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Lot Essay
‘The meaning of painting depends not only on the interaction between a painting and a viewer, but on a painting’s relationship with space. Painting interacts with space (the wall, ceiling, floor, light) and with the viewer. It is an interaction that initiates the experience. You cannot understand painting by explaining something. You can only understand painting by experience’ – R. Ryman
‘White has a tendency to make things visible. With white, you can see more of a nuance; you can see more’ – R. Ryman
In the late 1960s, after working on a series which examined the idea of paintings as objects, Robert Ryman extended his investigations beyond the picture plane to look at the interactions between art and its environment. Painted in 1969, Untitled #3 of 4 was produced at the height of this exploration and is comprised of three thin sheets of vinyl which the artist taped directly to the wall before covering each element with a veil of richly textured white acrylic paint. This method of painting was designed to dismantle what Ryman saw as the artificial barrier between the art object and its environment: he aimed to get art as close as possible to the wall, thereby extending the aesthetic possibilities of both and bringing them together in one complete, holistic experience.
Once the paintings were complete, they were taken off the wall and the pieces of tape removed. The empty space left by removing the paint-covered tape became an important part of the composition, something which allowed Ryman to keep a physical record of their execution. In this way they are related to his Lugano paintings (Crex Collection, Hallen für neue Kunst, Schaffhausen) and the Classico series which he completed the year before the present work, which used this same technique of taping the support directly to the wall. ‘The panels were originally taped to the wall,’ he said, ‘and I painted them right on the wall. Then they were removed from the wall and separated. The traces of the tape were left, and it formed part of the composition, in that there would be movement of these traces across the surface’ (R. Ryman, quoted in R. Storr, Robert Ryman, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1993, p. 126).
This work also continues Ryman’s signature use of white paint, which has been one of the central tenets of his career. For him, paint – released of its figurative responsibilities – should be reflective of its own physical properties and those of its surroundings, and he found that white was the most suitable colour to do this. ‘[W]hite could do things that other colors could not do,’ he said. ‘If I look at some white panels in my studio, I see the white—but I am not conscious of them being white. They react with the wood, the color, the light, and the wall itself. They become something other than just the color white. That’s the way I think if it. It allows things to be done that ordinarily you couldn’t see’ (R. Ryman in ‘Paradox,’ segment from PBS series art:21, Season 4, November 2007).
With works like Untitled #3 of 4, Robert Ryman played an important role in expanding the traditional scope of painting to include the interaction of the painted surface with the environment it occupies. As such, works such as this become more than paintings: they become instruments which are active in a number of dimensions. They cease to be constrained by their edges, interacting instead with a whole range of factors – light, surface and environment – to produce a work that is so individual that it is constantly changing depending on its current circumstances. Exploiting the almost endless subtleties of the painted white surface, Ryman offers us a new way of looking at the interplay between art and its environment that had previously gone unexplored.
‘White has a tendency to make things visible. With white, you can see more of a nuance; you can see more’ – R. Ryman
In the late 1960s, after working on a series which examined the idea of paintings as objects, Robert Ryman extended his investigations beyond the picture plane to look at the interactions between art and its environment. Painted in 1969, Untitled #3 of 4 was produced at the height of this exploration and is comprised of three thin sheets of vinyl which the artist taped directly to the wall before covering each element with a veil of richly textured white acrylic paint. This method of painting was designed to dismantle what Ryman saw as the artificial barrier between the art object and its environment: he aimed to get art as close as possible to the wall, thereby extending the aesthetic possibilities of both and bringing them together in one complete, holistic experience.
Once the paintings were complete, they were taken off the wall and the pieces of tape removed. The empty space left by removing the paint-covered tape became an important part of the composition, something which allowed Ryman to keep a physical record of their execution. In this way they are related to his Lugano paintings (Crex Collection, Hallen für neue Kunst, Schaffhausen) and the Classico series which he completed the year before the present work, which used this same technique of taping the support directly to the wall. ‘The panels were originally taped to the wall,’ he said, ‘and I painted them right on the wall. Then they were removed from the wall and separated. The traces of the tape were left, and it formed part of the composition, in that there would be movement of these traces across the surface’ (R. Ryman, quoted in R. Storr, Robert Ryman, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1993, p. 126).
This work also continues Ryman’s signature use of white paint, which has been one of the central tenets of his career. For him, paint – released of its figurative responsibilities – should be reflective of its own physical properties and those of its surroundings, and he found that white was the most suitable colour to do this. ‘[W]hite could do things that other colors could not do,’ he said. ‘If I look at some white panels in my studio, I see the white—but I am not conscious of them being white. They react with the wood, the color, the light, and the wall itself. They become something other than just the color white. That’s the way I think if it. It allows things to be done that ordinarily you couldn’t see’ (R. Ryman in ‘Paradox,’ segment from PBS series art:21, Season 4, November 2007).
With works like Untitled #3 of 4, Robert Ryman played an important role in expanding the traditional scope of painting to include the interaction of the painted surface with the environment it occupies. As such, works such as this become more than paintings: they become instruments which are active in a number of dimensions. They cease to be constrained by their edges, interacting instead with a whole range of factors – light, surface and environment – to produce a work that is so individual that it is constantly changing depending on its current circumstances. Exploiting the almost endless subtleties of the painted white surface, Ryman offers us a new way of looking at the interplay between art and its environment that had previously gone unexplored.