Provenance

Robert E. Meyerhoff

Meyerhoff Foundation
Meyerhoff, Robert E., Mr. and Mrs.

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This painting features an assortment of circular blue and green shapes dispersed across the canvas, interspersed with broad brush strokes and a backdrop of blues, blacks, and earthy tones. The combination of color and the visible circles and brushstrokes create a landscape that appears both disorderly and organized, resembling a densely vegetated field or forest.
Howard Hodgkin, Souvenirs, 1980-1984, oil on wood, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, 1994.82.3

Souvenirs

Howard Hodgkin · 1980-1984 · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  1994.82.3

This colorful painting is comprised of swirling lines and curved shapes in various bright colors filling the canvas. Bright teals, reds, pinks, yellows, browns, and oranges fill the image. The colors are applied in swirling lines, dots, or abstract shapes. Some of the lines crisscross the entire canvas, while others are in a contained area. In some places, the white of the canvas beneath provides a background for the colors.
Nancy Graves, Agualine, 1980, oil on canvas, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, 2010.14.1

Agualine

Nancy Graves · 1980 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2010.14.1

Three casts of human hands and forearms hang from the top edge of the right half of this horizontal abstract painting, which is divided vertically in two equal parts. The rectangular field to the left is mottled with steel and charcoal gray streaked with white and amethyst purple. The panel to the right is divided again so the top half is slightly larger than the bottom half. The bottom portion is painted with a pattern to resemble abstracted wood grain in nickel and slate gray. A stylized white cloth, perhaps a handkerchief, is painted to look as if hanging from a nail hammered into the wood paneling, to our left. The top portion seems to be layered with paintings and prints below and beneath the three arms. The three-dimensional arms hang from looped metal wires on metal hooks spaced along the top edge, coming about a quarter of the way down the overall composition. The peach-colored arms and hands are painted all over with irregular gray patches, creating a camouflage effect. They hang down so the open palms are flat against the canvas, the thumbs extended to our left. The top of the arm to our left is painted cherry red, the middle is painted canary yellow, and the right arm royal blue. The paint drips down the arms and splatters on the hands and on the faux wood panel below. Behind the hands, it appears that one of the artist’s prints hangs from two nails on the canvas, but this is also part of the painting. The illusionistic print has three horizontal bands of pine green, pumpkin orange, and violet purple crisscrossed with black lines. Seeming to hang behind it and under the right-most arm is a sheet of music overlapping another piece of paper printed with the letters “OHN C” and “THE PERILOUS.” Below, and filling the space between the illusionistic print and the wood panel, is a rectangular field of abstract gray and black swirling forms. The entire canvas is surrounded by a thin, amber-colored wood frame. A narrow wooden slat is attached with a hinge on the inner surface of the frame at the bottom right corner, so the slat runs up along and rests against the canvas near the rightmost edge of the frame. The artist signed the work with stenciled letters in pale gray in the lower right corner: “J. JOHNS ‘8.”
Jasper Johns, Perilous Night, 1982, encaustic and silkscreen on canvas with objects, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, 1995.79.1

Perilous Night

Jasper Johns · 1982 · encaustic and silkscreen on canvas with objects ·  Accession ID  1995.79.1

Thickly painted, rectangular vertical and horizontal slabs in intense buttercup and mango yellow, shamrock and lime green, burnt orange, raspberry pink, and charcoal gray are layered in this nearly square, abstract composition. In the top half, shapes are smaller, closer together, and separated by strokes of moss green. In the bottom half, the shapes are larger and seem to float against a vivid orange background. Smaller swipes and dabs of cotton candy pink, plum purple, indigo blue, sea glass green, scarlet red, rust brown, and bright white are interspersed around the slabs. The artist signed and dated the painting in green paint in the lower right corner, “hans hofmann 57.”
Hans Hofmann, Autumn Gold, 1957, oil on canvas, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, 1996.81.4

Autumn Gold

Hans Hofmann · 1957 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1996.81.4

A bright white strip and a pair of white lines span the height of this otherwise cream-white, vertical, abstract painting. The wider white strip is along the left side of the canvas, and the pair of thinner lines are near each other about three-quarters of the way across from the left. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner in white, “Barnett Newman 1965.”
Barnett Newman, Eleventh Station, 1965, acrylic on canvas, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, 1986.65.11

Eleventh Station

Barnett Newman · 1965 · acrylic on canvas ·  Accession ID  1986.65.11

Joseph Cornell, Les constellations voisines du pôle, 1961, construction, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, 1991.218.2

Les constellations voisines du pôle

Joseph Cornell · 1961 · construction ·  Accession ID  1991.218.2

Layers of rust-red and bronze-brown, textured paint cover this vertical, abstract canvas. The layers give way to a patch of scarlet-red streaks near the top left corner. A red vein drifts about three-quarters of the way down the canvas. A narrow swipe canary-yellow lines the upper edge of the painting above the red streaks, which are about a quarter of the way across from the left edge. A few minuscule spots of lapis-blue nearly go unnoticed along the right edge of the canvas near the bottom right corner. The artist signed the painting in the lower left corner, “Clyfford.”
Clyfford Still, PH-571 (1951-N), 1951, oil on canvas, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, Gift in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1989.87.1

PH-571 (1951-N)

Clyfford Still · 1951 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1989.87.1

A bright white strip and a pair of white lines span the height of this otherwise cream-white, vertical, abstract painting. The wider white strip is along the left side of the canvas, and the pair of thinner lines are side-by-side about three-quarters of the way across from the left. There are a few touches of rust-orange discoloration scattered across the canvas. The artist signed and dated the lower right corner with white paint, "Barnett Newman 1964.”
Barnett Newman, Ninth Station, 1964, acrylic on canvas, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, 1986.65.9

Ninth Station

Barnett Newman · 1964 · acrylic on canvas ·  Accession ID  1986.65.9

This painting showcases intertwined and overlapping curvilinear and geometric shapes painted in broad strokes. It has an abstract composition with arcs and intersecting lines in white and pale blue overlapping with circular and geometric shapes in shades of earthy green, vibrant orange, deep red, and bright yellow. Some of the circular shapes look almost like eyes, but otherwise there are no specific objects visible.
Bradley Walker Tomlin, Maneuver for Position, 1947, oil on canvas, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, 1996.81.2

Maneuver for Position

Bradley Walker Tomlin · 1947 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1996.81.2

William Baziotes, Desert Landscape, 1951, oil and charcoal on canvas, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, 1996.81.1

Desert Landscape

William Baziotes · 1951 · oil and charcoal on canvas ·  Accession ID  1996.81.1