24.
Jack Whitten (American, 1939 - 2018)
Annunciation XVIII
1979
acrylic on canvas
Museums Collections, Gift of Paul R. Jones
Whitten made the grid that dominates this canvas using a serrated tool raked vertically and horizontally through dark pigments layered over light pigment.
In 1990, Whitten explained:
“I am a great believer in what Hans Hofmann [on view nearby] said about the
artist: Paint defines the light for the artist. If you’re a painter, that’s what you
rely upon – you rely upon the paint.…I found that by cutting through wet paint
I could reveal what was underneath, and by revealing what was underneath,
I extended the meaning of light in the painting…If I scratched through and
opened it up, it allowed the light from underneath to come through…That was
the first use of the concept of what I called ‘weaving the light.’” He also
explained that through experimentation he settled on using a small tool.
“I found that one-eighth of an inch did what I wanted to do – that at one-eighth
of an inch, opticality took place. At one-eighth of an inch, all the way across
the plane you’re going to get an intense opticality. And the opticalness was a
spiritual thing for me. I used to call it ‘vibration.’”
25.
Ilya Bolotowsky (American / b. Russia, 1907 - 1981)
Blue Diamond
1979
from the Four Images portfolio screenprint on paper
Museums Collections, Gift of Eugene Ivan Schuster
26.
Ilya Bolotowsky (American / b. Russia, 1907 - 1981)
Red Tondo
1979
from the Four Images portfolio
screenprint on paper
Museums Collections, Gift of Eugene Ivan Schuster
Crisp edges, flat color, and the emotional impact of red are some of the most striking features when encountering Red Tondo. Despite the print’s initial impression of simplicity, upon prolonged observation visual complications emerge—such as the decision to marry a circle with straight-edged details, the refusal of the stripes to become a logical grid, and the ambiguity between the white stripes and the paper itself. There is also an emerging sense of foreground and background in the overlapping color zones. The vibration of the colors, upon extended looking, highlights Bolotowsky’s concern for optical effects.
Red Tondo, like much of Bolotowsky’s work, is part of a tradition of geometric abstraction most commonly associated with Piet Mondrian and the term he coined in 1919, neo-plasticism. This is one of four prints in a portfolio, each featuring a different shape and dominant color, made during the waning years of Bolotowsky’s career. Gerald Johnson, Bolotowsky’s long-time friend, collaborator, and studio assistant, printed the portfolio.
27.
Sol LeWitt (American, 1928 - 2007)
Vertical Lines Not Straight Not Touching on Color
1991
Plate #01, Plate #02, Plate #03 top
Plate #04, Plate #05, Plate #06 bottom
set of six etchings (8/30) with color aquatint on paper
Museums Collections, Gift of Walter M. & Karla Goldschmidt
In the title of this series, LeWitt succinctly described the etched lines in these prints that are only noticeable upon close inspection. In LeWitt’s work, words and image are inextricably linked. The physical production of his work is dependent on instructions or verbal description.
The focus on the characteristics of the lines in this series was a return to a concept that LeWitt already explored in Wall Drawing #46 from 1970. Seriality and repetition were important ideas for LeWitt, and ideas were paramount over concerns for physical manifestation. A detached attitude toward production was part of LeWitt’s rejection of the gestural sense of the artist’s hand and emotional expression that were key components of Abstract Expressionism – a movement dominating the art world when he was an emerging artist.
Among the most famous conceptual artists, LeWitt was foundational in defining conceptual art in his writings, especially “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art” and “Sentences on Conceptual Art.”
“I will refer to the kind of art in which I am involved as conceptual art. In conceptual
art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist
uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are
made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a
machine that makes the art. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of
theories; it is intuitive, it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is
purposeless. It is usually free from the dependence on the skill of the artist as
craftsman. It is the objective of the artist who is concerned with conceptual art
to make his work mentally interesting to the spectator, and therefore usually he
would want it to become emotionally dry.”
-Sol LeWitt, from “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” 1967
28.
Felrath Hines (American, 1913 - 1993)
High Tech
1991
oil pastel on paper
Museums Collections, Gift of Dorothy C. Fisher, Artist’s Wife
This composition, like Hines’s Sentinel II (on view nearby), explores geometric abstraction with an emphasis on clean, precise lines and forms. Hines was deliberative in making the composition. The collections at University of Delaware include a study on graph paper for this work, which shows Hines’s plans for the lines and geometric arrangements. The visual impact of High Tech is softened by the mottled look of the pastel pigments. Creating such a meticulous geometric design using fundamentally soft pigments reveals a great deal of control over the materials.
A long-time art conservator, Hines was an expert when it came to art making processes and techniques. In the early 1970s he became chief conservator for the National Portrait Gallery and later for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. He was simultaneously an active practicing artist. In the 1960s he, along with Romare Bearden, Hale Woodruff (on view nearby), and several others, was a founding member of the African American artists’ group Spiral, organized in response to the Civil Rights Movement.
29.
Earl Hooks (American, 1927 - 2005)
Bust
1973
ceramic
Museums Collections, Gift of Paul R. Jones
30.
Felrath Hines (American, 1913 - 1993)
Sentinel II
1983
oil on linen
Museums Collections
Gift of Dorothy C. Fisher, Artist’s Wife
31.
Howardena Doreen Pindell (American, b. 1943)
Untitled #35
1974
mixed media
Museums Collections, Gift of Paul R. Jones
Pindell’s confetti-like composition was produced using paper circles from a hole punch. Even in her abstract art Pindell confronts sexism, racism, and injustice. The circle has a personal, racially charged association for Pindell. As a child in the 1950s she and her father visited a root beer stand in Kentucky where the mugs they were provided had circles on them. She recalls, “I asked my father, ‘What is this red circle?’ He said, ‘That’s because we’re black and we cannot use the same utensils as the whites.’ I realized that’s really the origin of my being driven to try to change the circle in my mind, trying to take the sting out of that.”
Pindell has made a tremendous impact on the art world as an artist, curator, teacher, and activist. After receiving her M.F.A. from Yale she embarked on a curatorial career at MoMA. Responding to her frustration as a black woman struggling to find a gallery that would show her own art, she and nineteen other women founded A.I.R. Gallery, still operating today. Later, she became a professor of art at SUNY Stony Brook, a position she still holds.
32.
Paul Klee (German, b. Switzerland, 1879 - 1940)
Garten der Leidenschaft (Garden of Passion)
1913
etching on paper
Museums Collections
33.
Quentin Morris (American, b. 1945)
Untitled L III
1989
offset lithograph on paper
Museums Collection, Gift of Brandywine Workshop, Philadelphia, PA
Morris is famous for his monochromatic, minimal compositions and for exploring the color black. He has been producing black paintings since the early 1960s. Morris is committed to investigating the visual richness and depth that can be achieved with different types of pigments, processes, and saturations of black. He also is interested in the range of cultural, symbolic, social and racial meanings associated with the color black.
This offset lithograph on Arches paper (the watermark is clearly visible at the lower right corner) demonstrates the subtleties that can be created using a black pigment. The saturation level of pigment is not even across the surface of the print. This leaves the white under-layer of pigment visible in places through the black, making the print appear atmospheric and modulated.
34.
Wassily Kandinsky (French, b. Russia, 1866 - 1944)
Kleine Welten I (Small Worlds I)
1922
color lithograph on paper
Museums Collections
