Richard Jordan: Final Painting

McLennon Pen Co. is pleased to present Final Painting, an exhibition of abstract paintings by Richard Jordan, on view from May 16 through June 14, 2026. Jordan, who passed away in August 2025, spent decades developing a singular body of work shaped by duration, revision, and sustained looking.

A longtime painter and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, Jordan created large-scale abstract paintings built through countless layers of oil paint, sometimes many inches thick. He regarded them as deeply personal and rarely showed them beyond a close circle of friends and colleagues.

Jordan was not, as artist and longtime friend Dan Sutherland has observed, “a person who executes a painting.” He often began with sensory recollections, for example the dappled light of a Gothic cathedral's stained glass, colored light moving through a grid or matrix—but the work evolved through looking, responding, and continual adjustment. A shift in one area could require changing everything else. Sutherland describes him as “feeling his way through it,” building and thinking with his hands. It is quite notable that his paintings often remained in progress for multiple years, sometimes stretching into nearly a decade.

That duration is palpable in the work. These paintings developed slowly, layer by layer, through accumulation rather than execution. Their surfaces hold the record of deep prolonged attention. They may never have been intended to become as materially weighty as they did. Difficult to place within a conventional career narrative, they remain, in Dan Sutherland’s words, “weird and stunning and beautiful.”

Jordan did not typically title his paintings. One work in the exhibition, completed near the end of his life, has come to be known by the estate as “Final Painting.” The assigned title may be practical rather than declarative, quietly marking its place within a lifetime of persistent inquiry.

The exhibition also draws from the larger field of materials surrounding Jordan’s practice: planning notebooks, diaries, and sketchbooks spanning nearly fifty years, which in another context might constitute an exhibition of their own. These works on paper reveal an artist continuously writing, reflecting, and thinking through the problems of painting. They are layered and idiosyncratic objects in their own right. Some function as planning notebooks, others as diaries, and others contain drawings alongside fragments of daily thought. Taken together, they make visible the extent to which writing and reflection were embedded in the process of painting itself.

Jordan’s paintings were shaped not only in the studio but within a particular domestic atmosphere. His home was layered with books, old wood furniture, French antiques, lamps, and African and Oceanic masks in the entryway. It was not a bright, open space but a rich, intimate interior where paintings lived among accumulated objects, memory, and habit.

For many, Jordan’s legacy also endures through teaching. Over more than four decades at the University of Texas at Austin, he profoundly affected generations of students. He could be demanding and frank, but he was real—an emotionally responsive presence who spoke with uncommon clarity about what was happening in a painting.

To encounter these works now is to encounter paintings that gather time. Rather than resolved statements, they remain records of searching—of perception tested, revised, and held open. Their presentation here offers the opportunity to experience work that continues to unfold in the present.

In honor of Richard Jordan’s life as a painter, teacher, and mentor, the Art Matters Foundation administers the Richard Jordan Fellowship. Through the sale of works in this exhibition, a portion of proceeds will support the fellowship, with the hope of extending grants to multiple artists. The fellowship provides financial support to emerging artists, continuing Jordan’s commitment to sustained artistic inquiry and mentorship. Those wishing to honor Jordan’s legacy may also make a tax-deductible contribution through Art Matters Foundation and dedicate their donation in his name.

For those who were unable to attend on May 21, a recording of our gallery panel discussion on Richard Jordan's life and work—featuring fellow artists, colleagues, and friends Sarah Canright, Dr Richard Shiff, and Dan Sutherland—is available to view on YouTube here.

If you would like further information or are interested in acquiring a work, please reach out to McLennon Pen Co. at info@mclennonpenco.com.