Kenneth Noland
Born 1924
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First gaining notice in the late 1950s, Kenneth Noland was a member of the group of Color Field abstract painters promoted by New York Times critic, Clement Greenberg. Noland began with a series of luminous, stained canvases of concentric circles, and focused on the center of the picture, which he regarded as symbolizing all possibilities and the specific genius of the work. With his concentric circles surrounding the "bulls eye," he combined a staining method that softened the acrylic paint of the center but gave the effect of reinforcing or echoing it.
In the next 40 years, he experimented with shaped canvases, stripe paintings, and chevrons, always remaining true to his idea of relying on color as his primary vehicle. In the 1990s, he seemed to have gone full "circle," back to the concentric shapes of his early work.
In a New York Times review by Grace Glueck, September 6, 2002, Noland stated: "I do not like representation in painting."
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Kenneth Noland was born on April 10, 1924 in Asheville, North Carolina; his father was an amateur painter. He studied with Abstractionists Ilya Bolotowsky and Josef Albers at Black Mountain College. He was a member of the group of Color Field abstract painters promoted by the New York Times critic, Clement Greenberg. He taught at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. and at Bennington College.
He rarely painted on canvases smaller than 4 ft. by 4 ft. His choices range from mural size to mere slivers, from having the standard four sides to irregularly shaped profiles, from stained surfaces to thickly textured ones. Yet he did not want machinelike perfection; he deliberately left the splatter of orange on yellow in one of his paintings. He dared to parallel magenta, russet, beige and maroon and other combinations of color in a lollipop war of taste. His most striking contribution to the art of the 1960s was his mastery of color.
Noland and his wife, art historian Peggy Schiffer, lived north of Manhattan in a large, white, clapboard house with spreading grounds and a sculpture garden. He worked in a red barn on the property. He redesigned the space to make room for many related activities, among them the rag paper he made by hand in the basement.
Written and submitted by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher from Laguna Woods, California.
Source: AskArt.com |
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