The green mountain boys

In American Art, a term referencing an informal association of modernist artists and the writer/critic, Clement Greenberg, in the 1970s centered in Bennington, Vermont at Bennington College. Artist participants were Isaac Witkin, Anthony Caro, Peter Stroud, Kenneth Noland, Paul Feeley and Jules Olitski. Olitski, Feeley, Stroud and Witkin were on the Bennington art faculty. Signaling independence and non-conformity in the style and materials of their abstract art, they borrowed the name from the armed bands in Colonial America of men led by Ethan Allen, who fought to prevent Vermont from becoming part of New York state. Sources: Ken Johnson, Witkin obituary, The New York Times, April 29, 2006, A11; http://www.bartleby.com/65/gr/GreenMtnB.html (LPD)