ART CITIES:N.York-Anne Truitt
Anne Truitt is a major figure in American art. Her career as a painter and sculptor spanned over forty years. While often labelled a Minimalist, Truitt’s work was actually defined by a powerful emotional and autobiographical reflex which stands her apart from her contemporaries. In the 1950s Truitt abandoned psychology and nursing to dedicate herself to art.
By DimitrisLempesis
Photo: Matthew Marks Gallery Archive
Anne Truitt’s early practice found resonance with the American Abstract Expressionists, formulating itself around a core interest in color – albeit from a sculptural standpoint. From hesitant experiments with clay, wire and cement, to elegant wooden, totem-like sculptures and monochromatic paintings, Truitt’s work successfully re-defined the boundaries of American Abstraction. She is now recognised as one of the movement’s leading proponents. While she is perhaps now best known for her sculptures, Truitt was committed to a daily ritual of drawing and painting. In April, 1965, Truitt stated “What is important to me in not geometrical shape per se, or color per se, but to make a relationship between shape and color which feels to me like my experience. To make what feels to me like reality”. Featuring eleven works on canvas made between 1974 and 1993, “Paintings” is the largest exhibition of Anne Truitt’s paintings since the 1970s. Known primarily for her totemic wood sculptures painted in subtle shades of color, Truitt also made innovative paintings for more than three decades. Rarely seen during her lifetime (only one of the works in this exhibition has been shown before), Truitt’s paintings juxtapose fields of rich color applied in multiple layers using a masking technique Truitt first developed in the 1960s. One of the largest paintings in the exhibition, “Engadine I” (1990), features two shades of purplish black divided along a sharp vertical border that bisects the composition into unequal yet optically balanced halves. Despite her pared-down formal vocabulary, which has garnered comparisons to Minimalism, Truitt’s fundamental concern was expression: “I’ve struggled all my life to get maximum meaning in the simplest possible form”. This can be seen in her attentiveness not only to each painting’s color and composition but also to its material support. In “Messenger”, “Prodigal” and “Morning Wave” (all 1986) she has accentuated the verticality of each painting by tacking the canvas to the back of the stretchers and extending the composition around the painting’s sides. In later works, including “Prospect” (1991), she used rounded stretcher bars that curl inward to give the painting a curved bevel along its perimeter. This tension between two and three dimensionality is a central element in Truitt’s paintings and sculptures. Through this interplay between pictorial effects and material support, she manifested the metaphysical meaning in her.
Info: Matthew Marks Gallery, 523 West 24 Street, New York, Duration: 14/9-27/10/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.matthewmarks.com
