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Untitled

Abstract mixed-media work featuring a fan-shaped piece of torn paper mounted on a painted rectangle. Each piece is painted in broad strokes of green, white, gray, black, and red in discrete and comingled sections.

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  • Abstract mixed-media work featuring a fan-shaped piece of torn paper mounted on a painted rectangle. Each piece is painted in broad strokes of green, white, gray, black, and red in discrete and comingled sections.

Date:

1957

Artist:

Ed Clark
American, 1926-2019

About this artwork

A native of New Orleans, Ed Clark grew up in Chicago and spent the early 1950s in Paris, supported by a G.I. Bill scholarship. In Paris he turned emphatically toward abstraction: “It struck me that if I paint a person—no matter how I do it—it is a lie. The truth is in the physical brushstroke and the subject of the painting is the paint itself.”

After five years overseas, Clark moved to New York City, where in 1957 he began to show works often acknowledged as the first “shaped” paintings. Here collaged elements break the traditional rectangular limits of the canvas, carrying the dynamism of Clark’s brushstrokes into the spaces beyond.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Ed Clark

Title

Untitled

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1957

Medium

Oil on canvas and paper, on wood

Dimensions

116.9 × 139.7 cm (46 × 55 in.)

Credit Line

Purchased with funds provided by an anonymous donor; Samuel A. Marx Endowment

Reference Number

1999.243

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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