Robert Ryman

Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris
Acquired directly from the above by the late owner

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate.Condition: This work is in very good condition. There are a few tiny media accretions in places scattered on the surface, which is in keeping with the artist's working method. Very close inspection reveals a minute and unobtrusive tear to the lower right corner tip which has been repaired. No restoration is apparent under ultraviolet light.
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Executed in 1969, Untitled [Untitled, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris, Wall Installation] is a meditation on the act of painting and on paint itself. Completed in Robert Ryman’s trademark white and compositionally square, the picture plane is pure and clear, untouched by external references other than those physically involved in its conception. Like many before him, such as Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, Ryman has attempted to reduce painting to its purest state, resulting in an aesthetically original and reverberating piece.

As well as the paint which has been applied evenly and smoothly across the surface, other material components of this piece play an essential part in its compositional make-up. Along the top and bottom of the piece we see four sections with an absence of paint, which is the impression of the tape which Ryman used to fix the square of Mylar to the wall and subsequently removed. Painting onto the sheet of Mylar while it was attached to the wall, and the later still-evident removal, allowed Ryman to bring a focus to the relationship between the work of art and the wall itself. The present work comes from a series that Ryman created whilst travelling to different countries in Europe - this piece is signed ‘Ryman 1969, Paris’, indicating its creation at Galerie Yvon Lambert, from where it was subsequently acquired by Casagrande.

In consciously exploring and exposing these elements of creation, in combination with his exclusive use of white paint, Ryman rejects the traditional roles of paint and painting in the conveyance of narrative or symbolic meaning, and delivers a nuanced and subtle rumination on art itself. Remarkably complex despite its simplicity, the restricted vocabulary ensures attention is brought to the material quality of the picture plane - the brushstroke, textures and tones - in harmony with structural elements that were employed in the construction of the work. This fresh and enduring approach draws the viewer in and allows them to question the physical presence of the piece and its relation to the external world. Throughout his focused and prolific career, Ryman chose to define his work as Realist rather than Minimalist, despite their overlapping aesthetic and intellectual concerns, because of his clear, single-minded rejection of anything beyond the present.

This undeviating approach to artistic creation came after a long consideration of the possibilities of painting during Ryman’s time spent as a gallery assistant in the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1953-1956. Inspired by the works he came into contact with day after day, he decided to experiment himself, confessing that: "I wanted to see what the paint would do, how the brushes would work. That was the first step. I just played around. I had nothing really in mind to paint. I was just finding out how the paint worked, colours, thick and thin, the brushes, surfaces" (Robert Ryman, quoted in: Suzanne Hudson, "Robert Ryman: The How and The What”, Flash Art, n.263, November 2009). These experiments led him to try to find this direct expression of painting, and, as can be seen here, he ultimately realised that this could only be achieved by using white paint and white paint alone.

Ryman’s works are not uniform in their textures, however; in fact he has filled his many canvases with varying textures of matte, dull, translucent, opaque and glossy paint in order to showcase the extensive material possibilities of paint. He once wrote: "The use of white in my paintings came about when I realized that it doesn't interfere. It's a neutral colour that allows for a clarification of nuances in painting. It makes other aspects of painting visible that would not be so clear with the use of other colours" (Robert Ryman, quoted in: Robert Storr, Robert Ryman, London 1993, p. 16). In Untitled, Ryman has applied the white paint evenly without many heavily gestured, textural brushstrokes, leaving a clean and dignified surface that seems alive with lucidity. Immensely recognisable and visually engaging, this piece stands as a magnificent example of Robert Ryman’s oeuvre.