It’s Day 85!  My tummy has been at it all day from a dinner I ate last night. It was one of those incidents where you get a bad feeling while you’re eating.  Ugh.  I was still able to paint my painting and then it’s reading the Driver’s Handbook…I’m taking my driver’s test soon.  Yes, I’m 35 and don’t have a license.  I know how to drive, just never been interested in driving.  Now that I live a little out of the way and up a big hill, I want to not die every time I carry a load of groceries to my house. 🙂  Then it’s also doing feedback for my writing group, so join me in celebrating Robert Mangold today! It’s funny…I’m getting to the point where I panic after finishing a painting because I have a slight feeling that I had already honored that artist.  I can’t imagine how I’m going to feel once I hit a couple hundred!  Thank god for my spreadsheet and the “search” option on my glob <- mistype, but I’m keeping it. 😉

 

Robert Mangold (born October 12, 1937) is an American minimalist artist.

Mangold was born in North Tonawanda, New York. His mother, Blanche, was a department store buyer, and his father, Aloysius Mangold, worked at an organ factory. He first trained at the Cleveland Institute of Art from 1956 to 1959, and then at Yale University, New Haven, (BFA, 1961; MFA, 1963). In 1961 he married Sylvia Plimack, and they moved to New York.

“Robert Mangold’s paintings,” wrote Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times in

1997, “are more complicated to describe than they seem, which is partly what’s good about them: the way they invite intense scrutiny, which, in the nature of good art, is its own reward.” His works are comprised often of simple elements which are put together through complex means. Mangold’s work challenges the typical connotations of what a painting is or could be, and his works often appear as objects rather than images. Elements refer often to architectural elements or have the feeling of an architect’s hands. He almost always works in extensive series, often carried through both paintings and works on paper.

 

Mangold’s early work consisted largely of monochromatic free-standing constructions displayed against the wall, such as Grey Window Wall (1964). In 1968 he began employing acrylic instead of oil paint, rolling rather than spraying it on Masonite or plywood grounds. Within the year, he moved from these more industrially oriented supports to canvas. In 1970 he began working with shaped canvases and within the year began brushing rather than spraying paint onto canvas.

By the mid-1970s, Mangold moved on to overlapping shapes whose contours are

formed by combinations of canvas edges and both drawn and implied lines.  A 1994 series consisted of monochrome panels, deployed in two-panel trapezoidal works whose colors, sometimes matching, sometimes contrasting, run to deep oranges, olive greens, browns and grays. In a 2006/7 series, entitled Column Structure I through Column Structure XII, the 12 canvases each have a central vertical trunk measuring 10 feet high and 2 feet wide that is subdivided by straight, horizontal lines and appended with squares or triangles that jut from the sides, usually near the top.

 

Mangold’s paintings, quiet and restrained on the surface, are much admired by artists. In a 1994 review in Art in America, Robert Kushner wrote that “underneath the composure of their execution, there is an almost romantic vividness of experience. The contrast of this veiled undercurrent and the Apollonian restraint of the presentation make these new paintings both powerful and poignant.”
Mangold made his first prints in 1972 at Crown Point Press and has made prints throughout his career, working with Pace Editions and Brooke Alexander Editions.
Mangold designed the monumental colored glass panels contained in the Buffalo

Federal Courthouse pavilion lobby.
Mangold lives in Washingtonville, New York with his wife Sylvia Plimack Mangold, who is also an artist. They are the parents of film director and screenwriter James Mangold, and musician Andrew Mangold.

Biography from wikipedia.

I had an interesting time creating my tribute.  I wanted to do something that captured his style, but I also wanted to do my own version of it.  I think that’s what throws me off about minimalist art.  I always want to complicate it in some way. 😉  I’m learning about this movement just like I learned how to embrace the concept of abstract expressionism.  The point is to keep it simple and in the abstract sense…less deliberate!  I love this psychological experience I’m putting myself through.  I’m creating images I would never ever just create on my own.  So that’s a good thing!  I hope you enjoy my tribute and see you tomorrow on Day 86!  Best, Linda