This catalogue covers the ABC’s of Noland’s pictorial vocabulary since he began painting in the 1950s–the circle, the chevron and the stripe. With that foundation, Noland built an influential oeuvre that communicated the substance and associative power of color. This compact retrospective provides a fine overview.

Included artists: Adams Alice, Agostini Peter, Andre Carl, Antonakos Stephen, Arneson Robert, Artschwager Richard, Bochner Mel, Bollinger Bill, Bourgeois Louise, Brown Marvin, Calder Alexander, Celmins Vija, Chamberlain John, Chase-Riboud Barbara, Chryssa, Corse Mary, De Andrea John, De Rivera Jose, Di Suvero Mark, Duff John, Edwards Melvin, Eversley Frederick John, Ferrara Jackie, Ferrer Rafael, Flavin Dan, Frank Mary, Friedberg Richard, Gilhooley David, Graham Robert, Graves Nancy, Grieger Scott, Haber Ira Joel, Hanson Duane, Hubbard Robert, Hudson Robert, Hunt Richard, James Laurace, Johnson Daniel La Rue, Judd Danald, Kipp Lyman, Kohn Gabriel, Larson Haydn, Lerner Marilyn, Le Va Barry, Levinson Mon, Linder Jean, Lipton Seymour, Lobe Robert, McCracken John, Melchert James, Miss Mary, Moore G.E., Morris Robert, Morton Ree, Murray Robert, Myers Forrest, Nauman Bruce, Neri Manuel, Noguchi Isamu, Noland Kenneth, Oldenburg Claes, Oppenheim Dennis, Ossorio Alfonso, Price Kenneth, Reginato Peter, Rickey George, Roche Jim, Rockburne Dorothea, Rohm Robert, Ruppersberg Allen, Saar Bettye, Samaras Lucas, Scanga Italo, Segal george, Serra Richard, Shapiro Joel, Shaw Richard, Shostak Ed, Smith George, Smith Tony, Smithson Robert, Snelson Kenneth, Sonnier Keith, Steiner Michael, Stone Sylvia, Strider Marjorie, Sugarman George, Tetherow Michael, Todd Mike, Truitt Anne, Valentine DeWain, Van Buren Richard, Van Fleet Ellen, Voulkos Peter, Westermann H.C., Wiley William T., Wilmarth Christopher, Wilson May, Winsor Jackie

Taking Barnett Newman’s seminal 1966 painting as its starting point, this exhibition catalogue collects work by 14 monumentally important international artists, including Newman himself, who were responsible for brining Minimalism to the fore. Beginning with Dan Flavin’s neon works, and including monochromes, color field paintings and contrast studies by Gunther Forg, Ellsworth Kelly, Imi Knoebel, Yves Klein, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Blinky Palermo, Stephen Prina, Ad Reinhardt, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko and Heimo Zobernig, this volume also contains personal statements by or about each of the artists, all very well chosen and unusually intimate. Transcendent, exuberant, sober, poetic, witty, sublime or dogmatic–the works collected here answer Newman’s titular question with a resounding, “Not I.”

Originally published in 1975, this collection of Donald Judd’s writings is now a sought-after classic. His uncompromising reviews avoid the familiar generalizations so often associated with artistic styles emerging during the 1950s and 60s. Here, Judd discusses in detail the work of more than 500 artists showing in New York at that time, and provides a critical account of this significant era in American art. While addressing the social and political ramifications of art production, the writings focus on the work of Jackson Pollock, Kazimir Malevich, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, John Chamberlain, Larry Poons, Kenneth Noland and Claes Oldenburg. His 1965 “Specific Objects” essay, a discussion of sculptural thought in the 60s, is included alongside the notorious polemical essay “Imperialism, Nationalism, Regionalism” and much else.

Much acclaimed and highly controversial, Michael Fried’s art criticism defines the contours of late modernism in the visual arts. This volume contains twenty-seven pieces, including the influential introduction to the catalog for Three American Painters, the text of his book Morris Louis, and the renowned “Art and Objecthood.” Originally published between 1962 and 1977, they continue to generate debate today. These are uncompromising, exciting, and impassioned writings, aware of their transformative power during a time of intense controversy about the nature of modernism and the aims and essence of advanced painting and sculpture. Ranging from brief reviews to extended essays, and including major critiques of Jackson Pollock, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella, and Anthony Caro, these writings establish a set of basic terms for understanding key issues in high modernism: the viability of Clement Greenberg’s account of the infralogic of modernism, the status of figuration after Pollock, the centrality of the problem of shape, the nature of pictorial and sculptural abstraction, and the relationship between work and beholder. In a number of essays Fried contrasts the modernist enterprise with minimalist or literalist art, and, taking a position that remains provocative to this day, he argues that minimalism is essentially a genre of theater, hence artistically self-defeating. For this volume Fried has also provided an extensive introductory essay in which he discusses how he became an art critic, clarifies his intentions in his art criticism, and draws crucial distinctions between his art criticism and the art history he went on to write. The result is a book that is simply indispensable for anyone concerned with modernist painting and sculpture and the task of art criticism in our time.

It was at Black Mountain College that Merce Cunningham formed his dance company, John Cage staged his first “happening,” and Buckminster Fuller built his first dome. Although it lasted only twenty-four years (1933-1957) and enrolled fewer than 1,200 students, Black Mountain College launched a remarkable number of the artists who spearheaded the avant-garde in America of the 1960s. The faculty included such diverse talents as Anni and Josef Albers, Eric Bentley, Ilya Bolotowsky, Robert Creeley, Willem de Kooning, Robert Duncan, Lyonel Feininger, Paul Goodman, Walter Gropius, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Charles Olson. Among the students were Ruth Asawa, John Chamberlain, Francine du Plessix Gray, Kenneth Noland, Arthur Penn, Robert Rauschenberg, Kenneth Snelson, Cy Twombly, Stan Vanderbeek, and Jose Yglesias.In this definitive account of the arts at Black Mountain College, back in print after many years, Mary Emma Harris describes a unique educational experiment and the artists and writers who conducted it. She replaces the myth of the college as a haphazardly conceived venture with a portrait of a consciously directed liberal arts school that grew out of the progressive education movement. Proceeding chronologically through the four major periods of the college’s history, Harris covers every aspect of its extraordinary curriculum in the visual, literary, and performing arts.