantly evolving abstract language. In particular, the stylistic themes of the exhibition - totems, presences and fields - will examine Pousette-Dart's visual vocabulary that repeatedly featured organic forms, grids, dots and often reference music and tribal art.

Pousette-Dart's works from the 1940s and 1950s were influenced by totemic Pacific Northwest and African art, as seen in Blue Transition (1942-43) and Golden Eye (1945-46), and characterized by a dense assortment of concentric circles, eye and egg shapes, squiggles and crescents in a palette of rich colors. By the 1960s, Pousette-Dart's compositions became simpler. For example, Moon Meditation (1960s) features a single sphere, meticulously constructed with thousands of painted dots evoking the sun, moon and cosmic realms. Later, Pousette-Dart changed his use of color, as is seen in Implosion (1978), which shows graphite lines on white paint dynamically converging to a central point. Finally, Bird in Spring (1992) presents the theme of renewal and regeneration with vivid colors, reaffirming Pousette-Dart's declaration that art "is affirmation of life. It is Presence. It is a Transcendental Being."

Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to offer personal responses to Pousette-Dart's work by creating their own titles that reflect their individual interpretations. The Art Museum will periodically select a title and display it as an alternative title, supporting Pousette-Dart's belief that "great art leaves half of the creation to the onlooker."

This exhibition was organized by the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.