Dugmore, an Abstract Expressionist artist who was closely aligned with both the San Francisco and New York Post War art worlds, executed large-scale works that placed a premium on color and emotion over intellect and tradition. Dugmore took cues from nature in his large color field canvas’ evoking geological strata, minerals, and landscapes. While Red-Green is oil on canvas, Dugmore, who was a close personal contemporary of such iconic artists as Pollock, Kline, and de Kooning, worked freely in a range of mediums from oil on canvas to watercolor, ink, and acrylic on paper. Dugmore’s art was largely spontaneous and uninhibited.

A first-generation Abstract Expressionist artist, Dugmore studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1940 and then, taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, under Clyfford Still at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco after the war. Still had a great influence on the development of Dugmore’s art. Ernest Briggs was one of his fellow students at the time and would become a lifelong friend. Dugmore was considered by some to be “the West Coast’s answer” to the Abstract Expressionist movement, firmly rooted in New York City. In the early 1950s Dugmore returned to New York where he became an influential member of the Abstract Expressionist painters. In the 1960s began spending his summers painting in Washington, ME. Drawing inspiration from the natural landscape of the Northwest. Dugmore spent time in Colorado and Montana as well and found that the landscape of the American West had a profound impact on his painting.