{"type":"artobject","objectid":33098,"objectnumber":"y1987-47","sortnumber":"1987   47y","displaytitle":"Untitled","department":"Modern and Contemporary Art","classification":"Paintings","datebegin":1960,"dateend":1960,"datecomputed":1960,"daterange":"A.D. 1945-present","displaydate":"1960","medium":"Oil on canvas","dimensions":"sheet (sight): 156.4 x 156.6 cm. (61 9/16 x 61 5/8 in.)\r\nframe: 157.5 × 157.5 × 9.5 cm (62 × 62 × 3 3/4 in.)","dimensionsproposed":"","creditline":"Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund","markings":null,"inscribed":null,"signed":null,"catalograisonne":null,"creditlinerepro":"© 2013 Estate of Ad Reinhardt / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York","restrictions":"Restricted","nowebuse":"False","secondaryobjectnumber":null,"campuscollections":"false","on_view":true,"accessionyear":"1987-01-01","newaccession":0,"titles":[{"title":"Untitled","titletype":"Primary Title","displayorder":1}],"makers":[{"id":3201,"displayname":"Ad Reinhardt","displaydate":"1913–1967, born Buffalo, NY; died New York, NY; active New York","datebegin":1913,"dateend":1967,"prefix":null,"suffix":null,"role":"Artist","displaymaker":"Ad Reinhardt, 1913–1967, born Buffalo, NY; died New York, NY; active New York","displayorder":1}],"depicted":[],"texts":[{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Provenance","textentryhtml":"Estate of the artist, consigned to; [Marlborough Gallery Inc, New York, New York], sold; to Princeton University Art Museum, 1987.","remarks":null},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"Reinhardt dedicated the last ten years of his life to a body of black paintings that fuse two characteristic elements of twentieth-century art practice: the grid and the monochrome palette. Built from a composition of nine squares, each of which possesses subtle tonal differences resulting from the artist’s addition of small amounts of red, green, or blue to black pigment, these paintings explore the possibilities of perception within a restricted palette. Reinhardt attempted to remove any trace of brushwork from his canvases that might cause visual distraction—a goal that, paradoxically, required great effort. He thinned his paints with turpentine and drained the oil from the pigments to create delicate matte surfaces that capture and absorb light. As the artist once said, “Some people think that if a painting doesn’t have a subject or isn’t a picture, then it doesn’t have meaning. This just isn’t true.”","remarks":"MOD_09-12_WLA – Day 1 Cataloguing"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Handbook Entry","textentryhtml":"\r\nDeeply committed to the purity and autonomy of art, Ad Reinhardt sought to fuse two of abstraction’s most important traditions: the grid and the monochrome. This ambition was realized in his <I>Black Paintings</I>, which he began in the mid-1950s and described as the \"last painting[s] .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. anyone can make.\" Unforgiving in its harmony and symmetry, <I>Untitled</I> consists of a roughly sixty-by-sixty-inch square divided into nine smaller squares of similar proportions. The tonal gradations between each square are so subtle that the painting appears at first glance to be an uninterrupted field of color. Reinhardt sought to eliminate all visual distractions as well as any trace of labor from his canvases — a goal that required, paradoxically, much effort to achieve. He also drained the oil from his pigments in order to create delicate matte surfaces that capture and absorb light. As the artist once said, \"Some people think that if a painting doesn’t have a subject or isn’t a picture, then it doesn’t have meaning. This just isn’t true.\" </P></SPAN>","remarks":null}],"media":[{"id":226445,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/y1987-47_2","isprimary":1,"rank":1,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"PUAM photo"},{"id":140392,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/y1987-47_BAC","isprimary":0,"rank":2,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"Labels","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"PUAM Photo"}],"hasimage":"true","bibliography":[{"boilertext":"<i>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection</i> (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007)","citation":"<i>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection</i> (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 252 (illus.)","date":2007,"id":474,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/191864564"},{"boilertext":"Sam Hunter, \"Ad Reinhardt: Sacred and Profane,\" <EM>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University </EM>50, no. 2 (1991): 26–38.","citation":"Sam Hunter, \"Ad Reinhardt: Sacred and