Syncopation, acrylic on shaped canvas, 2025, 17 x 37″
Mokha Laget and the legacy of the Washington Color School
Mokha Laget is having a moment. With a major show at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, a feature in the Amarillo Museum of Art’s Biennial, and a work acquired by the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (pictured below), Laget’s career of minimal abstraction as an evolution of the Washington Color School legacy is receiving well-deserved recognition.
Abacus, flashe on shaped canvas, 2017, 50 x 110″ (acquired by the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art)
The artist’s signature shaped canvases intensify this exploration of perceptual drift. With curved and beveled edges, ambiguous perspective, and precise use of color, these works resist the stability of the conventional frame. They recede and protrude, hover and tilt—activating the wall with architectural tension and optical play. Some introduce open, portal-like voids; others push outward with sculptural insistence, creating a rhythm that is both formal and felt.
The Washington Color School emerged in Washington DC in the late 1950s as part of the broader Color Field movement. Reacting against the emotional intensity and heavy brushwork of Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock, these artists emphasized minimalism, clarity, and the expressive power of pure color.
Capriccio #60, acrylic gouache on primed linen canvas, 2020, 20 x 16″
The movement gained prominence after the 1965 exhibition Washington Color Painters, organized by critic Clement Greenberg at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art. Artists such as Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland adopted the soak-stain technique developed by Helen Frankenthaler, pouring thinned paint onto unprimed canvas to create luminous color fields.
Mokha Laget in Gene Davis’ studio in 1982, courtesy of American University
Other key figures included Gene Davis and Sam Gilliam. Together, they helped establish Washington DC as a major center of postwar American abstraction. Mokha Laget held the prestigious role of being Gene Davis’ studio assistant, who was a mentor in the development of her own work. Laget expanded the lineage of the Washington Color School into the 21st century, being only one of few women including Anne Truite and Alma Thomas to do so. A fantastic and important exhibition including all of these artists in the history of the Washington Color School is on display now at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art until April 12.
Mokha Laget’s piece Solar Offset (2023) on display at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Mokha Laget’s exhibition Elemental Drift at Turner Carroll Gallery last summer was a major success, and we can’t wait to see what else the artist achieves. Laget will unveil a mural commissioned by the Taubman Museum in Roanoke, Virginia this April, already starting 2026 off strong. We are pleased to offer Mokha Laget’s work in person and on our website, which you may view and purchase here. Mokha’s print and lithograph work from across her career is also available through the Landfall Press Print Center, where she worked with master printer Jack Lemon for many years.
Off the Grid portfolio of 7 lithographs produced at Landfall Press in 2016
Author: Sophie Carroll