Harvey Quaytman Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1937 - d. 2002

Harvey Quaytman (April 20, 1937 - April 8, 2002) was a geometric abstraction painter best known for large modernist canvases with powerful monochromatic tones, in layered compositions, often with hard edges - inspired by Malevich and Mondrian. He had more than 60 solo exhibitions in his career, and his works are held in the collections of many top public museums.

Harvey Quaytman was born on April 20, 1937[1] in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York. His father, Marcus Quaytman, was a 1920 Jewish immigrant from Lodz, Poland and a certified public accountant, and his mother Rose Quaytman was a piano teacher from Lawrence, Long Island, New York.[2] In 1940 his father and grandfather were killed in a train crash in Queens NY.[3]

From 1955-1957, he attended Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, but graduated in 1959 with a BFA from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA.[4] It was there he met and married fellow painting student, future award-winning American postmodern poet Susan Howe, and in 1961 they had a daughter, Rebecca Quaytman, who is now a well-regarded abstract painter.[5]

In 1963 the family moved to Soho, New York City, but two years later the parents divorced, and Susan married Harvey's close friend, sculptor David von Schlegell.[5]

In 1966 Harvey met and later married the painter Frances Barth. They were together until their divorce in 1980. In November 1989, Quaytman was married for a third time, in his studio, to Margaret Moorman, a writer.[2] Their daughter Emma was born in 1989.[4]

Harvey Quaytman died in New York on April 8, 2002 from cancer.[