Robert Ryman
Untitled
1958
Not on view
Date
1958
Classification
Drawings
Medium
Casein, colored pencil and charcoal pencil on paper
Dimensions
Sheet (Irregular): 9 3/8 × 9 3/8in. (23.8 × 23.8 cm)
Accession number
2002.262
Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of The American Contemporary Art Foundation, Inc., Leonard A. Lauder, President
Rights and reproductions
© Robert Ryman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Among Robert Ryman’s earliest works are small, delicate paintings such as the 1958 example here, made on inexpensive, ragged-edged paper. Interested in exploring the compositional possibilities of elements frequently used (and naturalized) in more traditional forms of painting, Ryman experimented here with the date and his signature, turning them on their side and enlarging them into prominent graphic motifs that redouble the vertical rectangular thrust of the black shape at left. Ryman has always preferred a square or nearly square format, explaining that it provides the “most perfect space,” and downplays the need for “spatial composition.”
