Beschreibung:

20 PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION Robert Ryman Hour 2001 oil on canvas 40 x 40 in. (101.6 x 101.6 cm) Signed, titled and dated "RYMAN01 'HOUR'" along the overlap. This work will be listed as catalogue number 01.004 in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being organized by David Gray
Provenance PaceWildenstein, New York Private Collection Exhibited New York, PaceWildenstein, Robert Ryman New Paintings, October 11 - November 9, 2002 London, Haunch of Venison, Robert Ryman New Paintings, January 29 - March 1, 2003 Literature Y. Bois, Robert Ryman New Paintings, PaceWildenstein, New York, 2002, p. 29 (illustrated) L. Wei, "Robert Ryman at PaceWildenstein," Art in America, April 2003, p. 130 Catalogue Essay “I guess you can say that painting is a kind of experiment…it’s a visual experience, and with my paintings I don’t really plan them, it has to come about visually.” Robert Ryman 2007 Rarely has an artist dedicated his entire career to the pursuit of a singular ideal in the manner of Robert Ryman Unfailingly devoted to his stark canvases of thickly applied white and cream, Ryman has redefined the role of the visual artist, transforming the eye of the spectator from a searcher to a seer. Ryman’s vast surfaces are an end in and of themselves, purposefully crafted to emphasize the minutiae of their construction against the luminous sources that complete them: this is Ryman’s great gift, which (with a career now approaching 60 years in length) he has industriously delivered time and time again in variegated textures and mediums—but always in the same shade of frosted white. As whimsical in his titular prescriptions as in his style of working, Ryman’s present lot, Hour, 2001, is a pristine example of his indelible artistic legend, where an Hour might as well be a century in the making. As Ryman’s most historically reliable format, the square canvas is not only a conventional and functional surface for his medium, but also a necessary vessel for communicating the intended neutrality of his pictures. First creating his work on the heels of the great American Abstract Expressionists, Ryman’s use of the square canvas appeals to the concept of geometrical abstraction, effectively guaranteeing the greatest level of narrative detachment for the spectator. In doing so, Ryman manages to direct the focus of his viewer almost exclusively upon the use of his painterly medium. In doing so, he establishes paint itself as the main feature of his work. Hour, 2001, exhibits the continuation of Ryman’s artistic ideal—a marvelously successful devotion to specific artistic principles. While Ryman occasionally has ventured into the use of a wider chromatic spectrum, he has done so with caution, employing a greater breadth of color simply to highlight the already remarkable qualities of his monochromatic canvases. The present lot is such a quintessential adoption of Ryman’s most enduring and recognizable tropes—the square canvas, the texturally thick use of white, the impressively subtle integration of hints of color—that it qualifies as one of his most essential canvases of his late period. Indeed, what is so spectacular about Hour, 2001, is that it could have been painted during any era of Ryman’s career, so unified is his work from era to era. The space of the canvas allows for a magnificent border of variegated width, all dependent upon the single brushstrokes with which Ryman dresses his picture. While almost linear at both the central right and left borders, Ryman’s sublime symmetry shifts towards all four corners; here, we find a playful bit of strategy on Ryman’s part, almost conjuring the carefree strokes of fingerpaint. Indeed, along both the top and bottom borders of Ryman’s medium, the threshold continues in this vein— sometimes scattered with abandon, sometimes flush with saturation. Ryman’s medium itself is a chromatic wonder. While he teases us with minor hints of red and sienna behind his imposing foreground, it is no wonder where Ryman’s enthusiasm lay in the present lot. Almost woven together, Ryman’s use of single brushstrokes to achieve an overall impact is reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh—the curved back of each small gesture a contained work all by itself. Ryman creates a paradoxical effect in his application