Kenneth Noland was introduced to Geometric Abstraction by his teachers Ilya Bolotowsky and Josef Albers while studying at Black Mountain College. He is one of the outstanding proponents of colour field painting in which colour and form are held in an exact balance. Towards the end of the 1960s, he began a series of pastel-coloured, often very large striped paintings. Inspired by Helen Frankenthaler’s soak-stain technique, he applied stripes of various width in anything up to 30 different shades using a roller brush, a rubber roller or a sponge in extremely thin layers. In the 1970s, the stripes were increasingly pushed to the edges by broader, coloured centres, as in Sun Bouquet from 1972.
Kenneth Noland (1924–2010)
Sun Bouquet, 1972
Currently exhibited: Yes (Gallery: Painting as a Home)
Material: Acrylic paint on canvas
Size: 174.5 x 362.8 cm
Inv-Nr.: B_313
Image rights: VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Keywords:
Previous owner: André Emmerich Gallery, New York, 1972; private collection; Salander-O’Reilley Gallery, New York; private collection, New York
Acquisition: Reinhard Ernst Collection, Christie’s, New York, 2014
Kenneth Noland was introduced to Geometric Abstraction by his teachers Ilya Bolotowsky and Josef Albers while studying at Black Mountain College. This set him on the path to becoming one of the outstanding proponents of colour field painting in which colour and form are held in an exact balance. The phrase was coined in 1960 by art critic Clement Greenberg who discovered and mentored Noland for a number of years. It was also Greenberg who introduced Noland and Morris Louis to Helen Frankenthaler’s soak-stain technique in 1952 whereby diluted acrylic paint is used to colour an unprepared canvas. Both Noland and Louis immediately began experimenting with the technique.
Towards the end of the 1960s, he began a series of pastel-coloured, often very large striped paintings. Noland applied stripes of various width in anything up to 30 different shades using a roller brush, a rubber roller or a sponge in extremely thin layers. In the 1970s, the stripes were increasingly pushed to the edges by broader, coloured centres, as in Sun Bouquet from 1972.
