Abstract Painting
Ad Reinhardt
American, 1913–1967
1960-61
An oil-on-canvas monochrome square in which Ad Reinhardt stripped painting to a near-black field to pursue absolute abstraction and visual silence.
At first it reads as a single flat black, but subtle tonal variations and a barely perceptible grid emerge the longer you look, turning viewing into a slow, attentive experience.
As one of Reinhardt’s celebrated ‘black paintings,’ it exemplifies a radical reduction of form and color that helped move Abstract Expressionism toward Minimalism and conceptual questions about perception and the end point of painting.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
60 x 60" (152.4 x 152.4 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Purchase (by exchange)
Accession
570.1963
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
