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Lot Essay
“I would begin by putting down a lot of color and then it was always a matter of taking out, painting out the color; painting out the painting to where I ended up with very little color left… And then at one point, I just decided: Well, I'm putting this color down, and I'm really not that interested in the color that I'm putting down. I'm only doing it because somehow being a painter I should use color. But here I am painting it out, so why not get this down a little stronger and not put the color on in the first place?”
- Robert Ryman
In this intimate example of Robert Ryman’s oeuvre, rich swaths of luscious white pigment that culminate in delicate wisps of peaked paint beautifully convey the artist’s methodical concentration on the nature of his medium. The square canvas is populated with a magnificent blurring of white brushstrokes; it is possible to make out the undulating waves where the oil paint swirled under Ryman’s brush, the faint shadows cast along crevices in the thick impasto, and the bright, electric highlight of the white paint deftly sculpted across the surface of the canvas. The tiers of paint range from this rich density to thinner dustings of white pigment, a tension that packs the small canvas with a considered dynamism, magnified by the under layer of burnished sienna just visible in patches along the edges of the modeled white paint. Location is testament to Ryman’s career-long dedication to material manifested in intimate, scrupulous, and gracefully soft pieces. The work is a meditation bridging artist and his form. Above all, Location can be viewed as a willful inquiry into the capacities and qualities of oil paint on canvas, a rumination that Ryman never exhausted from his earliest days starting out as a painter in New York City.
Ryman is most known for his clever and consistent employment of the color white. Irrespective of medium, the color remains a constant, underscoring that the artist sees his work as less concerned with the visual punchiness that might derive from a bright or provocative color palette and more invested in the structural qualities of the material itself. Indeed, for Ryman the fact of the white paint remained irrelevant: the work was never about the white, which served only as a vehicle to underscore the quality of the material itself. In eliminating both the choice of color, and that of figuration, Ryman established an artistic space where the material was primary, and the artwork derived from its investigation.
In sharp contrast to the emotive sweeps of Abstract Expressionism, Ryman’s canvases align themselves more closely with the careful and studied questioning of materiality that art historians would come to associate with the Minimalism of the 1960s. Ryman himself referred to his art as ‘realism’—the distillation of a practice down to its most basic gesture. Ryman never had any formal training in painting, a caveat that perhaps allowed him the liberty to be so enchanted with the medium itself. His paintings are pure in their effort to isolate and refine the practice of painting, and it is ultimately this that is on display in Location. The artist described his early practice: “I would begin by putting down a lot of color and then it was always a matter of taking out, painting out the color; painting out the painting to where I ended up with very little color left… And then at one point, I just decided: Well, I'm putting this color down, and I'm really not that interested in the color that I'm putting down. I'm only doing it because somehow being a painter I should use color. But here I am painting it out, so why not get this down a little stronger and not put the color on in the first place?” (R. Ryman, quoted by Paul Cummings, “Oral History Interview with Robert Ryman,” The Smithsonian Archives of American Art, October 13- November 7, 1972). This marked shift of beginning only with white transformed his work, paving the way for the color, too, to be eliminated as superfluous to the material of the paint itself.
After a brief period in the army, Ryman moved to New York City in 1952 with every intention of working as a jazz saxophonist. He quickly began experimenting with paint, however, finding novel pleasure in learning the subtle ways that oil tracks the curiosity of the artist’s hand. When the money he’d brought to New York dwindled, Ryman took a job as a gallery attendant at the Museum of Modern Art. The position as a museum docent was formative. Working in the galleries alongside fellow museum employees turned artists Sol LeWitt and Dan Flavin, Ryman began to develop a sharper attention for the medium of works of art, an attention that echoes throughout his prolific career and that is actively visible in a piece such as Location. He absorbed the masterpieces hanging around him, but developed his own artistic preoccupations.
The white paintings—inquisitive, gentle, and sweeping—have become synonymous with Robert Ryman. Rigorous studies in the act of making, works like Location reward the diligent observer and the close looker. They promote a fastidious examination of physical surfaces, elevating the materials and the method far above the concept of the piece. The result is something that constantly reminds the viewer not only of the man who created the object, but also of the very objecthood of the thing hanging before her. Looking at the careful dabs of paint that construct the dynamic surface of Location, the viewer is conscious of not only a hand, but also a wrist, and a tube of paint. It is in this way that Ryman creates self-conscious works of art, extending beyond themselves to conjure an imagistic awareness of the processes that led to their very creation.
Location radiates vibrant light. The white paint is spread across the stretched canvas in a loving impasto, one that holds no traces of a young artist merely experimenting with material but reads more as coming from a practiced man, ever curious about the qualities of his preferred medium. The edges of the canvas remain raw, highlighting the potency of the white paint. Ryman painted it thick—layered and complex, and the paint has miraculously kept its depth. The highest ridges where Ryman coaxed the paint off the canvas provide distinct edges to the work. There is energy in the thickly coated paint, but the painting is nevertheless delicate, one more attentive rumination made by an artist committed to making through musing.
