Ad Reinhardt

Ad Reinhardt (1913 – 1967) was born Adolph Dietrich Friedrich Reinhardt in 1913 in Buffalo, New York. He studied Art History under Meyer Schapiro at Columbia University, New York from 1931 to 1935 and studied painting with Carl Holty and Francis Criss at the American Artists School from 1936 to 1937. He also studied at the National Academy of Design with Karl Anderson in 1936. Between 1936 and 1939, Reinhardt worked for the WPA Federal Art Project.

From 1937 to 1947, he was a member of the American Abstract Artists group. Reinhardt continued his studies from 1946 to 1951 at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts.

Reinhardt’s influence as a teacher and writer was as significant as his art. He taught at Brooklyn College from 1947 to 1967. He also lectured at the California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco, in 1950; the University of Wyoming, Laramie, in 1951; Yale University, New Haven, from 1952 to 1953; and at Hunter College, New York, from 1959 to 1967.

Reinhardt was given his first solo exhibition at Columbia Teachers College in 1943, and by 1946 was showing regularly with the Betty Parsons Gallery, New York. Reinhardt was a pioneer of Hard-edge painting at this time. In the 1950s, he began to limit his palette to a single colour, moving from red to blue and then to his final stage of black paintings.

In 1966, the Jewish Museum, New York, organised an exhibition of Reinhardt’s paintings, which was accompanied by a catalogue with texts by Lucy Lippard and the artist – Reinhardt died the following year. In 1970, the Marlborough Gallery in New York exhibited the Black Paintings executed between 1951 and 1967. In 1972, the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf organized an exhibition of Reinhardt’s work, which traveled to the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Kunsthaus Zürich; Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Paris; and Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, Vienna. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, mounted an exhibition entitled Reinhardt and Color in 1980. Reinhardt’s essays continued to influence many Conceptual artists in the 1970s. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, organized a major exhibition of Reinhardt’s work in 1991. He died in 1967 in New York.

Ad Reinhardt 1937 Untitled 
oil on wood

Ad Reinhardt 1938 Study for a Painting 
collage

Ad Reinhardt 1939 Paper Collage

Ad Reinhardt 1940 Untitled

Ad Reinhardt 1941 Red and Blue Composition 
oil on fibreboard

Ad Reinhardt 1941 Untitled 
paper collage

Ad Reinhardt 1944 Abstraction

Ad Reinhardt 1946 Yellow Painting (Abstraction) 
oil on canvas 

Ad Reinhardt 1950 Untitled (Red and Grey)

Ad Reinhardt 1950 Untitled (Yellow and White)

Ad Reinhardt 1951-52 Abstract Painting

Ad Reinhardt 1952 Abstract Painting, Blue

Ad Reinhardt 1952 Abstract Painting, Blue

Ad Reinhardt 1952 Abstract Painting, Red

Ad Reinhardt 1954-58 Painting 
oil on canvas

Ad Reinhardt 1955 Free and Fluid / Matisse Reclining Figure 
india ink on postcard

Ad Reinhardt 1955 Front of Free and Fluid

Ad Reinhardt 1957 Abstract Painting

Ad Reinhardt 1958 Places He Travelled 
india ink on coloured pencil on postcard

Ad Reinhardt 1961 Abstract Painting No. 4

Ad Reinhardt 1962 Abstract Painting No. 5

Ad Reinhardt 1963 Abstract Painting

Antoni Tàpies - part 2

This is part two of a two-part post on the works of Spanish artist Antoni Tàpies. For part one and biographical information on Tàpies see below. Part one shows works dating from 1957 to 1976.

