Frederick  Hammersley

Frederick Hammersley was born in 1919 in Salt Lake City, Utah. After spending part of his childhood in Idaho, his family moved to San Francisco, where he began taking art lessons. He studied at Idaho State University before enrolling at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1940. His training was interrupted by World War II, where he served as a graphic designer in the U.S. Army. In 1945, while stationed in Paris, he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and visited the studios of Picasso, Braque, and Brâncuși, experiences that would shape his early interest in abstraction. When he returned to Los Angeles, he finished his studies at Chouinard and then spent three years at the Jepson Art Institute, where structure, intuition, and design became central to his approach. Over his career, Hammersley also taught at institutions such as Pomona College and the University of New Mexico, helping to shape future generations of artists.

Hammersley balanced structure and intuition throughout his work. While best known for his hard-edged geometric paintings, his practice also included drawing, photography, collage, and early computer art. His geometric compositions were planned carefully in sketchbooks and painted with palette knives, deliberately avoiding shortcuts like tape to maintain control over the paint’s physicality. Many of his works carry quirky titles that offer a subtle invitation for viewers to engage with the pieces beyond their formal appearance, adding a layer of personality and humor to abstraction. 

In the late 1960s, Hammersley became one of the first artists to experiment with digital tools, creating hundreds of drawings using an IBM mainframe. These computer drawings were made by manually coding punch cards within strict technical limits, such as a limited character set and fixed grid size, which forced him to rethink composition in terms of pattern, repetition, and negative space. He worked within the constraints of early computer technology, using precise coding to generate complex patterns and forms, demonstrating an early integration of art and digital processes. These works connect directly to his paintings, continuing his exploration of form and spatial relationships in a new medium. Throughout his career, Hammersley kept detailed painting journals documenting every step of his process. These notes reveal how he refined his techniques and ideas over time, reflecting a disciplined approach to both craft and creative discovery.

His paintings are held in major public collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. He was featured in the landmark 1959 exhibition Four Abstract Classicists at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Hammersley passed away in 2009.