Exhibitions of works on paper can disappoint, often presenting thin line drawings or fragile watercolors. Not so with “Full Circle: Works on Paper by Richard Pousette-Dart,” a recently opened exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The works in this show are so full of color and heavy with materials that paper hardly seems strong enough. Others are airy, delicate and would look almost fragile except for the strength of the composition.

Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) used handmade paper as a base for every technique and medium imaginable. He used metal nib pens, ballpoint pens, graphite, transparent and opaque watercolor, crayon, oil paint, liquid wax, charcoal, colored ink, pastels, silver and gold metallic paint, and glitter paint—many of them at the same time. He often applied paint straight from the tube, in thick patches or heavy swatches. He scribbled, layered, dotted, scraped, blotted and used dark lines to draw geometric figures on top.

“Garnet Realm,” 1941-1943, recently acquired by the museum, would almost resemble stained glass, with tiny fragments of color carefully placed side-by-side, except for dark black lines painted over the fragments. Another painting, “Ionizations III,” 1944, has similar stained glass elements except that they are covered with dark colored ink, poured and allowed to drip. It is said that Pousette-Dart was making “drip” paintings before Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock.

In the 1960s, Pousette-Dart turned from lines to dots, using optical color mixture in a way that is similar to pointillism. One of his works from the 1960s, “Violet Garden,” looks something like a Persian rug. To make it, he layered oil paint over opaque watercolor, added gold metallic paint and used ballpoint pen to outline pattern.

In the 1970s, Pousette-Dart banished color from his palette, limiting his compositions to black and white. He wrote in one of his notebooks, “black and white is the guts of all color.” Lines and shapes reappeared in his work, and he used them to create “implosions” and mystical compositions. “Beyond the Moon” (1990) uses graphite, acrylic paint and charcoal to transport the viewer to a galaxy far, far away.

Counted among the Abstract Expressionists, Pousette-Dart is not nearly as well known as Pollock, Mark Rothko or Barnett Newman. The son of a painter father and musician mother, he attended Bard College for one year but dropped out to develop his own artistic sensibility. His work has been featured in many solo exhibitions, including shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

This exhibition, which contains sixty-five artworks and six of the artist’s notebooks, is arranged chronologically and includes examples from every stage of his career. A small, simply-designed black and white watercolor of a fish and bird, an early work from the 1930s, greets visitors near the exhibition entrance. At the end of the show, in a glass cabinet, is another small work, this one a late-piece made just before Pousette-Dart died. This drawing, titled “Magic Fish and Bird,” is a stylized version of his earlier drawing, with oil paint over graphite and opaque watercolor in blue, green, and violet jewel tones. Indeed, his endless creative experimentation brought his career full circle.

Full Circle: Works on Paper by Richard Pousette-Dart, on view through November 30, 2014, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA, 215-763-8100, www.philamuseum.org

More information about Ms. Saul’s work can be found at www.pissarrosplaces.com and www.artbookannex.com .