Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming Robert Ryman catalogue raisonné being prepared by David Gray, under number 1961.033.
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Property from a Distinguished International Collection
ROBERT RYMAN (1930-2019)
Untitled
Details
ROBERT RYMAN (1930-2019)
Untitled
signed twice 'Ryman Ryman' (lower center); signed again 'Ryman' (on the overlap)
oil on linen
68 5/8 x 68 ¾ in. (174.3 x 174.6 cm.)
Painted circa 1961-1963.
Untitled
signed twice 'Ryman Ryman' (lower center); signed again 'Ryman' (on the overlap)
oil on linen
68 5/8 x 68 ¾ in. (174.3 x 174.6 cm.)
Painted circa 1961-1963.
Provenance
PaceWildenstein Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2001
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2001
Literature
J. Meinhardt, "Robert Ryman Retrospektive: Haus der Kunst, München; Kunstmuseum Bonn," Kunstforum International, no. 154, April-May 2001, p. 432 (illustrated with image reversed).
N. Matthiss, Robert Ryman Realisms; Oder: Was ist ein Bild?, Taunusstein, 2004, pp. 78-79 (illustrated with image reversed).
U. Raussmüller and C. Sauer, eds., Ryman Paintings and Ryman Exhibitions, Basel, 2006, p. 67 (illustrated).
C. Turner, "Artists in Residence," Apollo Magazine, vol. 189, no. 675, May 2019, p. 54.
N. Matthiss, Robert Ryman Realisms; Oder: Was ist ein Bild?, Taunusstein, 2004, pp. 78-79 (illustrated with image reversed).
U. Raussmüller and C. Sauer, eds., Ryman Paintings and Ryman Exhibitions, Basel, 2006, p. 67 (illustrated).
C. Turner, "Artists in Residence," Apollo Magazine, vol. 189, no. 675, May 2019, p. 54.
Exhibited
Munich, Haus der Kunst, Robert Ryman Retrospektive mit Räumenn von Ariane Epars, Clay Ketter, Albert Weis und Beat Zoderer, December 2000-February 2001, pp. 30 and 172 (illustrated with image reversed).
New York, David Zwirner, Robert Ryman: 1961-1964, November 2023-February 2024.
New York, David Zwirner, Robert Ryman: 1961-1964, November 2023-February 2024.
Further Details
“The poetry of painting has to do with feeling...It should be a kind of revelation, even a reverent experience. If you can tune in to the frequency of what you are experiencing, you come away feeling very good, you feel sustained.” Robert Ryman
Painted in the early years of the 1960s, Robert Ryman’s Untitled is an epic example of the artist’s innovative explorations into the emotive qualities of paint. Rejecting the flat colorful bravado of Pop Art that was beginning to take the art world by storm, Ryman’s paintings are quiet, considered essays on the beauty, essence and expressive nature of the medium that has sustained artists for centuries. Eschewing the figurative traditions of painting (replicating the color, appearance, and form of the physical world), Ryman concentrates instead on the metaphysical nature of the brushstrokes themselves, and the power and meaning of their physical presence on the surface of the canvas. In this he stands as a forebearer of Minimalism, the extreme form of abstraction that aims to expose the essential qualities of its subject through the elimination of all non-essential forms or concepts. For Ryman, his paintings are intellectual exercises in the fundamentals of art, the result of which are beautiful and sublime canvases that enrich the soul.
Across the expanse of Untitled, Ryman displays an intoxicating fusion of mark making; from a substantial border of smooth matte pigment that defines the external boundaries of the picture plane, to the peaks of dramatic impasto that populate the interior, the range and complexity of Ryman’s brushwork is extensive. In this particular example, the artist’s paint applications populate the entire surface of the painting. Unlike many other examples of his work, where he leaves substantial areas of raw canvas exposed, in the present work the painted mark dominates; only in a few areas, between schisms of paint, do we catch brief glimpses of raw canvas itself. This, together with snatched glimpses of earlier painted layers visible at the perimeters of the painterly fractures, adds a frisson of intrigue and excitement which necessitates prolonged and extensive viewing of the Ryman’s highly active surface.
Although predominantly working with white paint throughout his career, in the early 1960s, Ryman introduced limited elements of color into his work. In Untitled, these range from vivid blues, verdant greens, searing ochers, and warm umbers, and together with the peaks and valleys of impasto they create an opulent and diverse texture in which light and shadow tussle for attention and make the surface of the work dance with visual delight. In discussing his work from this period, Ryman once recalled, “I found that I was eliminating a lot. I would put the color down, then paint over it, trying to get down a few crucial elements. It was like erasing something to put white over it” (R. Ryman quoted in N. Grimes, “White Magic,” Art News, Summer 1986, p.90).
