Robert Ryman: Used Paint

October Books

by Suzanne P. Hudson

This first book-length study of Robert Ryman argues that his work is a continuous experiment in the possibilities of painting. In this first book-length study of Robert Ryman, Suzanne Hudson traces the artist's production from his first paintings in the early 1950s, many of which have never been exhibited or reproduced, to his recent gallery shows. Ryman's largely white-on-white paintings represent his careful working over of painting's conventions at their most radically reduced. Through close readings of the work, Hudson casts Ryman as a painter for whom painting was conducted as a continuous personal investigation. Ryman's method—an act of “learning by doing”—as well as his conception of painting as “used paint” sets him apart from second-generation abstract expressionists, minimalists, or conceptualists. Ryman (born in 1930) is a self-taught artist who began to paint in earnest while working as a guard at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the 1950s. Hudson argues that Ryman's approach to painting developed from quotidian contact with the story of modern painting as assembled by MoMA director and curator Alfred Barr and rendered widely accessible by director of the education department Victor D'Amico and colleagues. Ryman's introduction to artistic practice within the (white) walls of MoMA, Hudson contends, was shaped by an institutional ethos of experiential learning. (Others who worked at the MoMA during these years include Lucy Lippard, who married Ryman in 1961; Dan Flavin, another guard; and Sol LeWitt, a desk assistant.) Hudson's chapters—“Primer,” “Paint,” “Support,” “Edge,” and “Wall,” named after the most basic elements of the artist's work—eloquently explore Ryman's ongoing experiment in what makes a painting a painting. Ryman's work, she writes, tests the medium's material and conceptual possibilities. It signals neither the end of painting nor guarantees its continued longevity but keeps the prospect of painting an open question, answerable only through the production of new paintings.

Genres: Art

315 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2009

Reviews

[Matthew Marchand · Rating 5 out of 5]

An arhetorical practice interested in the relation of painting to painting instead of painting to words. Beware my dogmatic soul, another path appears.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughtful, well written, and beautiful little book. I liked the structure-from paint to support and beyond and also the form of the book. I found the early chapters of the book fascinating. She writes about MOMA and it's educational mission. How lucky those artists were to have a museum like that in their city. Sol Lewitt worked the front desk and Robert Ryman was a museum guard and that is how he got his education.

the reproductions in the book are very good and there are many.

I recommend this book to anyone who has been held their breath in front of a Ryman.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book on a whim, I didn't know much about Robert Ryman...as a painter, I'm always interested in reading about other painters and their practices...and anyone who consistently (and successfully) paints in white interested me a great deal as my work tends toward the monochromatic and all white paintings would be ideal (above and beyond a "polar bear in a snowstorm" jokes.) I loved the book design too (being a bookish person and author, I love books as objects as well, so this one has found a special place in my heart because of the attention paid to the design, inside and out, well done, I say! As with any art book, I waded through the theory like I always do with a touch of frustration and an occasional eye-roll, I've never been a fan of theory...of course, it has its place, but good grief some of it is just a little too pretentious to be approachable for most readers, but I was grateful that the book is well written and remained on track without becoming too blurred by fuzzy logic and wordy gobbledy-gook. I did like the bits of Ryman's quips about theory and how he feels about the things others write about his work, it seemed especially thick near the end of the book, his personality was coming through, and there were more and more quotes by him gathered together, which I really loved reading. Things like: "I have learned to accept doubt as part of the process." and "I knew that I could do it. I mean, I could paint the figure if I wanted to, or I could paint a landscape. I knew I could do that, because it was just a matter of learning the technique. But I knew that, if I could do it, anyone could do it...If I was going to do something with the paint and make something happen with it from in me, then that would be much more important and much more of a challenge. And so it was always abstract." I wished to read more of his own words, simply put, "I make paintings; I'm a painter." Well, shoot, I couldn't have said it better myself. He's a painter who clearly loves what he does.