Past Exhibition

In The Tower: Barnett Newman

Two black bands span the height of this vertical canvas against a field of white mottled with shades of ivory, bone, and parchment in this abstract painting. A narrow, solid black stripe lines the left edge of the canvas, like the spine of a book. About a quarter of the way in from the right edge, black paint swirls and wafts like smoke on either side of a narrow white stripe the same color as the background. The artist signed and dated the painting in black paint in the lower right corner of the canvas: “Barnett Newman 1958.”
Barnett Newman, First Station, 1958, Magna on canvas, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, 1986.65.1

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    East Building, Pod 3 Tower
Two black bands span the height of this vertical canvas against a field of white mottled with shades of ivory, bone, and parchment in this abstract painting. A narrow, solid black stripe lines the left edge of the canvas, like the spine of a book. About a quarter of the way in from the right edge, black paint swirls and wafts like smoke on either side of a narrow white stripe the same color as the background. The artist signed and dated the painting in black paint in the lower right corner of the canvas: “Barnett Newman 1958.”
Barnett Newman, First Station, 1958, Magna on canvas, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection, 1986.65.1

Overview: Drawing mainly from the Gallery's rich holdings of Barnett Newman's (1905–1970) work, this exhibition presents two crucial periods in the artist's career. Newman's paintings and drawings of the 1940s reveal a shift from biomorphic imagery to simple linear forms, while The Stations of the Cross, a cycle of 14 paintings plus a coda (Be II), dominated Newman's mature career from 1958 to 1966.

Organization: Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Sponsor: The exhibition is made possible by The Exhibition Circle and The Tower Project of the National Gallery of Art.

Attendance: 77,868

Catalog: In the Tower: Barnett Newman, by Harry Cooper. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2012.

You may also like

Two men on logs surrounded by the rapids of the Hudson River with green trees on both sides and a blue sky with white puffy clouds.

Exhibition:  American Landscapes in Watercolor from the Corcoran Collection

Kwame Brathwaite's photograph of a young woman, Untitled (Portrait, Reels as Necklace), c. 1972

Exhibition:  Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985