Unlike Claude Monet, who used varying shades of white paint to investigate the optical qualities of winter light as it fell on his beloved grainstacks or the façade of Rouen Cathedral, Ryman was more invested in the paint as a structural element of his art rather than a visual one. "I'm not interested in white as a color, although I have at times used different whites for different purposes. Sometimes I used warm white because I wanted to have a warm absorbing light. At other times I've used colder white...it has to do with light - softness, hardness, reflection and movement - all these things...I don't think of myself as making white paintings. I make paintings; I'm a painter. White paint is my medium" (Robert Ryman, quoted in R. Storr, Robert Ryman, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1993, p. 17).
“In paintings someone uses landscape, or still life, or figures, but that’s really something just to begin the paintings with. The painting itself is the image. Always.” Robert Ryman
In relation to this, another important aspect of Untitled, and something which speaks to the importance of this work within the artist’s oeuvre, is Ryman’s inclusion of painted turning edges. While artist’s such as Cy Twombly also sought to celebrate the act of mark-making on a painted surface, Ryman went a step further and signified the importance of the support as an integral part of his work—in the case of the present work by including the turning edges as an important part of his painted object. Thus, Ryman ‘sees an image’ not just in the planer composition, but also in the painting’s material structure, something which this work embodies with rare elegance and grace. “Yes, it’s very true, there is an image, the image is the paint, the procedure, the brush, the way the painting is done—this is actually the image. The size of it, the thickness, the type of paint, all these things become image as soon as it is put on the wall: then it becomes an object, an image. If you mean an image like a figure or a landscape, or something like that—well, then, no, of course. That isn’t there, but these things are never the image, I mean, the image we are talking about. In paintings someone uses landscape, or still life, or figures, but that’s really something just to begin the paintings with. The painting itself is the image. Always” (R. Ryman, “Interview, New York 1972,” in A. B. Oliva, Encyclopedia of the Word: Artist Conversations, 1968-2008, Milan, 2010, pp. 110-112).
An element that also recurs during this era is the artist’s expressive use of his signature. In the present work, Ryman repeats the signature “RYMAN” twice in the painting’s lower register. Several other works from this period display a similar inventive treatment of the signature, in which Ryman plays with the formal qualities of the word. In Untitled, both signatures are almost subsumed by the white expanse of pigment along the painting’s edge. Ryman’s critics have compared his use of text to Picasso’s early cubist collages that incorporated newsprint, in which the lettering provides a sort of formal playfulness while also providing the literal support upon which the painting is created. While Picasso’s collages problematized the figure/ground relationship, for Ryman, neither figure nor ground is privileged—both are given equal painterly consideration.
Unafraid to challenge and confront artistic conventions that have endured for centuries, Ryman developed an entirely new language for the production of, and understanding of art. Freed from the need for the viewer to suspend their disbelief, as required by illusionistic—and even abstract—art, the viewer’s attention is rewarded by a communion with the painting on actual, real-world terms, and in the right conditions, to view a work by Ryman is an energizing and mindful pleasure. There is no great mystery to the meaning of his art. “The poetry of painting has to do with feeling”, he said. “It should be a kind of revelation, even a reverent experience. If you can tune in to the frequency of what you are experiencing, you come away feeling very good, you feel sustained” (R. Ryman, quoted in M. Poirier and J. Necol, “The ’60s in Abstract: 13 Statements and an Essay”, Art in America, October 1983, p. 124).
Painted in the early years of the 1960s, Robert Ryman’s Untitled is an epic example of the artist’s innovative explorations into the emotive qualities of paint. Rejecting the flat colorful bravado of Pop Art that was beginning to take the art world by storm, Ryman’s paintings are quiet, considered essays on the beauty, essence and expressive nature of the medium that has sustained artists for centuries. Eschewing the figurative traditions of painting (replicating the color, appearance, and form of the physical world), Ryman concentrates instead on the metaphysical nature of the brushstrokes themselves, and the power and meaning of their physical presence on the surface of the canvas. In this he stands as a forebearer of Minimalism, the extreme form of abstraction that aims to expose the essential qualities of its subject through the elimination of all non-essential forms or concepts. For Ryman, his paintings are intellectual exercises in the fundamentals of art, the result of which are beautiful and sublime canvases that enrich the soul.
