Ad Reinhardt
1913-1967
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Born in Buffalo, New York, Ad Reinhardt was an early exponent of Minimal Art and a prominent figure in the New York contemporary art scene. His commitment to painting was purely to the process of painting, and he is best remembered for his all-black, large-scale paintings of the 1960s.
Reinhardt has been described as the first important American painter who was an abstractionist from beginning to end. He was known for his humorous, actually hilarious, swipes at the art world such as his dismissal of Thomas Hart Benton as an 'inconsequential ear of corn' and Jackson Pollock as an 'obscure leaf on the tree of art', etc. Not surprisingly, Reinhardt was a controversial figure. Other examples of his making fun of his contemporary artists can be found in his own semi-facetious chronology of his life which lists "1938 - Listens to neighbor Stuart Davis' loud ragtime jazz records, looks at his loud colored shirts on clotheslines... 1939 - Disagrees with Matta about importance in art of artists rubbing against sweaty people in subway rush hours."
Before the early 1950s the career of Ad Reinhardt was a long process of emptying out elements from his art. His first nearly monochromatic paintings were blue or red; then beginning in 1954 he painted nothing but black paintings. Both his life and work lead up to these great pictures, his "ultimates," as he called them.
As a young man, Ad Reinhardt studied art history at Columbia University where he edited the humor magazine and wrestled. He also attended the National Academy of Design, the American Artists' School, and the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University.
In 1937, he joined the American Abstract Artists group and from 1936 to 1941 worked for the WPA on the Federal Art Project in the Easel Division, painting in realist style typical of the 1930s. However, at the same time, he did collages and Cubist paintings with hard-edge, flat planes of color.
In the 1940s, after serving in the U.S. Navy as a photographer from 1944 to 1945, Reinhardt created numerous cartoons satirical of the art world and became associated with Abstract Expressionism, adopting the method of painting all over the canvas in a uniform, monochromatic way. As he got older, his painting became darker and more austere and geometric forms were barely distinguishable from the background.
In addition to painting, Reinhardt was an art educator who conducted classes at Brooklyn College in 1947, the California School of Fine Arts in 1950, University of Wyoming in 1951, Yale University from 1952 to 1953, New York University in 1955, Syracuse University in 1951 and Hunter College in 1960.
Reinhardt maintained an ongoing interest in Asian Art. He was a member of the Asian Art Association and the Chinese Art Society and gave lectures on Asian Art.
Source: AskArt.com |
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