Preview
Buy Print
Send
Share
Download
Similars
X-Ray
DiaporamaUnfinished painting
Abstract Expressionism
1970
213.0 x 193.0 cm
Barnett Newman (1905 – 1970)
Explore the profound abstract world of Barnett Newman (1905-1970), a key figure in Abstract Expressionism. Discover his iconic 'zips,' color field paintings, and spiritual explorations of human experience.
This painting’s history reveals how precarious the notion of finish can be in abstract art in general and in the work of one towering figure of the Abstract Expressionist movement in particular. A 1971 scholarly publication presented the work as finished: Untitled (number 2). However, a typewritten inventory of Newman’s studio made after the artist’s death (unknown, apparently, to the author of the aforementioned book) lists the canvas as Untitled 1970 #2 (unfinished), a status now accepted by art historians. Many of Newman’s contemporaries attacked the idea of a finished work of art as an artificial convention, but Newman disavowed it for different reasons. For him, painting was a lifelong struggle, an ongoing act of labor that precluded finishing on both a practical and a philosophical level.
About this artwork
- Title: Unfinished painting
- Artist: Barnett Newman
- Year: 1970
- Original dimensions: 213.0 x 193.0 cm
- Format: Portrait
- Copyright status: Under copyright
- Creative period: Mature Period
- Color palette: Dark
- Keywords: newman zips , color block art , modern painting
- Color intensity: Vivid
QR Code
