“I’ve always had the feeling that art really develops through a kind of general activity. You can have your isolated geniuses, but it's always been somehow or other a product of a kind of ferment.”[1]

A pioneer of American modernism, Burgoyne Diller devoted his career to the exploration of geometric abstraction in painting, drawing, collage, and sculpture. Born in the Bronx in 1906, when the borough was still rural, Diller had a difficult childhood. His father died when he was only three, and in 1919, after his mother remarried, the family moved to Battle Creek Michigan. A childhood illness caused Diller to miss a year of school, and during that time, he began to draw. Diller exhibited a natural talent for art, and after graduating from Michigan State College in 1927, Diller moved back to New York City in 1928. From 1928 to 1933, Diller supported himself while studying at the Art Students League with Jan Matulka, George Grosz, and Hans Hofmann. While there he created “paintings and drawings . . . dominated by bimorphic sculptural forms floating in space.”[2]

In the early 1930s, Diller began a long career with the various incarnations of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which became a vital way for him to support himself as an artist. In 1934, he served as Supervisor for Mural Painting for the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA). When TERA was terminated the following year, Diller remained a supervisor for mural painting, but under the newly formed Federal Art Project (FAP) of the WPA. He held this position until 1940. During his tenure at the WPA, Diller championed abstract art and oversaw the execution of more than 200 public murals, most of which were completed as part of his largest undertaking: in the late 1930s, he supervised the artwork for the Williamsburg Housing Project in Brooklyn (1937-1939). Among the principal artists Diller selected for this project were Jan Matulka, Stuart Davis, and Paul Kelpe, who were all permitted to execute their own designs.[3] With the entry of the United States into World War II, areas of the WPA were transferred to the War Service Division, and from 1941 until 1943, Diller directed the New York City War Service Art Project. When the Project was terminated in 1943, Diller joined the Navy, serving on active duty until the end of the war in 1945. During these two years, he stopped creating art altogether.

For Diller, abstraction was “the ideal realm of harmony, stability and order in which every form and spatial interval could be controlled and measured.” He was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group and a participant in their first exhibition at the Squibb Gallery (1937), but his affiliation with the group was short-lived. In the early 1930s, Diller’s art evolved from cubism to non-objective neoplasticism. He simplified his palette to the bold colors and black and white of neoplasticism and reduced his visual vocabulary to squares and rectangles. No slavish imitator of Mondrian, Diller he developed a highly personal language based on three major compositional themes. These themes, which he labeled “First,” “Second,” and “Third,” explored the picture plane in relation to forms in movement and/or forms in “constant opposition.” Diller translated these themes into three dimensions as well. In the early 1940s, he began creating wall-mounted wood constructions, and during the 1950s and 1960s his sculptures developed into the large-scale, free-standing, Formica works for which he is well known.

SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Amon Carter Museum, Ft Worth, TX
Arithmeum, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AK
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York University, New York, NY
Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee, WI
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, MA
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
The National Gallery, Washington, DC
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Pollock Works on Paper Study and Research Collection, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NB
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

1925-27 
Michigan State University, Lansing, MI

1928-1933
Art Students League, New York, NY
 

1932
Cathedral Branch Library, New York, NY

1933
Contemporary Arts, New York, NY

1934
Theodore A. Kohn & Son Gallery, New York, NY

1946
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, NY
The Pinacotheca, New York, NY; 1949

1951
Rose Fried Gallery, New York, NY; 1956

1958
Galerie Chalette, New York, NY; 1964

1962
Glassboro State College Art Gallery, Glassboro, NJ

1963
Birmingham Southern College Art Gallery, Birmingham, AL

1966
Burgoyne Diller: Retrospective, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ

1968
Burgoyne Diller: Retrospective, Noah Goldowsky Gallery, New York, NY; 1972
Burgoyne Diller: Retrospective, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

1971
Burgoyne Diller: Retrospective, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, CA

1978
Joan Washburn Gallery, New York, NY

1979
Meredith Long Contemporary, New York, NY and Houston, TX; 1980, 89, 90, 94

1981
Burgoyne Diller: Paintings, Sculpture, Collages, Drawings 1938 – 1964, Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY

