“I examined a collection of lithographs by Frederick Hammersley located on one side of an architectural column. Each square in the eight-by-eight grid of the work Value Line, September 11 (1949) was a different shade of gray. The uniformity of shape, size, and color forced my attention to the lone variable. My eyes played tic-tac-toe with the squares, comparing values I hadn’t realized were distinct.

My mind clicked. This wasn’t a random assortment of boxes—this was an experiment. Hammersley was taking an element and pushing it to its limit, like how free verse poetry will forgo form to focus on language. I glanced at the other works. Most weren’t as formally restricted as Hammersley’s lithographs, but I could see a focus in them—intent I hadn’t noticed before.” 

- Emily Swain, Daily Serving, March 15, 2015

Frederick Hammersley is included in the group exhibition Shaping Abstraction, currently on view at the de Young Museum, San Francisco through August 30, 2015. 

IMAGE: Frederick Hammersley, Outside, 29 June, 1950, lithograph, 3 x 3 in. (7.6 x 7.6 cm), framed: 8 x 8 in. (20.3 x 20.3 cm)