- Robert Ryman
In this intimate example of Robert Ryman’s oeuvre, rich swaths of luscious white pigment that culminate in delicate wisps of peaked paint beautifully convey the artist’s methodical concentration on the nature of his medium. The square canvas is populated with a magnificent blurring of white brushstrokes; it is possible to make out the undulating waves where the oil paint swirled under Ryman’s brush, the faint shadows cast along crevices in the thick impasto, and the bright, electric highlight of the white paint deftly sculpted across the surface of the canvas. The tiers of paint range from this rich density to thinner dustings of white pigment, a tension that packs the small canvas with a considered dynamism, magnified by the under layer of burnished sienna just visible in patches along the edges of the modeled white paint. Location is testament to Ryman’s career-long dedication to material manifested in intimate, scrupulous, and gracefully soft pieces. The work is a meditation bridging artist and his form. Above all, Location can be viewed as a willful inquiry into the capacities and qualities of oil paint on canvas, a rumination that Ryman never exhausted from his earliest days starting out as a painter in New York City.
Ryman is most known for his clever and consistent employment of the color white. Irrespective of medium, the color remains a constant, underscoring that the artist sees his work as less concerned with the visual punchiness that might derive from a bright or provocative color palette and more invested in the structural qualities of the material itself. Indeed, for Ryman the fact of the white paint remained irrelevant: the work was never about the white, which served only as a vehicle to underscore the quality of the material itself. In eliminating both the choice of color, and that of figuration, Ryman established an artistic space where the material was primary, and the artwork derived from its investigation.
In sharp contrast to the emotive sweeps of Abstract Expressionism, Ryman’s canvases align themselves more closely with the careful and studied questioning of materiality that art historians would come to associate with the Minimalism of the 1960s. Ryman himself referred to his art as ‘realism’—the distillation of a practice down to its most basic gesture. Ryman never had any formal training in painting, a caveat that perhaps allowed him the liberty to be so enchanted with the medium itself. His paintings are pure in their effort to isolate and refine the practice of painting, and it is ultimately this that is on display in Location. The artist described his early practice: “I would begin by putting down a lot of color and then it was always a matter of taking out, painting out the color; painting out the painting to where I ended up with very little color left… And then at one point, I just decided: Well, I'm putting this color down, and I'm really not that interested in the color that I'm putting down. I'm only doing it because somehow being a painter I should use color. But here I am painting it out, so why not get this down a little stronger and not put the color on in the first place?” (R. Ryman, quoted by Paul Cummings, “Oral History Interview with Robert Ryman,” The Smithsonian Archives of American Art, October 13- November 7, 1972). This marked shift of beginning only with white transformed his work, paving the way for the color, too, to be eliminated as superfluous to the material of the paint itself.
After a brief period in the army, Ryman moved to New York City in 1952 with every intention of working as a jazz saxophonist. He quickly began experimenting with paint, however, finding novel pleasure in learning the subtle ways that oil tracks the curiosity of the artist’s hand. When the money he’d brought to New York dwindled, Ryman took a job as a gallery attendant at the Museum of Modern Art. The position as a museum docent was formative. Working in the galleries alongside fellow museum employees turned artists Sol LeWitt and Dan Flavin, Ryman began to develop a sharper attention for the medium of works of art, an attention that echoes throughout his prolific career and that is actively visible in a piece such as Location. He absorbed the masterpieces hanging around him, but developed his own artistic preoccupations.
The white paintings—inquisitive, gentle, and sweeping—have become synonymous with Robert Ryman. Rigorous studies in the act of making, works like Location reward the diligent observer and the close looker. They promote a fastidious examination of physical surfaces, elevating the materials and the method far above the concept of the piece. The result is something that constantly reminds the viewer not only of the man who created the object, but also of the very objecthood of the thing hanging before her. Looking at the careful dabs of paint that construct the dynamic surface of Location, the viewer is conscious of not only a hand, but also a wrist, and a tube of paint. It is in this way that Ryman creates self-conscious works of art, extending beyond themselves to conjure an imagistic awareness of the processes that led to their very creation.
Location radiates vibrant light. The white paint is spread across the stretched canvas in a loving impasto, one that holds no traces of a young artist merely experimenting with material but reads more as coming from a practiced man, ever curious about the qualities of his preferred medium. The edges of the canvas remain raw, highlighting the potency of the white paint. Ryman painted it thick—layered and complex, and the paint has miraculously kept its depth. The highest ridges where Ryman coaxed the paint off the canvas provide distinct edges to the work. There is energy in the thickly coated paint, but the painting is nevertheless delicate, one more attentive rumination made by an artist committed to making through musing.