1982
Burgoyne Diller – Paintings, Drawings and Collages from 1938-1964, Gallery Gimpel, Hanover, Switzerland; Andre Emmerich, Zurich, Switzerland
Galerie Reckerman, Cologne, West Germany

1984
Burgoyne Diller: Drawings, 1945–1964, Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY
Burgoyne Diller: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture, Meredith Long & Company, Houston, TX

1987
Harcourts Modern and Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA; 1991
Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1989
Burgoyne Diller: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture, Meredith Long & Company, Houston, TX

1990
Burgoyne Diller: Retrospective, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Burgoyne Diller: A Selection of Drawings from 1945–1961, Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY

1991
Burgoyne Diller, Galerie & Edition Schlegl, Zurich, Switzerland

1995
Burgoyne Diller-Pioneer of Abstraction, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY

1996
Burgoyne Diller, Meyerson & Nowinski, Seattle, WA

1998
Burgoyne Diller: The Third Dimension, Sculpture & Drawings, 1930–1965, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY

1999
Burgoyne Diller: Collages, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY

2001
Burgoyne Diller: Works on Paper, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY
Burgoyne Diller: The 1930s, Cubism to Abstraction, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY

2002
Burgoyne Diller: The Late Drawings, Pollock Gallery, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX;
Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX
Burgoyne Diller: Collage, Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., Plainsboro, NJ

2004
Burgoyne Diller: The 1960s, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY

2005
Burgoyne Diller: Twenty-Five on Paper, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY
 

1932
Exhibition of Paintings: Fifth New Group, G.R.D. Studio, New York, NY

1933
Fifty Paintings by American Artists, Montross Gallery, New York, NY

1937
Annual Exhibition of the American Abstract Artists, Squibb Galleries, New York, NY; 1939, 41, 48, 51

1940
Abstract Art in America, St. Etienne Gallery, New York, NY

1945
Burgoyne Diller and Jose de Rivera, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

1946
Contemporary Sculpture, Objects, Constructions, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

1947
Abstract and Surrealist American Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
The White Plane, The Pinacotheca, New York, NY

1948
American Abstract Artists, Chinese Gallery, New York, NY

1949
American Abstract Artists 13th Annual Exhibition, Riverside Museum, New York, NY; Boise Art Association, Boise, ID; State College of Washington (now Washington State University), Pullman, WA; Fine Arts Gallery (now Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; Mills College Art Gallery (now Mills College Art Museum), Mills College, Oakland, CA

1950
American Abstract Artists, The Pinacotheca-Rose Fried Gallery, New York, NY
American Abstract Artists, New School for Social Research, New York, NY
American Abstract Artists, Second 1950 Exhibition, Pinacotheca-Rose Fried Gallery, New York, NY

1951
Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Danish, British and American Abstract Artists, Riverside Museum, New York, NY
Some Areas of Search from 1913 to 1951, Rose Fried Gallery, New York, NY
American Abstract Artists 1951 Exhibition with Danish and British Artists, American-British Art Center, New York, NY

1952
Rose Fried Gallery, New York, NY

1953
The Classic Tradition in Contemporary Art, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Formal Organization in Modern Painting, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, NY

1956
Abstract Art: 1910 to Today, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
The 30’s, Painting in New York, Poindexter Gallery, New York, NY

1957
The Sphere of Mondrian, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX

1959
Recent Acquisitions, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

1960
Construction and Geometry in Painting, Galerie Chalette, New York, NY
Konkrete Kunst, Helmhaus, Zurich, Switzerland

1962
Geometric Abstraction in America, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
A Survey of American Sculpture, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ

1963
The New Tradition: Modern Americans Before 1940, The Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC

1964
The Classic Spirit in 20th Century Art, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, NY
Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

1965
Colorists 1950–1965, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
Selected Works by Contemporary New Jersey Artist 1965, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ

1966
Art of the United States: 1670–1966, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

1967
Guggenheim International Exhibition, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

1968
Documenta 4, Kassel, West Germany
The 1930s: Painting and Sculpture in America, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

