Minimalism

Ellsworth Kelly was an American artist and sculptor, an outstanding figure in post-war abstract art. His paintings with large abstract figures, bold and contrasting combinations of colours, influenced the development of Minimalism, colour field painting and hard-edge painting.

Frank Stella is an American artist, the main representative of Minimalism, known for his paintings of a non-standard format and large-scale compositions that combine the features of painting, sculpture and architecture.

Cy Twombly (his real name was Edwin Parker Twombly) was an American painter and sculptor, one of the most incomprehensible artists, whose paintings cause constant debate and discussion in the art world. Most of his works are white canvases, covered with multi-coloured scribbles, lines and chaotic spots. The artist often uses various inscriptions in his works, making them look like urban elemental art of graffiti. Moreover, the name and meaning of the works are referred to ancient myths, classical paintings and cultures of various nationalities.

An Italian painter and sculptor, author of theoretical works on art. Lucio Fontana is considered the most radical artist after Kazimir Malevich, who managed to bring art to a new round of the development of abstraction and minimalism. The name of Fontana is associated primarily with his cut paintings: the artist unsparingly cut them with a sharp blade or pierced his canvas with a knife. But he did not intend to destroy his works. He just wanted to expand the pictorial space of his painting, to make them voluminous and evoking different associations.

An outstanding French artist, sculptor and photographer. Despite his short artistic career (1954-1962), he is rightly considered one of the most significant innovators of post-war European art.

Donald Judd was one of the most famous American abstract sculptors of the late 20th century, a designer and art theorist. He is the leading representative of Minimalism, although he himself never referred himself in this movement. Judd did not call himself a sculptor, believing that his art fundamentally does not fit the definition of sculpture since his works were not made by him personally but were made of ready-made objects.Donald Judd described his creations as “a simple expression of complex thought” and composed them from industrial materials. A characteristic feature of the artist’s style is focusing not on the depicted object itself but on the space that he creates around himself. The most famous series of his works “Specific Objects” and the vertically placed “Racks” demonstrate his radical approach to modern sculpture, which fundamentally changes the very essence of this art form. Donald Judd explained his complicated abstract art in numerous theoretical works. He published a number of essays, as well as two volumes of the Complete Works in 1976 and 1986.Since 1970, the artist began to create sculptural compositions for installation on open air. Few people know that the popular “loft” style of interior appeared largely thanks to Donald Judd. He was the first to convert an industrial building in New York into a living space and a studio, where he worked and exhibited his sculptures. Here he worked for 25 years, and after the artist’s death a museum was organized in the building, which not only demonstrates his creations but also allows visitors to understand the very essence and history of such an art movement as Minimalism.

An American contemporary conceptual sculptor and artist. The art of Bruce Nauman includes a wide range of creative interests: performance and installation, photography and art video, works for the media, printing and industrial production. In all areas, the artist was attracted by the nature of communication, problems of the language and the role of the artist as a manipulator of visual symbols by the means of communication.Nauman received numerous awards in several areas of artistic practice and an honorary doctorate in arts from the American Art Institute. His works are widely represented around the world at the expositions of the most prestigious museums and galleries. The monumental creations of Bruce Nauman inspired many other artists in the second half of the 20th century and continues to be in demand in the 21st century. In 2004, Time Magazine named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the art world. In 2006, according to the rating of Artfacts.net, Bruce Nauman was number one among living artists.

An outstanding British sculptor, one of the key figures in the avant-garde art of the country. Sir Anthony Caro was known for his innovative solutions, which were much ahead of their time and set the stage for future changes in three-dimensional art. Being for some time an assistant to his famous compatriot Henry Moore, the sculptor became a follower of his undertakings in the field of avant-garde sculpture, expanding the framework of the traditional idea of ​​this art.Caro's most famous works are large abstract sculptures painted in one bright colour and standing on the ground, without any pedestals, allowing the viewer to take part in the composition. The sculptor created his works in accordance with the environment in which they were supposed to be installed. He always insisted on the direct connection of architecture with sculpture, and even coined a special term for works that are at the junction of these two types of art - “Sculpitecture”.Of great importance were also the many years of Caro’s teaching activity. His unconventional approach to form and space opened up new possibilities and had a great influence on young sculptors. Among his students at different times there were such outstanding personalities as Philip King, Barry Flanagan and Richard Long, called the "new generation" of English sculpture.

A French self-taught artist, painter and graphic artist, writer, an active member of the group "Fauves" ("Wild" or Fauvist).The artist was born into the family of poor Parisian musicians (a Flemish violinist-emigrant and a pianist from Lorraine). Having learned to play the violin, he began to make a living early, without an opportunity to get a special arts education.Maurice de Vlaminck was quite accurately called the "incinerator" of Expressionism in the group of Fauves. The artist, who attended only private drawing lessons from adolescence, said with pride that he had never visited museums ("did not cross the Louvre threshold"). Maurice believed that the study and copying the paintings of masters, like a specialized school, deprive the creator of identity, making him not a painter, but a theoretician.Numerous solo exhibitions of Maurice’s paintings that took place in Switzerland, England and other European countries, as well as in the USA, helped him confidently gain sympathy among art lovers and art historians all over the world. They made the painter not only popular, but also financially secured. The artist was given the honor to represent France at the Venice Biennale in 1954. As a writer, Vlaminck left a legacy of several novels and autobiographies.