1977 Signs on felt and wood 
mixed media

1978 Petrificada petricante (series) 
etching

1981 Empreinte 
etching, collage

1979 Sous Zero 
lithograph

1981 Repliquer II 
etching

1981 Vellut rosa dins cercle negre 
mixed media on board

1982 Fusta gratada 
mixed media on panel

1983 Divisé 
lithograph

1985 A.T. 
aquatint

1988 Pissarra 
painting

1988 Llibertat 
lithograph

1988 Sud 
painting

1989 Ambroisia 
mixed media on canvas

1989 Reclinatori 
painting

1990 Oval Blanc 
mixed media on panel

1990 Signes negres sobre marró 
etching

1998 Forma blanca 
etching

2005 Parpelles sobre marro 
mixed media on wood

2005 Plat i tassa 
mixed media on wood

2007 Quadrat ocre 
mixed media on wood

2007 T negra 
mixed media on canvas

2010 Signes encolats 
mixed media on wood

Antoni Tàpies - part 1

This is the first part of a two-part post on the works of Spanish artist Antoni Tàpies. Tàpies was born in 1923 in Barcelona. His adolescence was disrupted by the Spanish Civil War and a serious illness that lasted two years. Tàpies began to study law in Barcelona in 1944 but two years later decided instead to devote himself exclusively to art. He was essentially self-taught as a painter; the few art classes he attended left little impression on him. Shortly after deciding to become an artist, he began attending clandestine meetings of the Blaus, an iconoclastic group of Catalan artists and writers who produced the review Dau al Set.

Tàpies’s early work was influenced by the art of Max Ernst, Paul Klee, and Joan Miró, and by Eastern philosophy. His art was exhibited for the first time in the controversial Salo d’Octubre in Barcelona in 1948. He soon began to develop a recognisable personal style related to matière painting, or Art Informel, a movement that focused on the materials of art-making. The approach resulted in textural richness, but its more important aim was the exploration of the transformative qualities of matter. Tàpies freely adopted bits of detritus, earth, and stone – mediums that evoke solidity and mass – in his large-scale works.

In 1950, his first solo show was held at the Galeries Laietanes, Barcelona, and he was included in the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. That same year, the French government awarded Tàpies a scholarship that enabled him to spend a year in Paris. His first solo show in New York was presented in 1953 at the gallery of Martha Jackson, who arranged for his work to be shown the following year in various galleries around the United States. During the 1950s and 1960s, Tàpies exhibited in major museums and galleries throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, and South America. In 1966, he began his collection of writings, La practica de l’art. In 1969, he and the poet Joan Brossa published their book, Frègoli; a second collaborative effort, Nocturn Matinal, appeared the following year. Tàpies received the Rubens Prize of Siegen, Germany, in 1972.

Retrospective exhibitions were presented at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, in 1973 and at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, in 1977. The following year, he published his prize-winning autobiography, Memòria personal. In the early 1980s, he continued diversifying his mediums, producing his first ceramic sculptures and designing sets for Jacques Dupin’s play L’Eboulement. By 1992, three volumes of the catalogue raisonné of Tàpies’s work had been published. The following year, he and Cristina Iglesias represented Spain at the Venice Biennale, where his installation was awarded the Leone d’Oro. A retrospective exhibition was presented at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, and the Guggenheim Museum SoHo, New York, in 1994-5. In 2000 the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid also organised a major retrospective of the artist’s work. Tàpies lives in Barcelona.

1957 Grey and Green Painting 
oil, epoxy resin, marble dust on canvas

1958 Gran Pintura 
oil and sand on canvas

1958 Grey Ochre 
oil, epoxy resin, marble dust on canvas

1959 Croix sur gris XCVIII 
mixed media on canvas laid on board

1959 Grey Relief on Black 
latex paint and marble dust on canvas

1960 Grey between Brackets 
oil and mixed media on board

1961 Gris Violacé aux Rides 
mixed media on canvas

1961 Relieve negro perorado 
mixed media on canvas

1962 Ocre côn trazos negros superores 
mixed media on canvas

1963 Large Matter with Lateral Papers 
mixed media

1964 Pintura 
mixed media on canvas

1968 Journal 
lithograph

1968 L'Enveloppe 
lithograph

1973 Foll 
lithograph

1974 Cartes per la Teresa (472) 
lithograph and collage

1975 L'arc 
etching and opaque white

1975 Llambrec Material 
lithograph

1976 Negre i roig III, Fora 
etching