Across the expanse of Untitled, Ryman displays an intoxicating fusion of mark making; from a substantial border of smooth matte pigment that defines the external boundaries of the picture plane, to the peaks of dramatic impasto that populate the interior, the range and complexity of Ryman’s brushwork is extensive. In this particular example, the artist’s paint applications populate the entire surface of the painting. Unlike many other examples of his work, where he leaves substantial areas of raw canvas exposed, in the present work the painted mark dominates; only in a few areas, between schisms of paint, do we catch brief glimpses of raw canvas itself. This, together with snatched glimpses of earlier painted layers visible at the perimeters of the painterly fractures, adds a frisson of intrigue and excitement which necessitates prolonged and extensive viewing of the Ryman’s highly active surface.
Although predominantly working with white paint throughout his career, in the early 1960s, Ryman introduced limited elements of color into his work. In Untitled, these range from vivid blues, verdant greens, searing ochers, and warm umbers, and together with the peaks and valleys of impasto they create an opulent and diverse texture in which light and shadow tussle for attention and make the surface of the work dance with visual delight. In discussing his work from this period, Ryman once recalled, “I found that I was eliminating a lot. I would put the color down, then paint over it, trying to get down a few crucial elements. It was like erasing something to put white over it” (R. Ryman quoted in N. Grimes, “White Magic,” Art News, Summer 1986, p.90).
Unlike Claude Monet, who used varying shades of white paint to investigate the optical qualities of winter light as it fell on his beloved grainstacks or the façade of Rouen Cathedral, Ryman was more invested in the paint as a structural element of his art rather than a visual one. "I'm not interested in white as a color, although I have at times used different whites for different purposes. Sometimes I used warm white because I wanted to have a warm absorbing light. At other times I've used colder white...it has to do with light - softness, hardness, reflection and movement - all these things...I don't think of myself as making white paintings. I make paintings; I'm a painter. White paint is my medium" (Robert Ryman, quoted in R. Storr, Robert Ryman, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1993, p. 17).
“In paintings someone uses landscape, or still life, or figures, but that’s really something just to begin the paintings with. The painting itself is the image. Always.” Robert Ryman
In relation to this, another important aspect of Untitled, and something which speaks to the importance of this work within the artist’s oeuvre, is Ryman’s inclusion of painted turning edges. While artist’s such as Cy Twombly also sought to celebrate the act of mark-making on a painted surface, Ryman went a step further and signified the importance of the support as an integral part of his work—in the case of the present work by including the turning edges as an important part of his painted object. Thus, Ryman ‘sees an image’ not just in the planer composition, but also in the painting’s material structure, something which this work embodies with rare elegance and grace. “Yes, it’s very true, there is an image, the image is the paint, the procedure, the brush, the way the painting is done—this is actually the image. The size of it, the thickness, the type of paint, all these things become image as soon as it is put on the wall: then it becomes an object, an image. If you mean an image like a figure or a landscape, or something like that—well, then, no, of course. That isn’t there, but these things are never the image, I mean, the image we are talking about. In paintings someone uses landscape, or still life, or figures, but that’s really something just to begin the paintings with. The painting itself is the image. Always” (R. Ryman, “Interview, New York 1972,” in A. B. Oliva, Encyclopedia of the Word: Artist Conversations, 1968-2008, Milan, 2010, pp. 110-112).
An element that also recurs during this era is the artist’s expressive use of his signature. In the present work, Ryman repeats the signature “RYMAN” twice in the painting’s lower register. Several other works from this period display a similar inventive treatment of the signature, in which Ryman plays with the formal qualities of the word. In Untitled, both signatures are almost subsumed by the white expanse of pigment along the painting’s edge. Ryman’s critics have compared his use of text to Picasso’s early cubist collages that incorporated newsprint, in which the lettering provides a sort of formal playfulness while also providing the literal support upon which the painting is created. While Picasso’s collages problematized the figure/ground relationship, for Ryman, neither figure nor ground is privileged—both are given equal painterly consideration.
Unafraid to challenge and confront artistic conventions that have endured for centuries, Ryman developed an entirely new language for the production of, and understanding of art. Freed from the need for the viewer to suspend their disbelief, as required by illusionistic—and even abstract—art, the viewer’s attention is rewarded by a communion with the painting on actual, real-world terms, and in the right conditions, to view a work by Ryman is an energizing and mindful pleasure. There is no great mystery to the meaning of his art. “The poetry of painting has to do with feeling”, he said. “It should be a kind of revelation, even a reverent experience. If you can tune in to the frequency of what you are experiencing, you come away feeling very good, you feel sustained” (R. Ryman, quoted in M. Poirier and J. Necol, “The ’60s in Abstract: 13 Statements and an Essay”, Art in America, October 1983, p. 124).
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