1969
New York Painting and Sculpture, 1940–1970, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

1971
23 Masters of Early Abstract Art, Denise Rene, New York, NY

1972
Mondrian and American Neoplasticism, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
The Non-Objective World –1914-1955, Annely Juda Gallery, London, England;
Geometric Abstraction: 1926–1942, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX

1973
Post-Mondrian Abstraction in America, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
The Non-Objective World –1939-1955, Annely Juda Gallery, London, England; Galerie Liatowitsch, Basel, Switzerland; Galleria Milano, Milan, Italy

1975
El Color Como Lenguaje, Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogota, Columbus; Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venequela; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico

1977
American Abstract Artists, University Art Museum, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
The Modern Spirit – American Painting 1908-1935, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland; Hayward Gallery, London, England

1978
The Non-Objective World – Twenty Five Years 1914-1939, Annely Juda Gallery, London, England

1979
American Abstract Artists: The Language of Abstraction, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, NY
Mondrian and Neo-Plasticism in America, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
American Abstract Artists: 1930s–1940s, Marilyn Pearl Gallery, New York, NY
Amerika, zwei Jahrzehnte Malerei 1920-1940, Stadtische Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf, Germany; Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, Belgium

1980
American Abstract Artists: The Early Years, Sid Deutsch Gallery, New York, NY; Telfair Academy, Savannah, GA; Cummer Gallery, Jacksonville, FL; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, TN; Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL; University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, VA; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
Geometric Tradition in American Painting: 1920–1980, Rosa Esman Gallery & Marilyn Pearl Gallery, New York, NY

1981
Decade of Transition: 1940–1950, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Amerikanishe Malerei: 1930–1980, Haus der Kunst, Munich, West Germany
Classic Americans: XX Century Painters & Sculptors, Museum and Nature Center, Stamford, CT
Ciba-Geigy: Aspects of Abstraction, Sewall Art Gallery, Rice University, Houston, TX

1982
The Americans: The Collage, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX
De Stijl: 1917–1931, Visions of Utopia, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Quilts & Collages: American Art in Pieces, Randolph-Macon Women’s College, Lynchburg, VA

1983
Abstract Painting and Sculpture in American 1927–1944, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Beyond the Plane: American Constructions 1930-1965, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ; The Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park MD
Yves Saint Laurent: 25 Years of Design, curated by Diana Vreeland, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

1985
Contrasts of Forms: Geometric Abstract Art 1910–1980, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

1987
Generations of Geometry: Abstract Painting in America Since 1930, Whitney Museum of American Art, Equitable Center, New York, NY
Progressive Geometric Abstraction in America, 1934–1955, Selections from the Peter B. Fischer
Collection, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY; Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, MA; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, IL; Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

1989
Abstraction-Geometry- Painting: Selected Geometric Abstract Painting in American Sine 1945, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, FL; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
The Patricia and Philip Frost Collection, American Abstraction, 1930–1945, National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC

1991
Burgoyne Diller and American Abstract Artists of the 1930s and 1940s, Meredith Long & Company, Houston, TX
Modern American Painting, 1925–1950, Snyder Fine Art, New York, NY
The Second Wave: American Abstraction of the 1930s and 1940s, Selections from the Penny and Elton Yasuna Collection, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA; Samuel P. Harn Museum, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
The Williamsburg Murals: A Rediscovery, The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

1992
Theme & Improvisation: Kandinsky & the American Avant-Garde, 1912–1950, Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, IL; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX

1993
Uses of Geometry: Then and Now, Snyder Fine Art, New York, NY

1994
On Paper: Abstraction in American Art, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY

1995
Collage: Made in America, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY

1996
American Modernism 1920–45, Crane-Kalman Gallery, London, England
Abstraction Across America: American Abstract Artists & Transcendentalists, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY
The Geometric Tradition in American Art, Meyerson & Nowinski Art Associates, Seattle, WA

1997
Geometric Abstraction, 1937–1997, Snyder Fine Art, New York, NY
The Geometric Tradition in American Art, Meyerson & Nowinski, Seattle, WA

