Beschreibung:

Robert Ryman Sign 1982 oil paint, Enamelac on stretched cotton with 2 aluminum brackets and 4 six-sided bolts 34 1/2 x 32 x 3 1/2 in. (87.6 x 81.3 x 8.9 cm) Signed, titled and dated "RYMAN82 'SIGN'" along the overlap. This work will be listed as catalogue number 82.436 in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being organized by David Gray
Provenance The Mayor Gallery, London Peder Bonnier, New York Bjorn Ressle, Sweden, 1984 Peder Bonnier, New York Anders Val, Switzerland Eric Lowenadler, 1986 Laurie Rubin Gallery, New York Nicola Jacobs Gallery, London Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York Acquired directly from the above by the present owner, 1988 Exhibited London, The Mayor Gallery, Robert Ryman Recent Paintings, November 17 - December 17, 1982 Los Angeles, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Recent Paintings, 8 Paintings by Robert Ryman November, 22 - December 28, 1983 New York, Max Protetch Gallery, Untitled, 1984, February, 9 - March 3, 1984 New York, Blum Helman Gallery, White, January 7 - January 31, 1987 New York, Laurie Rubin Gallery, Made: Remade: Unmade, November 21 - December 12, 1987 Catalogue Essay Robert Ryman’s Sign, 1982 embodies one of the most important periods within the artist’s incredibly prolific body of work. In order to understand the relevance of this seminal piece within his oeuvre, it is fundamental to acquire insight into certain aspects of his life, but primarily to concede to his very definitions and understanding of painting. A paradoxical aspect of his work is - interestingly enough - the paucity of his biographical material and the little there is, is quite ordinary. Yet perhaps it is this unusual aspect of his life that contributes to the sublime nature of his body of work. Thus, the most significant aspect of his personal life is his self-taught, unconventional education which consisted of acute, in-depth observation, inquiry into and analysis of works of art that he carried out while working as a security guard at the Museum of Modern Art in New York for over six years; a couple of drawing courses where he learned how to draw from plaster casts; and a brief adult course at MoMA. This unorthodox education led him to experiment and understand painting to such a degree that - despite his minimal education and rebellion against the current artistic trends of his time - he was able to create a truly unique body of work that made unparalleled contributions to the modernist and contemporary art canon. The exhaustive, amateur observation of works of art at the museum led him to a unique understanding of how paint actually works. To a certain extent, he also wants his audience to observe his paintings in the same exhaustive manner he observed other paintings, which is what will, according to him, offer us a unique and delightful experience. He was highly influenced by Rothko who had no representational influence and taught him that “paintings must be treated as integrated physical entities.” Furthermore, painting for Ryman was not the physical actions involved in painting a canvas but a question of application. His approach consisted of seeing how his tools and materials would behave. His first experiments, starting around 1955, were with the color green, which consisted of testing the characteristics of the pigment, the surface and the brush. After these initial experiments, around 1959 he started what would become his unprecedented and signature paintings of the color white. The color white per se, exemplified in paintings from this period and similar to Sign, is not what is fundamental, what Ryman is interested in is painting the paint, painting the white paint, using white paint as his medium to reflect the white paint’s light, form and texture. A good way to further understand this technique is to know that the artist views “the white painting [as] a “blank” canvas where all is potential.” Thus, Ryman’s procedure was to meticulously paint time and time again thick bold brushstrokes, then sometimes small and continual brushstrokes, but fundamentally, constantly experimenting to discover the best way to render the qualities of the white paint. In doing this, he came to the realization that the neutrality of the color allowed him to clarify certain nuances of the characteristics of this color, or as he aptly states “it makes other aspects of