巴奈特·紐曼

藝術家身後（AN#1960-61）
安娜莉·紐曼，紐約
佩斯畫廊，紐約
現藏家1993年購自上述畫廊

阿姆斯特丹，市立博物館；倫敦，泰特藝術館；巴黎，大皇宮博物館，〈巴奈特·紐曼〉，1972年3月-12月，132頁，品號84，載圖（巴黎展覽），品號85（阿姆斯特丹及倫敦展覽）

印第安納波利斯，印第安納波利斯藝術博物館；柏克萊，大學藝術博物館；聖安東尼奧，瑪麗安·古格勒·麥克尼藝術學院；哥倫布，哥倫布美術館，〈二十世紀美國藝術精神〉，1977年9月-1978年6月，105頁，品號63，載圖

巴爾的摩，巴爾的摩藝術博物館；底特律，底特律藝術學院；芝加哥，當代藝術博物館；紐約，大都會藝術博物館；阿姆斯特丹，市立博物館；巴黎，國家現代藝術博物館；科隆，路德維希藝術館；巴塞爾，藝術博物館，〈巴奈特·紐曼：素描作品全集1944-1969年〉，1979年4月-1981年7月，183頁，品號72，載圖（巴爾的摩展覽），品號62（阿姆斯特丹展覽），品號68（巴黎展覽），品號67（科隆展覽），品號67（巴塞爾展覽）

科隆，路德維希藝術館萊茵展廳，〈圖像衝突：1960年後的藝術異同及拾遺〉，1989年4月-6月，413頁，品號515e，載圖

紐約，維維安·霍蘭畫廊，〈漆黑〉，1992年11月-12月，品號1

托馬斯·B·赫斯，《巴奈特·紐曼》，紐約，1971年，97頁，載圖

哈羅德·羅森伯格，《巴奈特·紐曼》，紐約，1978年，191頁，品號179，載圖

理查·希夫、卡羅爾·C·曼庫斯·溫加羅、海迪·科爾斯曼·弗賴貝格爾，《巴奈特·紐曼專題目錄》，紐約及紐海文，2004年，437頁，品號190，載彩圖

This work is in excellent condition. Please contact the Contemporary Art Department at +1 (212) 606-7254 for the report prepared by Alan Firkser of Paper Conservation Studio, Inc. The sheet is framed in a gilded wooden frame under Plexiglas.
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Barnett Newman’s striking and stringently monochromatic Untitled is among a limited suite of seminal drawings the artist executed in 1960 that would inform his momentous exhibition of The Stations of the Cross in 1966. In 1960, Newman cut open two blocks of watercolor paper, one fourteen by ten inches and the other twelve by nine inches; from these sheets, the artist created a total of twenty two ink drawings. The present work belongs to the group of fifteen larger drawings, which, for their chromatic starkness, proportions, and sustained, restricted color palette, have been regarded as the critical first explorations for what would later become The Stations of the Cross. Untitled is distinguished by its singular swath of ink down the center of the composition, against which Newman’s iconic ‘zip’ is thrown into sharp relief; it is the execution of this zip that would inform, in particular, the right hand band in the Fourth Station, which is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Testament to the significance of these 1960s drawings within Newman’s oeuvre, similar works on paper reside in the permanent collections of esteemed institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and The Art Institute of Chicago.

The Stations of the Cross, Newman’s spectacular series of fourteen black and white paintings, represents a triumph of Newman’s intellectual and spiritual explorations into the transcendental power of art to elicit an almost religious experience from the viewer. The restricted formal means and limited color palette forced Newman to work with different permutations of the zip, in different placements, and with subtle variances. Newman experimented with everything from the thickness of his oil paint and the width of the zip, to its placement on the canvas. These seemingly minor discrepancies activate each zip in enormously varying roles; indeed, it can be read as ‘positive,’ in the case of a dark brushstroke, or ‘negative,’ in the case of raw canvas peeking through a swath of ink, much like the focal point of the present work.  The Stations of the Cross was initially exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1966. Of the group of 1960s drawings that preceded this series, Brenda Richardson noted: “The drawings are a kind of incubation for the Stations, not in the sense of preparatory studies but as the preliminary exploration necessary for Newman to confirm his visual instincts, to achieve a sense of conviction (both metaphorically and formally) about the direction he found the work taking in 1958-1960. The drawings bespeak precisely that kind of exploratory energy, a tentative posing of questions: is a palette composed exclusively of black and white too limited to sustain an extended series of paintings? How much inventiveness is possible with both a reduced palette and a reduced repertory of forms?” (Exh. Cat., Baltimore, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Barnett Newman: The Complete Drawings, 1944-1969, 1979, p. 158)

Within this series of fourteen by ten inch ink on paper drawings, Newman examined how to sustain a restricted color palette in executing numerous iterations of his zip. In the present work, a dark stroke of ink articulates a ground against which the tape-reserved zip bisects the composition into two equal passages. To create this signature bar, Newman applied masking tape to the paper, painted around the tape, and then removed it, creating the zip left in reserve. A dry, brushy stroke of ink on the left hand side of the drawing balances a modulated and saturated swath on the right, lending a sense of harmony and balance to the overall composition, despite its asymmetry. Untitled is particularly unique in that the paper, which allowed the ink to bleed slightly into the blank strip, betrays the regularity of the masked-off zip.

Perhaps most importantly, the present work exemplifies Newman’s continued probing into the spiritual effect art could produce in the wake of World War II and the atrocities of the Holocaust. Rejecting the restrictions of an art historical tradition he found oppressive, Newman sought to create a divine and emotional statement by focusing on the subtle nuances of spatial relationships and expressive brushwork. Although most renowned for his monumental oils on canvas, Newman held the practice of drawing to the same elevated status as that of painting. In a 1962 interview, just two years after the present work was completed, Newman said: “For example, drawing is central to my whole concept. I don’t mean making drawings, although I have always done a lot of them. I mean the drawing that exists in my painting. Yet no writer on art has ever confronted that issue. I am always referred to in relation to my color. Yet I know that if I have made a contribution, it is primarily in my drawing.” (The artist in an interview with Dorothy Gees Seckler, “Frontiers of Space,” Art in America 50, no. 2, Summer 1962, pp. 86-87) Proof of the immense contribution this drawing has made both to the artist’s practice and to Twentieth-Century art, Untitled has been exhibited in numerous institutions around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Tate Gallery, London, the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, the Grand Palais, Paris, the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, among many others. Untitled endures as an austere and successful exploration of Newman’s signature zips, testifies to his brilliant artistic prowess, and represents a triumphant realization of his heroic creativity, brazen gesture and unceasing spiritual inquiry.