Page 47 - Studio International - February 1970

Barnett Newman THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER Noon-light 1961
1964 AND IS HERE PUBLISHED FOR THE FIRST Oil on canvas
114 x 84 in.
TIME Coll : Annalee Newman
Don Judd

Barnett Newman's paintings are some of the the central stripe, but has been laid in between Many of Newman's recent paintings are
best done in the United States in the last two stripes of masking tape. The paint has black and white. Noon-light is another great
fifteen years. At the moment, despite the run under the tape some, making the stripe one shown recently. It's nine and a half feet
difficulties of comparisons and the excellence a little rough. A foot in from the right edge high and seven wide. There is a stripe of black
of the work of Rothko, Noland, and Stella,1 there is another stripe an inch wide, but this about four inches wide along the left edge and
it's not so rash to say that Newman is the best is one of reserved canvas, made by scraping there is a black stripe a quarter of an inch
painter in this country. Also, the work of black paint across a strip of masking tape and wide four inches in from the right edge. The
these four artists and that by Reinhardt and then removing it. There isn't much paint on rest is unprimed canvas.
Lichtenstein, is considerably better than the either side of the white stripe; the two edges Vir Heroicus Sublimis was done in 1950 and
European painting evident in the magazines are sharp just against the stripe and break the colour of one stripe was changed in 1951.
and that shown in New York, except for into sharp palette knife marks just away from It's eight feet high and eighteen long. Except
Yves Klein's blue paintings. These evaluations it. Some of the marks have been lightly for five stripes it's a red near cadmium red
only involve painting and since painting now brushed. The three stripes are fairly sharp but medium. From the left, a few feet in, there is
shares art equally with sculpture and three- none are perfectly even and straight. It's a an inch stripe of a red close in colour but
dimensional work more comparisons are complex painting. different in tone; a few feet further there is an
possible. But these still leave Newman one of
the world's best artists—and the best make a
short list.
Newman was born in New York City in 1905
and has lived there ever since. He studied art
at the Art Students' League. Before 1950
his paintings were shown infrequently in
group shows, notably one in 1947 of Abstract
Surrealism at the Chicago Art Institute
which, for the first time, included all of the
artists, Pollock, Still and Rothko for example,
who were on the verge of radically changing
American art and art as a whole. The term
`Abstract Surrealism' is more or less de-
scriptive of Newman's work then. In 1948 he
painted the first painting like his work since,
a small one with a stripe down the middle.
Late in 1949 or early in 1950 he did a painting
with two stripes. Newman's first one-man show
was at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1950.
There was a second show there a year later.
Since then, other than single paintings in
group shows, he has shown three times. In
1959, at the impermanent but important
gallery directed by Clement Greenberg for
French and Co., there was a large and
magnificent show of paintings done between
1946 and 1952, including Vir Heroicus Sub-
limis and Cathedra, two large ones. In 1958
this work had been shown at Bennington
College. Some of Newman's recent paintings,
as well as a few earlier ones, including The
Wild of 1950, an eight foot vertical an inch
and a half wide, were shown in 1962 with De
Kooning's work at the Allan Stone Gallery.
Shining Forth (To George), done in 1961, was
shown in New York this year. It's nine and a
half feet high and fourteen and a half long.
The rectangle is unprimed cotton canvas
except for two stripes and the edges of a third.
Slightly to the left of the centre there is a
vertical black stripe three inches wide. All of
the stripes run to the upper and lower edges.
Slightly less than a foot in from the left edge
there is a black stripe an inch wide. This
hasn't been painted directly and evenly like