102 - ROBERT GOODNOUGH (AMERICAN 1917-2010)

ROBERT GOODNOUGH (AMERICAN 1917-2010) White Shapes on Gray Green, 2007 acrylic on canvas 91.4 x 127 cm (36 x 50 in.) framed dimensions: 103.3 x 139.3 cm (40 7/8 x 54 7/8 in.) signed and dated lower right signed, titled and inscribed with dimensions on verso PROVENANCE Corporate Collection, New York LOT NOTES In White Shapes on Gray Green, Robert Goodnough scatters a dense constellation of angular white shards across a cool, matte ground. The fragments are cut-paper-like wedges, chevrons and splinters, scored with flicks of oxblood red and black. They seem to swarm toward the center of the canvas and burst outward at its edges, as if a pane of glass had shattered in mid-air. Around them the field stays open and quiet, so the cluster reads as a single living mass hovering in space. The surface has the economy and assurance of an artist who, after six decades at the easel, could build a whole composition from a handful of simple, repeated marks. Painted in 2007, when Goodnough was nearly ninety, the work returns to the motif that defined his career: the scattered “color shapes,” as he liked to call them. Some of these recurring forms are said to derive from the bony plates of dinosaur skeletons he studied at the American Museum of Natural History in 1952. From the late 1960s onward he set such fragments adrift across broad, open fields, combining the energy of Abstract Expressionism with the space and calm of Color Field painting. In his final years he took up the vocabulary again with undiminished freshness. The pared-down palette of white, red and black in the present canvas recalls the graphic intensity of his early work. Born in Cortland, New York, in 1917, Goodnough studied with Amédée Ozenfant and Hans Hofmann before emerging in the early 1950s as one of the most admired painters of the New York School. He was among the 24 artists selected from 256 participants for the landmark 9th Street Art Exhibition of 1951. He was also the author of the celebrated ARTnews article “Pollock Paints a Picture,” illustrated with Hans Namuth’s now-legendary photographs. He showed with Tibor de Nagy and André Emmerich for most of his career, had solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 1969, and continued painting until his death in White Plains, New York, in 2010. His work is held by the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Keywords: Second Generation Abstract Expressionist, New York School, 9th Street Show, Tibor de Nagy, Color Field Painting N.B. Condition reports are available upon request. All lots are sold in as-is condition at the time of sale. Please note that any condition statement regarding works of art is given as a courtesy to our clients in order to assist them in assessing the condition. The report is a genuine opinion held by Shapiro Auctions & Appraisals LLC and should not be treated as a statement of fact. The absence of a condition report or a photograph does not preclude the absence of defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of any others. Shapiro Auctions & Appraisals, LLC., including its consultants and agents, shall have no responsibility for any error or omission.