Franz Kline

Egan Gallery, New York
Margaret Brown Gallery, Boston
Christie's, New York, May 4, 1989, lot 120
PaineWebber Group Inc., New York (acquired from the above sale)
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Houston, The Menil Collection; New York, Whitney Museum of American Art; Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Franz Kline: Black and White 1950-1961, September 1994 - June 1995, cat. no. 20, p. 56, illustrated in color
Houston, Museum of Fine Arts; The Detroit Institute of Art; Boston, The Museum of Fine Arts; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; San Diego Museum of Art; Miami Center for the Arts, Art Works: The PaineWebber Collection of Contemporary Masters, July 1995 - June 1997

This work is in very good condition overall. The exposed newsprint has yellowed slightly with age. The left edge of the sheet is unevenly torn, presumably inherent to the artist's working method. Hinged verso to the matte around the edges. Framed under Plexiglas.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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A paradigmatic member of the Abstract Expressionist movement, Franz Kline long advocated its core tenet that the painted stroke could mirror an artist's emotional response to experiences. For Kline, his paintings were "an experience translated through the form." Originally trained as a draftsman, Kline was able to escape the constraints of his academic background and develop a readily identifiable and impactful visual language that showed his keen awareness of the power of lines and space. However, unlike his Abstract Expressionist peers who developed practices that relied on spontaneous applications of paint to canvas, the appearance of spontaneity in Kline's work was a product of a deliberate and careful process to mimic immediacy. A brush stroke spray of black in a small study would be meticulously painted on one of Kline's large canvases, recreating the moment of spontaneity and giving it the appearance of being the product of a massive brush.

Early in Kline's career, preliminary studies on telephone book pages became integral to his preparatory process and means of cost saving. Kline produced many such studies and they evince the deliberateness of his final images. Only a small percentage of the many studies were transferred to canvas, and fewer were left relatively unchanged from study to final painting. Study for Black and White # 1 is one of the rare instances where the final work is quite similar to the initial study. Indeed, one may argue that the rawness of the exposed telephone pages provides an additional dimension to the work, making it a more nuanced image than the final painting.

The exposed telephone book page demonstrates that Kline's blacks and whites were equally considered in the composition and undercuts the frequent claim that Kline's process was akin to calligraphy. Rather than marks struck across a passive white ground, Kline's blacks are inscribed amongst the cloudy white fields. Like Mondrian before him, everything on a Kline canvas is equally painted even if the blacks and whites are not quantitatively balanced.  Revealing the underlying text of the telephone pages further reinforces the flatness of the surface and prevents foregrounding the jagged black strokes. Their expressiveness is constrained by the sea of white producing a dynamic tension that is the hallmark of Kline's work.