Untitled

One of the best-known of the American Color Field painters, Kenneth Noland first painted in the manner of New York School Abstract Expressionism. This painting from around 1957 is a transitional work. Noland brushed the surface of his canvas with thick layers of pigment in bold gestural strokes that traces the movement of the artist's brush as he quickly laid down the oil paint. But a careful examination of the small areas of bare canvas visible between the thickly laid paint strokes reveals a very different approach to painting. Noland thinned some of the paint to a watery consistency that has soaked into the surface of the unprimed canvas forming small green arcs. These echo the curved and sometimes circular strokes of thick white pigment covering much of the surface on the canvas.

Noland perfected this technique and soon after he created his all-over stained Color Field paintings first exhibited in 1958. These are his famed "target" paintings, consisting of concentric circles, each in a different color. Perhaps, Noland's fully-developed circular motif found its origins in this earlier untitled canvas.