Monday Night Mark
Artist: Jules Olitski (American, 1922-2007)
Date: 1965
Dimensions:
69 × 63 in. (175.3 × 160 cm)
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott
Object number: 2017.8
Label Text:“[W]hat I would like in my painting is simply a spray of color that hangs like a cloud….”
—Jules Olitski
Employing a technique he created himself, abstract painter Jules Olitski utilized industrial spray guns to create “spray paintings” beginning in the mid-1960s. With a spray gun for each color, Olitski built up successive layers of acrylic paint on the canvas, gradually changing the balance of hue and value in subtle progression. This technique allowed Olitski to capture the effect of color floating in the air. He described the first time he experimented with a spray gun: “A mist of color had spread itself on part of the canvas. It was ravishing. A new light, a new color; I was Apollo. If one gun was great, two guns, two colors—ecstasy! A world of possibilities had opened.”
A prime example of Olitski's spray paintings, Monday Night Mark shows light emerging from a dark background and explores different densities of color.
—Jules Olitski
Employing a technique he created himself, abstract painter Jules Olitski utilized industrial spray guns to create “spray paintings” beginning in the mid-1960s. With a spray gun for each color, Olitski built up successive layers of acrylic paint on the canvas, gradually changing the balance of hue and value in subtle progression. This technique allowed Olitski to capture the effect of color floating in the air. He described the first time he experimented with a spray gun: “A mist of color had spread itself on part of the canvas. It was ravishing. A new light, a new color; I was Apollo. If one gun was great, two guns, two colors—ecstasy! A world of possibilities had opened.”
A prime example of Olitski's spray paintings, Monday Night Mark shows light emerging from a dark background and explores different densities of color.
On view
In Collection(s)