Untitled
9 x 12 inchesUntitled, 1973
paper: 9 x 12 inches
Edition of 300
Signed with signature stamp in blue ink and numbered in pencil verso.
Stamped on verso "© Copyright 1973 By Kenneth Noland Printed At Styria Studio"
Printer Styria Studio Publisher Experiments in Art & Technology
Museum Collections
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Kenneth Noland was one of the best-known American Color Field painters, helping to establish the Washington Color School movement. In 1977, he was honored by a major retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York that then traveled to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. and Ohio's Toledo Museum of Art in 1978.
KENNETH NOLAND STRIPES
Kenneth Noland was one of the best-known American Color Field painters, helping to establish the Washington Color School movement. In 1977, he was honored by a major retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York that then traveled to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. and Ohio's Toledo Museum of Art in 1978.
Untitled, 1973 is one of a series of horizontal stripe images that Kenneth Noland began in 1967. Prior to this series of works, Noland applied color bands in various geometric motifs—including concentric circles and chevrons, or triangles, on square canvases. Eventually he began to experiment with irregularly and asymmetrically shaped canvases, which allowed him to eliminate unneeded extra canvas if he used traditional canvas shapes. Ultimately, however, he came to regard these random geometric forms as detracting from his desire to emphasize only color as subject matter. Noland’s search for a more neutral shape led him back to the rectangular canvas format. Many of the works in this series are rather large and almost double in length than width, enveloping the viewer.
The work is composed entirely of horizontal bands of muted varied colors, the stripes carry the viewer’s eyes back and forth across the surface. Using only the color stripe, Noland conveys optical movement, giving the impression that the color could continue indefinitely.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York