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Al Held
The "I", 1965Acrylic on canvas274.3 x 193 cm | 108 x 76 in.© the artist. Photo © Christopher Burke, New York Courtesy White CubeFurther images
‘In the 1960s paintings, a lot of them have ‘The' in front of the titles, for example, The Big A. I very deliberately wanted to be very specific. The 1960s...‘In the 1960s paintings, a lot of them have ‘The' in front of the titles, for example, The Big A. I very deliberately wanted to be very specific. The 1960s paintings were very slow and evolved very slowly and I specifically wanted to make reference to their specificity, that they were very specific interests. Like The House of Cards, not House of Cards; the “The” was placed there to try somehow to emphasize the specificity of the form.’
– Taken from Al Held's oral history with Archives of American Art, 1975/76.
Provenance
Collection of the Artist
Private collection, United States
Exhibitions
Al Held, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, March 25 – May 1, 1966
New Shapes of Colour, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 19 November 1966 – 15 January 1967
Al Held, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 11 October – 1 December 1974
Abstract Painting: 1960–69. P.S. 1, New York, 16 January – 13 March 1983
Al Held: Alphabet Paintings 1961–1967, Cheim & Read, New York, 28 February – 20 April 2013Literature
Beeren, W. A. L. Al Held. Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 1966.
Tucker, Marcia. Al Held. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1974. p. 49.
Held, Al. “The ‘60s in Abstract: 13 Statements and an Essay.” Interview with Maurice Poirier and Jane Necol. Art in America (October 1983): p. 125.
Storr, Robert. Al Held: Alphabet Paintings 1961-1967. New York: Cheim & Read, 2013.
Publications
WAL Beeren, Al Held, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1966
Marcia Tucker, Al Held, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 1974. p.49
Al Held, ‘The ’60s in Abstract: 13 Statements and an Essay’, Interview with Maurice Poirier and Jane Necol, Art in America, October 1983, p.125
Robert Storr, Al Held: Alphabet Paintings 1961–1967, Cheim & Read, New York 2013
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