44 - Jo Baer

Jo Baer Untitled 1968 Oil on canvas 91.5 x 99 cm. Signed and dated 'J Baer '68' verso on canvas and with directional arrow. Handwritten details about the work and the artist's address (rarely readable) verso on a piece of paper. - Minor traces of age. Provenance Galerie Rolf Ricke, Cologne; private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia "Non-objective painting's language is rooted, nowadays, in edges and boundaries, contours and gradients, brightness, darkness and color reflections. Its syntax is motion and change." (Jo Baer, On Painting, 1971, in: Flash Art, no. 37, November 1972, pp.6–7, reprinted in: Jo Baer, Broadsides & Belles Lettres, Selected Writings and Interviews 1965–2010, Amsterdam 2010, p.70) During the 1960s Jo Baer moved away from Abstract Expressionism, one of the dominant art movements in the United States at the time and began exploring non-objective painting. Her work gradually evolved towards an increasingly minimal form of expression, eventually eliminating imagery altogether and leaving the centre of the canvas completely white. In many of the works Baer created between 1964 and 1966, the edges of the canvas were defined by two square or rectangular bands of colour. The outer, thicker border was black, while the inner, thinner band featured a contrasting colour, such as red, green, lavender or blue. Although this work dates from 1968, it retains elements of this approach, visible in the black and reddish-brown bands on the right and left side. Baer was an established figure within the Minimalist movement, recognised as a peer by artists such as Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd and Dan Flavin. In 1964, Flavin included her in the influential group exhibition Eleven Artists, held at the Kaymar Gallery in New York. The exhibition helped consolidate her position within the emerging Minimalist movement. Two years later, she held her first solo exhibition at Fischbach Gallery, an important venue for avantgarde art at the time, further establishing her reputation.