Black abstract artists

Initially this painting presents a-flat black colored surface. But much longer seeing reveals several shade of black colored and an underlying geometric structure. Reinhardt has actually split the canvas into a three-by-three grid of squares. The black in each corner square has a reddish tone; the design between them formed by the center squares is bluish-black in its vertical club and greenish-black with its horizontal bar. Reinhardt tried to produce exactly what he called "a pure, abstract, non-objective, eternal, spaceless, changeless, relationless, disinterested painting—an item which self-conscious (no unconsciousness), perfect, transcendent, aware of no thing but art."

Gallery label from 2007

Abstract Painting includes three distinct shades of black, which come to be noticeable just after prolonged hunting. Reinhardt was extremely sensitive to these types of slight variants. He explained, “There is a black that will be old and a black that will be fresh. Lustrous black colored and lifeless black, black in sunshine and black colored in shadow.” When Reinhardt’s black paintings were very first displayed at MoMA, in 1963, their reductive imagery and stark palette shocked visitors, prompting at least one Museum account termination in protest.

Gallery label from Abstract Expressionist New York, October 3, 2010-April 25, 2011

Into hasty audience, Abstract Painting must present a flat blackness. However the work keeps one or more color of black colored, and much longer viewing reveals an abstract geometrical picture. Reinhardt features split the canvas into a three-by-three grid of squares. The black in each spot square has actually a reddish tone; the shape between them—a mix, filling the middle square for the canvas therefore the square in the middle of each side—is a bluish black colored in its vertical club and a greenish black in its horizontal one.