Jules Olitski, 84; artist was a central figure in color field painting

Jules Olitski, 84, an American artist who rose to prominence in the 1960s as part of the art movement known as color field painting, died Sunday of complications from cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

Olitski eliminated brushstrokes from his work by using stains and a spray gun to paint large canvases with delicate mists of brightly hued colors. The results were flat, one-dimensional pieces that, reviewers said, gave a sense of continuation beyond the borders of the paintings.

Championed by art critic Clement Greenberg, Olitski gained popularity among the second generation of abstract expressionists.

In 1966, Olitski, Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein and Ellsworth Kelly were selected to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale contemporary art exhibition.

The next year, Olitski had his first solo museum exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which awarded him the Corcoran Gold Medal and the William A.C. Clark Prize.

Olitski was born in Ukraine and grew up in New York City. He studied art in New York at the National Academy School of Fine Arts and the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design.