A Swiss and German painter, graphic artist, art theorist, one of the biggest figures of the European avant-garde.Paul, the son of a German father and a Swiss mother, was born on December 18 near Bern in Münchenbuchze. Both of his parents were musicians: his father taught music at a college, while his mother was a professional singer. From the age of seven, the boy played the violin, and other hobbies were drawing and writing poems. Despite the family's desire that his son builds a musical career, he decided to achieve success in the fine arts, where he could "create, and not just perform."A citizen of Germany, P. Klee was born, spent much of his life and died in Switzerland. He was an active member of Blue Horseman group, he taught at Bauhaus - an influential school of architecture and industrial design, at the Dusseldorf Academy of Arts. Pictures came to the exhibition of "degenerate" art. The influence of the creativity of Paul Klee extends to many styles of the 20th century: Surrealism and Minimalism, geometric Abstract art and Abstract expressionism. The Center of P. Klee was opened in Bern.

Like in his earlier works, the artist paid much attention to colours, carefully selecting the necessary shades and their combinations. In “Red Diagonal”, colours create a dynamic composition, thanks to the contrast between the neutral white and the defiant fiery red hue.

Despite the strict shape, the “Yellow Curve” is not a regular geometric figure. This painting in intense canary colours has a completely irregular shape, as it has neither straight lines nor right angles.

Soon after returning from Paris, Kelly began to create works of a non-standard form instead of paintings from several colour panels. "Black over blue" is one of the most famous paintings by the artist in this series.

In this work, Ellsworth Kelly tried to convey the tension that exists between the figure and the background on which it is located. Despite its flat forms, the composition is very dynamic.

The abstract works of Ellsworth Kelly are based on natural forms. In the 1960s, he made a series of lithographs in the style of minimalism, in which he depicted tree leaves and fruits in the form of simplified flat figures.

This is an abstraction of bright, pure colours. The picture consists of seven equal panels and has a horizontal orientation – the author’s favorite format. During its creation, Ellsworth Kelly actively experimented in the style of neoplasticism with different colour ratios, studying their effect on each other and human perception.

In this work of his Parisian period, the artist compared various colours in random order, thus proving that their combinations create a certain atmosphere and mood depending on their location. Ellsworth Kelly drew inspiration in the outside world.

In his minimalist works, Ellsworth Kelly tried to reduce the importance of subjective factors and personal preferences of the performer. To do this, he used the element of chance, which he began to apply under the influence of Jean Arp and John Cage even during his stay in Paris after participating in the war.

The work consists of 64 squares of equal size, interconnected in one large panel. Each element of the picture has a particular colour and a specific place in the composition, which the artist most often determined intuitively.

“Empress of India” is one of the first figurative and non-figurative paintings of Stella, which has a form that is non-standard for painting. The work consists of four triangles connected in series, each of which differs from the neighboring by colour scheme.

Black and white monochrome works by Frank Stella pretty soon gave way to his bright and colourful compositions. His paintings, as before, consisted exclusively of strips of almost the same width, which uniformly covered the entire surface of the canvas.

The composition of the work consists of simple symmetrical patterns on a black background, converging to the center of the picture in the form of a cross. The human eye perceives the image as white stripes on a black background, although the artist applied black paint to the canvas, and the white parts are just unpainted fragments of the canvas.

The work is included in the famous Stella’s series entitled “Black Pictures”. The cycle turned over the idea of fine art with its simplicity and the absence of any meanings.

The late work of Fontana completed in the last year of his life is a completely white canvas, covered with thick pasty paint. In the middle of the canvas, the artist made a hole that has torn edges also densely covered with white pigment and turned outward.

The work is large and has a large number of strip-slots on its surface. Symmetrical cuts on white canvas are arranged in two rows - such a composition is rarely found in the works of Lucio Fontana.

Lucio Fontana created his first paintings with cuts on abstract canvases with coloured figures, but after a while, he started working on completely monochrome canvases. This change might have occurred under the influence of the work of contemporary artist Yves Klein, who used pure bright shades, especially blue, to create his works.

The artist began to create pictures in the shape of an egg in the late period of his work. In these works, he used his famous “holes” pierced with a knife, as well as various materials with an unusual structure that creates interesting effects on the surface of the canvas.

The work belongs to the series of paintings "Venice", which consists of 22 canvases made in an abstract style that echoes the Baroque. The artist used a dark background covered with a thick layer of paint using the impasto technique.

Unlike in his other works from the “cuts” series, Fontana used small unpainted canvas in this one. He made a diagonal incision with a sharp blade, and placed a black fabric behind, which creates the illusion of a bottomless abyss and infinity.

One of the first paintings by Fontana, in which he violated the flat and even surface of the canvas, piercing it with a knife. Instead of creating the illusion of the image by applying paint to the canvas, the artist gave viewers an opportunity to look into the space behind the painting, which turns out to be unexpectedly deep and mysterious, as if the painting is a portal to a completely different dimension.

Mediums: dry pigment in synthetic polymer medium on cotton over plywood. Location: Museum of Modern Art, New York (the USA).

Mediums: pure pigment and synthetic resin on a board. Location: the private collection of Rotraut Klein, Paris (France).

The Chinati Foundation, Marfa Texas (the USA).

Mediums: painted aluminum. Location: the Tate Modern Gallery, London (the UK).

Mediums: copper. Location: the Tate Gallery, London (the UK).

Mediums: steel, aluminum, plexiglass. Location: the Tate Modern Gallery, London (the UK).

Mediums: brass and red flourescent Plexiglas. Location: the Guggenheim Museum, New York (the USA).

Mediums: copper, enamel, aluminum. Location: the Tate Modern Gallery, London (the UK).

Mediums: enamel, aluminum. Location: the Guggenheim Museum, New York (the USA).

Mediums: galvanized steel, enamel. Location: the Museum of Modern Art, New York (the USA).

Mediums: neon tubing and wire with glass tubing suspension frames. Location: the Museum of Modern Art, New York (the USA).

Location: Lörrach (Germany).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: private collection.