Number 16--1963
John McLaughlin
American, 1898–1976
1963
A large oil on canvas in which McLaughlin reduces painting to two tall, measured white fields separated by a thin gray stripe and contained within a deep black surround, aiming for an austere, meditative balance.
The work reads like an architectural elevation—two luminous vertical panels with razor‑sharp edges, a barely perceptible gray divider, and a black frame that together create a hushed, geometric stillness.
This spare, hard‑edged geometry helped define a meditative strand of postwar American abstraction, connecting European reductionist ideas to the later Minimalist emphasis on proportion, surface, and spiritual restraint.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
60 x 42" (152.3 x 106.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
The Riklis Collection of McCrory Corporation
Accession
1049.1983
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