1998
Defining the Edge: Early American Abstraction, Selections from the Collection of Dr. Peter B. Fischer, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY; Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA
Fifty Years of American Drawings, Danese Gallery, New York, NY
American Abstract Art of the 1930s and 1940s, The Donald J. Nichols Collection, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC
Twentieth Century American Drawings: From the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection, Arkansas Arts Center, Arkansas, AK; Sunrise Museum, Charleston, WV; Philharmonic Center for the Arts, Naples, FL; Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN; Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN; Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID
Sitting on the Edge: Modernist Design from the Collection of Michael and Gabrielle Boyd, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

1999
The American Century: Art and Culture 1900-2000, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Intimate Expressions: Two Centuries of American Drawings, Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA
American Modernism: The Francoise and Harvey Rambach Collection, Gerald Peters Gallery, New York, NY
Towards a New Century: Contemporary Art from the Permanent Collection, The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA

2000
Art of Our Century, Part II, The Appleton Museum of Art, Ocala, FL
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery: The First Decade, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY
Die Sammlung Erling Neby im Arithmeum (Geometric Constructivist Art from the Collection of Erling Neby), Bonn University, Bonn, Germany
Drawn Across the Century: Highlights from the Dillard Collection of Art on Paper, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC
In Depth: Recent Acquisitions in Prints, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Pasted Pictures: Collage and Abstraction in the Twentieth Century, Knoedler & Company, New York, NY
2000 Collector’s Show, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR

2001
Up on the Roof, New York Historical Society, New York, NY
1950-1965: Abstraction on Paper, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY
Gift to the Nation, Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies, Washington, DC
Selected Recent Acquisitions, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME

2002
Some Assemblage Required: Collage Culture in Post-War America, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; Madison Art Center, Madison, WI; Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, FL
Early American Abstraction: Small Scale – Large Dimension, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY
Residence of Ambassador Clifford Sobel, United States Department of State, Art in Embassies Program, The Netherlands

2003
The 1940s: Modern American Art & Design, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY
In Sequence, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY
Tracing the Sublime, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
Jazz Seen, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME
A Celebration of Creativity: Three Centuries of American Masterworks on Paper, The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA

2004
Beyond Geometry: Experiments in Form, 1940s-1970s, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
New Additions: Prints for an American Museum, Part II, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

2005
Dual Vision: The Simona and Jerome Chazen Collection, Museum of Arts & Design, New York, NY
American Abstraction, 1900–1960, Valerie Carberry Gallery, Chicago, IL

2006
Selections from the Pollock Works on Paper Study Collection, Meadows School of the Arts Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX
Société Anonyme: Modernism for America, Hammer Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
Drawings, Valerie Carberry Gallery, Chicago, IL
Lines of Discovery: 225 Years of American Drawings, The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA; Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK; Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI; Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AK

2009
Personal Geometry, Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York, NY

2010
The Shape of Abstraction, Boston University Art Gallery, Boston, MA
Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America, 1920s–1950s, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ

2011
Collage, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY

2012
Encounters with the 1930’s, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
…ON PAPER, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY
INsite/INchelsea: The Inaugural Exhibition, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY

2018
200 Jahre Unversität Bonn – 200 Werke aus der Sammlung Arithmeum, Arithmeum, University of Bonn, Bonn Germany
Celebrating 50 Years of the US Open Championships, United States Tennis Association (USTA) President’s Suite, Arthur Ashe Stadium, Flushing Meadows, NY

2019
Seeing America, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ

2020
Paper Power, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY

2022
Manhatta: City of Ambition, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY

1934 
Supervisor for Mural Painting, Emergency and Temporary Relief Administration (ERA), (TERA), NYC

1935-1940
Supervisor of the Mural Division of the WPA Federal Art Project, New York, NY

1939 
Liaison between the Federal Arts Project and The New York World's Fair

1940 
Assistant Technical Director of the WPA Federal Art Project in New York City

1941-1945
Director of the WPA New York City War Service Art Project

1946-1963
Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY