Robert Ryman (May 30, 1930February 8, 2019) was an American painter identified with the movements of

monochrome painting Monochromatic painting has been an important component of avant-garde visual art throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. Painters have created the exploration of one color, examining values changing across a surface, texture, and n ...

, minimalism, and

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

. He was best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lived and worked in New York City.

Life and career

Ryman was born in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

. After studying saxophone at the Tennessee Polytechnic Institute in Cookeville, between 1948 and 1949, and at the George Peabody College for Teachers between 1949 and 1950, Ryman enlisted in the United States army reserve corps and was assigned to an army reserve band during the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

.Guggenheim Museum Biography
Ryman moved to New York City in 1953, intending to become a professional jazz saxophonist. He had lessons with pianist

Lennie Tristano Leonard Joseph Tristano (March 19, 1919 – November 18, 1978) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and teacher of jazz improvisation. Tristano studied for bachelor's and master's degrees in music in Chicago before moving to New Yo ...

, which later informed his painting. At that time he was renting a room in the home of a Russian cello player. Ryman soon took a day job at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

as a security guard to make ends meet, and met the artists

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...

and

Dan Flavin Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American Minimalism, minimalist artist famous for creating sculpture, sculptural objects and installations from commercially available Fluorescent lamp, fluorescent light fixtures. Earl ...

, who were co-workers with him at MoMA. Immediately after quitting his job at MoMA, Ryman spent the next year working in the art division of the New York Public Library. He also met artist Roy Lichtenstein during this period of the 1950s. Captivated by the newly acquired

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

works of

Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...

Clyfford Still Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately follow ...

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

and Barnett Newman, Ryman became curious about the act of painting. From 1953 to 1960, he worked at the MoMA as a guard in order to be close to painting. He purchased some art supplies at a local store and began experimenting in his apartment in 1953. Ryman had a close relationship with the late conservator Orrin Riley, who would frequently give him advice on archival materials, many times testing the acidity of media the artist was interested in using. He was interviewed by the television writer and producer Barbaralee Diamonstein twice, once for the book and video production ''Inside New York's Art World'' in 1979 and again for ''Inside the Art World'' in 1994. In 2009 he participated in the art project ''Find Me'', by

Gema Alava Gema Alava (b. 1973 Madrid, Spain) is an artist who lives and works in New York City. Her work, in the form of installation, drawing, photography and art projects, deals with what she calls "contradictory truths", and the capacity to "create a maxi ...

, in company of artists

Lawrence Weiner Lawrence Charles Weiner (February 10, 1942December 2, 2021) was an American conceptual artist. He was one of the central figures in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s. His work often took the form of typographic texts, a form of word a ...

, Merrill Wagner and Paul Kos. His most famous quote is "There is never any question of ''what'' to paint only ''how'' to paint." In 1961 the artist married art historian

Lucy Lippard Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. S ...

. They had a son together, Ethan Ryman, in 1964, who was first a sound engineer and now an artist. The marriage ended in divorce. In 1969 he married artist Merrill Wagner. Robert Ryman's sons from his second marriage,

Cordy Ryman Cordy Ryman (born 1971, New York City), an artist based in New York City. Ryman earned his BFA with Honors in Fine Arts and Art Education from The School of Visual Arts in New York in 1997. He is the son of artist Robert Ryman (1930-2019). Cordy ...

and Will Ryman, are also artists and currently work in New York City. Ryman died on February 8, 2019, at the age of 88.

Work

Painting

Ryman was often classified as a

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post– World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...

; but, he preferred to be known as a "realist", because, he was not interested in creating illusions, but, only in presenting the materials he used in compositions at their face value. As he wrote in a statement for a 2010 exhibition at Pace Wildenstein, "I am not a picture painter. I work with real light and space, and since real light is an important aspect of the paintings, it always presents some problems." The majority of his works feature

-influenced brushwork in white or off-white paint on square canvas or metal surfaces. A lifelong experimenter with media, Ryman painted and/or drew on canvas, linen, steel, aluminum,

plexiglas Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite ...

