Unfinished painting

1970

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

This painting’s history reveals how precarious the notion of finish can be in abstract art in general and in the work of one towering figure of the Abstract Expressionist movement in particular. A 1971 scholarly publication presented the work as finished: Untitled (number 2). However, a typewritten inventory of Newman’s studio made after the artist’s death (unknown, apparently, to the author of the aforementioned book) lists the canvas as Untitled 1970 #2 (unfinished), a status now accepted by art historians. Many of Newman’s contemporaries attacked the idea of a finished work of art as an artificial convention, but Newman disavowed it for different reasons. For him, painting was a lifelong struggle, an ongoing act of labor that precluded finishing on both a practical and a philosophical level.

Artwork Details

Overview

Exhibition History

Title: Unfinished painting
Artist: Barnett Newman (American, New York 1905–1970 New York)
Date: 1970
Geography: Country of Origin USA
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 84 × 76 in. (213.4 × 193 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: The Menil Collection, Houston, Gift of Annalee Newman, 1990-14
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art