Number 3, 1954
Myron Stout
American, 1908–1987
1954
An oil on canvas that pares painting down to a single stark white U-shaped form on a deep black ground, aiming to show how pure shape, edge, and contrast can produce presence.
At first glance you see a monumental, curved white silhouette—like an oversized horseshoe—floating against an inky field, its crisp edges and subtle paint texture sharpening the tension between figure and surrounding space.
By reducing composition to austere, biomorphic silhouettes, Stout helped shift postwar American abstraction away from expressive gesture toward formal clarity, anticipating minimalism’s focus on shape, scale, and the figure–ground relationship.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
20 1/8 x 16" (50.9 x 40.6 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Philip Johnson Fund
Accession
25.1959
Palette
Exhibitions
