The lines of a mapmaker

Lee Mullican began his path far from the galleries of California, born in Chickasha, Oklahoma. His early years involved studies at Abilene Christian University, the University of Oklahoma, and the Kansas City Art Institute. The direction of his hand changed during World War II when he served as a topographical draughtsman for the United States Army. In places like Hawaii, Guam, and Japan, he spent hours recording shapes from aerial photographs. This work with maps and bird’s-eye perspectives left a mark on how he saw the earth. He learned to find patterns in the terrain, a habit that later moved into his canvases.

After the war, he moved to San Francisco in 1946. It was here that he met other artists like Wolfgang Paalen and Gordon Onslow Ford. Together, they formed the Dynaton group, a name taken from a 1951 exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This period was marked by an interest in things beyond the visible, drawing from Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, and the textures of Native American culture. He also studied printmaking with Stanley William Hayter at the California School of Fine Arts.

The texture of light

His method of painting was physical and precise. He did not use traditional brushes for everything; instead, he often applied paint with a printer's knife or a palette knife. This technique, which he called striation, involved building up the surface with fine, textured lines. The results were canvases that felt layered and luminous. His work often sat between the figurative and the abstract, suggesting cells, DNA strands, or cosmic energy fields without being strictly about any one thing.

The colors in his work often leaned toward bright yellows and sun-like tones. He looked for a way to capture both the outer space of the cosmos and the inner space of the mind. His paintings could feel rigid and linear, yet they held a sense of movement. Some pieces, like Luminous Loot or Agawam Triptych, used geometric patterns that reminded one of ancient textiles or pottery. He found a way to connect the scientific precision of his mapping days with the spiritual weight of the landscapes he studied.

A life in California and Taos

In 1959, a Guggenheim Fellowship allowed him to spend a year painting in Rome. Eventually, he settled into a long career in Los Angeles, joining the faculty of the UCLA Art Department in 1961, where he taught for nearly thirty years. His later years were split between his homes in Los Angeles and Taos, New Mexico. In Taos, the influence of the local landscape and indigenous arts remained present in his thoughts.

His work found its way into many permanent collections, including:

• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• San Francisco Museum of Art
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.

He died in 1998 in Santa Monica, California. He left behind a body of work that refused to follow the trends of the New York School, choosing instead to focus on his own specific, meditative way of seeing.