Round

Artist Kenneth Noland (1924 - 2010)

Date1959

MediumAcrylic on canvas

Dimensions92 x 92 in. (233.7 x 233.7 cm)

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2008.24

Accession number 2008.24

On View

Not on view

Provenance(Lawrence Rubin Gallery, New York, NY); purchased by Algur H. Meadows [1899-1978] and Elizabeth Boggs Meadows [1902-1982], Dallas, TX; to Estate of Elizabeth Boggs Meadows, Dallas, TX, 1982; (Christie's, New York, NY), November 11, 1982, lot 153; (Marisa del Re Gallery, New York, NY); to Private Collection; to (Sotheby's, New York, NY), November 12, 2008, lot 246; purchased by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, 2008
Label TextRound resembles an unfinished painting of a bull’s-eye. After meeting Helen Frankenthaler at Black Mountain College, Kenneth Noland embraced the Abstract Expressionists’ unbridled experimentation with materials, but not their impassioned style of mark making. His work focused instead on the fundamental ways materials could be utilized. He achieved this by thinning paint and by using untreated, unstretched canvases. Noland painted only what he deemed essential to express the fundamental qualities of the materials. This effort toward reduction aligned him with other painters and sculptors moving towards a more simplified approach, anticipating Minimalism.