Profane,\" <EM>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University </EM>50, no. 2 (1991): 26–38., p. 26, fig. 1","date":1991,"id":3093,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/3774721"},{"boilertext":"<i>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections </i>(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013)","citation":"<i>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections </i>(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 276","date":2013,"id":1994,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/865020505"},{"boilertext":"\"Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1987\", <i>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University</i> 47, no. 1 (1988): p. 30-54.","citation":"\"Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1987\", <i>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University</i> 47, no. 1 (1988): p. 30-54., p. 33 (illus.)","date":1988,"id":542,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/3774608"}],"exhibitions":[{"exhibitionid":961,"citation":"An Educated Eye: The Princeton University Art Museum Collection (Friday, February 22, 2008 - Sunday, June 15, 2008)","isvirtual":true,"begindate":"2008-02-22","enddate":"2008-06-15","uri":"https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/exhibitions/961"}],"geography":[],"terms":[{"id":2055937,"term":"monochrome","aatid":300137660,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2098810,"term":"light","aatid":300056024,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2059407,"term":"blue","aatid":300129361,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2118484,"term":"grids (layout features)","aatid":300200010,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2061306,"term":"black","aatid":300130920,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2052977,"term":"paintings","aatid":300033618,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2095701,"term":"abstraction","aatid":300056508,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2038492,"term":"American","aatid":300107956,"termtype":"Culture"},{"id":2053145,"term":"oil paintings","aatid":300033799,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2098350,"term":"squares (geometric figures)","aatid":300055637,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2167780,"term":"oil paint","aatid":300015050,"termtype":"Materials"},{"id":2171344,"term":"canvas","aatid":null,"termtype":"Materials"}],"classifications":[{"id":2053145,"classification":"oil paintings"},{"id":2052977,"classification":"paintings"}],"cultures":[],"cultureterms":[{"id":2038492,"culture":"American"}],"periods":[],"periodterms":[],"attribute_groups":[{"id":2199324,"term":"Art Since 1945","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199325,"term":"North American Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"dimensionelements":[{"element":"frame","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"157.50"},{"element":"frame","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"157.50"},{"element":"frame","type":"Depth","units":"centimeters","dimension":"9.50"},{"element":"sheet","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"156.40"},{"element":"sheet","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"156.60"}],"packages":[{"packageid":268066,"name":"Web_CA_2025_ModCon"},{"packageid":155612,"name":"web_PBL_Main_2019_01"},{"packageid":278831,"name":"10282025-DAY1-ONVIEW"},{"packageid":173870,"name":"web_PBL_2019_fall"},{"packageid":181963,"name":"web_2020_PBL"},{"packageid":219380,"name":"Gallery_10-12(Pavilion3)-ModernContemporary"},{"packageid":192740,"name":"PUAM_Transition to Modern Art"},{"packageid":197269,"name":"web_highlights -revised 2021"},{"packageid":234707,"name":"2023_ART455/VIS455/ECS456_09_19"}],"primaryimage":["https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/y1987-47_2"],"displaymaker":"Ad Reinhardt, 1913–1967, born Buffalo, NY; died New York, NY; active New York","displayculture":null,"displayperiod":null,"caption":"Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967, born Buffalo, NY; died New York, NY; active New York), Untitled, 1960. Oil on canvas; 156.4 x 156.6 cm, 156.4 x 156.6 cm (sheet, sight), 157.5 × 157.5 × 9.5 cm (frame). Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund (y1987-47)","captionhtml":"Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967, born Buffalo, NY; died New York, NY; active New York), <i>Untitled</i>, 1960. Oil on canvas; 156.4 x 156.6 cm, 156.4 x 156.6 cm (sheet, sight), 157.5 × 157.5 × 9.5 cm (frame). Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund (y1987-47)","published_date":"2026-03-31 02:24:36.710211","campusart":[{"campuscollections":"false","campusart":0,"neighborhood":null,"lat":null,"lon":null}],"extended_content":false}