al held at david klein gallery
Constructing Abstraction
“David Klein Gallery is pleased to announce Al Held: Constructing Abstraction, an exhibition devoted to a pivotal decade in the career of renowned American painter Al Held (1928–2005). The presentation features eleven rarely exhibited marker drawings from the early 1970s alongside two monumental paintings from the artist’s celebrated Return to Color series of the early 1980s.
It is a testament to Held’s resourcefulness that he embraced markers as a serious medium for drawing. While the free-flowing ink of markers is often associated with looseness and informality, Held employed them with rigor and precision. Working with rulers, compasses, and stencils at his drafting table, he produced geometric abstractions that tested the effects of color on volumetric forms and spatial construction. Vivid hues—blue, green, red, orange, and yellow—were balanced with black, brown, and gray to embolden cubes, cylinders, and triangles with airy clarity. These drawings represent Held at the height of his powers, exploring a new medium while looking toward the future.” –gallery materials including commentary from Daniel Belasco, art historian and executive director of the Al Held Foundation.
Al Held was a 1950s New York painter. His work is described as hard-edged abstraction while self-identifying as a second-generation Abstract Expressionist. His contemporaries included Ellsworth Kelly, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Franz Kline, Frank Stella and Mark Rothko. All of these artists expanded upon the loose, extemporaneous brushstrokes of artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning by constructing more organized spatial relationships in form and composition. Held eschewed flatness through illusion generated by layering three dimensional shapes.
The eye is immediately commanded by bold colorations. Trajan’s Edge IV further pulls the viewer deep into its otherworldly continuum through impeccably executed perspective and subtle value gradations. This painting’s sister is included in the Detroit Institute of Arts’ permanent collection.
Vorcex IV swirls and flows, distinctive from the more static Trajan’s Edge IV displayed on the gallery’s opposing wall. Precise complementary red and green framework barely restrains organic motion curving in and out of its grid. The pale background cools and pronounces the loops that curl on top of this picture. What could be considered an expendable garnish illustrates consideration for every inch of these monumental works.
Often concealed for exhibitions, David Klein Gallery has elected to share notes made by the artist directing his assistants in the implementation of his ideas.
Held took the humble marker, previously relegated to studies and sketches, to loftier heights in this series of drawings which have only been publicly exhibited in the last decade. Their transparency reveals the penciled layout before the quick-drying, brilliant color was added. Having been working solely in black and white for years, these were a way to reintroduce color to this artist’s oeuvre by exploring their relationships and impact.
All of these pictures disclose evidence of motion; where the marker sticks for a moment or where the artist deviated from the original pencil line. Some lines bleed out of their boundaries. Residue from the artist’s working hand smudge and schmear on the page.
This expansive but quiet piece communicates Held’s interest in geometry and architecture. Graphic designer’s tape keeps the impasto confined while creating razor thin dark lines that appear to be etched into the canvas.
Vorcex III is part of a private collection and the most dramatic of the large-scale paintings due to its richly saturated hues. Two skinny, bright yellow ellipses spin toward the foreground. This highly energetic series of paintings came a decade after his black and white phase. Their exuberance may be emblematic of what had previously been missing.
Al Held’s work, from his signature Alphabet paintings to the marker drawings, exemplify the explosion of creativity in 1950s New York. Writers, poets, jazz musicians, painters and sculptors blended into an extraordinary period of innovation and experimentation ultimately establishing New York City as the world’s artistic epicenter. I was introduced to this work while living there during a portion of my childhood. I instantly fell in love with the abstractionists. It’s the most satisfying love affair of my life and why I continue to paint in the genre, attempting to add my voice to this marvelous visual lexicon.
On view through December 6th at David Klein Gallery 678 Livernois Ferndale, MI
direct quote from gallery materials
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