, lumasite,

vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl ...

, fiberglass, corrugated paper,

burlap Hessian (, ), burlap in the United States and Canada, or crocus in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, is a woven fabric usually made from skin of the jute plant or sisal fibres, which may be combined with other vegetable fibres to make rope, nets, ...

, newsprint, wallpaper, jute sacking, fiberplate, a composite material called gator board, feather board, handmade paper, and acrilivin. He used painted and/or drew with oil, acrylic, encaustic, Lascaux acrylic,

casein Casein ( , from Latin ''caseus'' "cheese") is a family of related phosphoproteins ( αS1, aS2, β, κ) that are commonly found in mammalian milk, comprising about 80% of the proteins in cow's milk and between 20% and 60% of the proteins in hum ...

, enamel, pastel, oil pastel,

graphite Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on lar ...

, guache, and enamelac. By the time Ryman began working, older artists like Barnett Newman,

, and

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...

had already reduced painting to its essences. In 1955 Ryman began what he considered to be his earliest professional work, a largely monochrome painting titled ''Orange Painting'' (1955–59).Robert Ryman
Guggenheim Collection. In 1968-69 he created his ''Classico'' series of compositions consisting of multi-panel paintings on a specific type of paper called Classico. For each work in the series, Ryman attached a configuration of heavy, creamy white sheets of the paper to a wall with masking tape, painted the sheets with a shiny white acrylic paint, removed the tape when the sheets were dry, mounted them on foamcore, and reattached them to the wall. The built-up paint edge tracing the outline of masking tape and the ripped paper left behind give witness to the process of creation. The various works in the ''Classico'' series differ in the organization of paper sheets, the configuration of tape traces, and the painted shape. Just as the ''Classico'' works were titled after the type of paper used as a medium, the so-called ''Surface Veil'' works from 1970 were named for the brand of fiberglass upon which the smaller pieces in this group were painted. Some of the 12-foot square paintings from the series were executed not on fiber-glass but on cotton or linen. In each of these works the pigment appears to form a membrane over the support due to the differing degrees of opacity and translucence in the white paint juxtaposed with areas where less of it has been applied, leaving the fabric exposed. These disruptions in the painting’s skin often mark the literal pauses between the artist’s working sessions. From around 1975 until 2003, Ryman often affixed his paintings to the wall with metal brackets. He would design each set of brackets specifically for each piece and have them constructed by a local metals fabricator.

Prints and Drawings

Although Ryman is most known for his paintings, he also experimented with printmaking creating etchings,

aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio (printmaking), intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. ...

s, lithographs, silkscreens and relief prints. Like his paintings, his prints are readily identifiable by their predominantly square monochromatic surfaces exploring the values, textures and effects of various whites and other colors printed on paper and aluminum. His prints and works on paper, have not yet been given the same attention, but his approach to making prints and drawings is the same. Working with the particular characteristics of each medium and process, Ryman, from 1969 onwards, explored new territory of making editions, all with a minimum of materials. In his printmaking, Ryman sought to control the texture of his surfaces in ways that he would continue to explore for the rest of his career. As in his paintings, his prints require viewers to pay attention, look closely and observe subtleties. Ryman’s prints both challenge a viewer and reward close looking. He stated that his titles were meaningless, and that they only existed as a form of identification. Ryman actually preferred the term of "name" for an artwork instead of a title because he was not creating a picture or making reference to anything except the media and the materials. The "names" of his works often come from the names of art supplies, companies, or are just general words that do not carry specific connotation.

Exhibitions

Ryman had his first solo show at Paul Bianchini's gallery, New York City, in 1967 at the age of 36; his first show in Europe came the following year at the Galerie

Heiner Friedrich Heiner Friedrich (born April 14, 1938 in Stettin) is an art dealer and collector of minimal art and conceptual art.Kunsthalle Bern The Kunsthalle Bern is a ''Kunsthalle'' (art exposition hall) on the Helvetiaplatz in Bern, Switzerland. It was built in 1917–1918 by the Kunsthalle Bern Association and opened on October 5, 1918. Since then, it has been the site of numerous ex ...

. His first solo show at a museum was in 1972 at the

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: Locations Americas * The Solomon R. Guggenhei ...

in New York City, displaying thirty-eight of Ryman’s works from 1965 to 1971. Ryman's works were represented in documentas 5 (1972), 6 (1977), and 7 (1982), in Kassel, in the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

(1976, 1978, 1980 and 2007), and in the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...

(1977, 1987, 1995). His first retrospective was organized by the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, in 1974. In 1993-94, the largest retrospective to date of Ryman's paintings, curated by Robert Storr, was exhibited at the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Museo may refer to: * Museo, 2018 Mexican drama heist film *Museo (Naples Metro) Museo is a station on line 1 of the Naples Metro. It was opened on 5 April 2001 as the eastern terminus of the section of the line between Vanvitelli and Museo. ...

in Madrid, the

in New York, the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...

, and the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

in Minneapolis. Robert Ryman is represented by David Zwirner.

Collections

The Hallen für Neue Kunst, a former

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic co ...

museum in

Schaffhausen Schaffhausen (; gsw, Schafuuse; french: Schaffhouse; it, Sciaffusa; rm, Schaffusa; en, Shaffhouse) is a town with historic roots, a municipality in northern Switzerland, and the capital of the canton of the same name; it has an estimate ...

, Switzerland (closed in 2014) had the largest public collection of Ryman's work, permanently exhibiting 29 pieces created from 1959 to 2007. In 2008 Ryman undertook a major reinstallation of his galleries at Hallen für Neue Kunst. Returning to the museum in 2008 — for the first time in 12 years — to revisit the permanent exhibition of his work that was first installed in 1983, he decided to transform the galleries into a “Gesamtkunstwerk” — a synthesis, or total experience, composed of 32 paintings from 50 years of work. In 2017, Ryman donated 21 painting to the

Dia Art Foundation Dia Art Foundation is a nonprofit organization that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Menil and an heiress to the Schlumb ...

’s permanent collection, making it the only site with an extensive permanent grouping, featuring works made as early as the late 1950s and continuing up to 2003.Randy Kennedy (April 12, 2017)
Ryman, Minimalist Master, Donates Trove to Dia Art Foundation
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Other major museums collecting his works include the

, New York; the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, London; the Art Institute of Chicago and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Recognition and reception

A recipient of numerous honors, Ryman was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Scholarship (1973), the Skowhegan Medal from the

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 ...

(1985). He was a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

after 1994, and assumed the role of the organization’s Vice President in 2003. In 2005, Ryman was awarded the

Praemium Imperiale Prince Takamatsu The Praemium Imperiale ( ja, 高松宮殿下記念世界文化賞, Takamatsu-no-miya Denka Kinen Sekai Bunka-shō, World Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu) is an international art prize inaugur ...

. 2009 saw the publication of ''Robert Ryman: Critical Texts Since 1967'', edited by Vittorio Colaizzi and Karsten Schubert and published by

Ridinghouse Ridinghouse is a British book publisher specialising in art. Ridinghouse’s publications are distributed by Cornerhouse in the UK and Europe, and by RAM Publications + Distribution, Inc. in North America. Company history Ridinghouse was foun ...

. The book charts the gradual evolution of the reception of and reaction to Ryman’s art. A comprehensive selection of over 60 essays and exhibition reviews has been collated into one volume, including texts by some of the most influential art historians and critics of their time; Yve-Alain Bois, Donald B. Kuspit, Lucy R. Lippard, Robert Storr and others. Ryman's painting ''Bridge'' (1980) sold for $20.6 million at a Christie's auction in 2015.Randy Kennedy (April 12, 2017)
Robert Ryman, Minimalist Master, Donates Trove to Dia Art Foundation
''

''.

Literature

* Waldman, Diane. ''Robert Ryman''. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1972. * ''Robert Ryman''. Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 1974. Text by Naomi Spector. * ''Robert Ryman''. London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1977. Text by Naomi Spector. Statement by Robert Ryman. * ''Robert Ryman''. Zürich: Halle für international neue Kunst, 1980. Texts by Urs Rausmüller and Christel Sauer. * ''Robert Ryman''. Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée national d'arte moderne, 1981. Texts by Dominique Bozo, Yve-Alain Bois and Christel Sauer. * Storr, Robert. "Robert Ryman: Making Distinctions." ''Art in America'' 74, no. 6 (June 1986), pp. 92–97. * ''Robert Ryman''. New York: Dia Art Foundation, 1988. Text by Charles Wright; interview by Gary Garrels; technical discussion of new paintings by Garrels and Ryman; selected artist's statements and excerpts from interviews. * Christel Sauer, Urs Raussmüller (Hrsg.): ''Robert Ryman'', Schaffhausen 1991, * Christel Sauer, Urs Raussmüller (Hrsg.): ''Robert Ryman: Versions'', Schaffhausen 1992, * Storr, Robert. ''Robert Ryman''. London: Tate Gallery; New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1993 * Sandback, Amy Baker. ''Robert Ryman Prints, 1969-1993''. New York: Parasol Press, Ltd., 1993. * Yve-Alain Bois, ''Ryman's Tact, Painting as Model''. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press, 1995. * ''Robert Ryman Retrospektive mit Räumen von Ariane Epars, Clay Ketter, Albert Weis und Beat Zoderer''. Munich: Haus der Kunst; Bonn: Kunstmuseum; Ostfildern: Edition Tertium, 2000. * Buren, Daniel. ''L'Ineffable, à propos de l'oeuvre de Ryman/The Ineffable, About Ryman's Work''. Paris: Wide Open, Editions Jannink, 2000. * ''Robert Ryman''. Sakura City, Japan: Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, 2004. Text by Robert Ryman. * Wylie, Charles. ''Robert Ryman''. Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005. * Christel Sauer (Hrsg.): Urs Raussmüller: ''Ryman Paintings and Ryman Exhibitions, Raussmüller Collection'', Frauenfeld/Basel 2006, * Christel Sauer (Hrsg.): ''Robert Ryman at Inverleith House Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Raussmüller Collection'', Frauenfeld/Basel 2006, * Jean Frémon: ''The Paradoxes of Robert Ryman'', Black Square editions, The Brooklyn Rail, New York, 2008 * Suzanne Hudson, ''Robert Ryman: Used Paint''. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. * ''Robert Ryman: Critical Texts Since 1967'', edited by Vittorio Colaizzi and Karsten Schubert.

, London 2009. * Storr, Robert. ''Interview with Robert Ryman''. November 23, 2010. Excerpts published in: Pietropaolo, Francesca, ed. ''Robert Storr: Interviews on Art''. London: Heni Publishing, 2017, pp. 773–74. * Christel Sauer (Hrsg.): ''Robert Ryman and Urs Raussmüller: Advancing the Experience'' Hallen für Neue Kunst, Schaffhausen, Raussmüller Collection, Basel 2010, * ''Robert Ryman'', edited by Stephen Hoban and Courtney J. Martin. New York: Dia Art Foundation, 2017.
'Vittorio Colaizzi, ''Robert Ryman'', Phaidon Press, September 4, 2017'
(, ) * ''Robert Ryman. Les Cahiers de la Collection Lambert''. Arles: Actes Sud, 2020. Texts by Alain Lombard and Stéphane Ibars.

References

External links

The Pace GalleryBiography, interviews, essays, artwork images and video clips
from

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

series '' Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century'' - Season 4 (2007).
Robert Ryman - the Guggenheim MuseumRobert Ryman
at

Xavier Hufkens Xavier Hufkens gallery is a contemporary art gallery founded by Belgian art dealer Xavier Hufkens (b. 1965). The gallery has three locations in Brussels and represents an international roster of some forty emerging, mid-career and established art ...

, Brussels {{DEFAULTSORT:Ryman, Robert 1930 births 2019 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters American abstract artists Minimalist artists Painters from Tennessee Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters People from Nashville, Tennessee Security guards 20th-century American printmakers 20th-century American male artists