COLORFIELD PAINTING: MINIMAL, COOL, HARD EDGE, SERIAL AND POST-PAINTERLY
ABSTRACT ART OF THE SIXTIES TO THE PRESENT
Painting in the 1960s produced some of art's most lyrical and
distinctive works: it was termed Colorfield, Hard Edge, Minimal, and
post-painterly abstraction, and was linked with Pop Art, Op (or optical)
Art, chromatic art, kinetic abstraction, wholistic art, pure-painting,
geometric abstraction, ABC Art, Cool Art, Non-gestural Painting, Non-
Relationalism, Abstract Mannerism and Abstract Sublime painting. ---
The painters linked in this new study with 'Colorfield', 'Hard Edge'
'Minimal' and 'Post-Painterly Abstraction' painting include Minimal
artists such as Brice Marden, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Ad Reinhardt and
Robert Ryman; Colorfield painters such as Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth
Noland, Sam Gilliam and Morris Louis; post-painterly abstractionists
such as Frank Stella, David Novros, Richard Diebenkorn, Al Held, Jo Baer
and Jules Olitski; and Hard Edge painters such as Ellsworth Kelly,
Robert Mangold, Joseph Albers and Elisabeth Murray. ---
Colorfield, Minimal, Hard Edge and Post-Painterly Abstract painting had
a distinctly American (and New York) flavour to it, even if it was not
produced in America or by US artists. In Bruce Glaser's "Questions to
Andre and Judd", Donald Judd continually stressed the point that the new
(Minimal) art was definitely American and non-European. The New World
not the Old World. Time and again Judd insisted that the new art was to
trying to get away from the European tradition. 'It suits me fine if
that's all down the drain', Judd said. 'I'm totally uninterested in
European art and I think it's over with.' ---
Many of the Colorfield and Sixties painters have made extremely
brilliantly colorful works in the 1960s, then turned back to the sombre
colors of grey and black in the late 1980s and 1990s. Painters such as
Brice Marden, Frank Stella, Jasper Johns and Jules Olitski are ambiguous
about saturated color: they moved back and forth from monochrome greys
and blacks to full color. In the late 1980s and the 1990s, painters such
as Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Jules Olitski and Larry Poons moved
from bright color to muted monochrome. Mid-1990s works by Frank Stella
were unpainted, using instead the natural colors of metal and wood;
Brice Marden turned from his luscious monochromes of the 1970s and 1980s
to the black-and-white of Chinese calligraphy in the Cold Mountain
series and other works. ---
AUTHOR'S NOTE: There are chapters on each of the key painters of the
1960s, whose works continue to inspire and entertain. I have revised the
book for this edition, bringing it up to date. I hope readers will
discover some new insights into many of their favourite artists.
Fully illustrated, with notes and bibliography. Large format. 220 pages.
ISBN 9781861713733.
This third edition has been completely rewritten. --- www.crmoon.com
