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:“What I would like in my painting is simply a spray of color that hangs like a cloud….”
Abstract painter Jules Olitski utilized industrial spray guns to create “spray paintings” beginning in the mid-1960s—a technique he created himself. With a spray gun for each color, Olitski built up successive layers of acrylic paint on the canvas, gradually transitioning from color to color and from light to dark. This technique allowed Olitski to produce 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… . 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 seems to show light emerging from a dark background and explores different densities and textures of layered color. How many colors do you see?
Abstract painter Jules Olitski utilized industrial spray guns to create “spray paintings” beginning in the mid-1960s—a technique he created himself. With a spray gun for each color, Olitski built up successive layers of acrylic paint on the canvas, gradually transitioning from color to color and from light to dark. This technique allowed Olitski to produce 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… . 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 seems to show light emerging from a dark background and explores different densities and textures of layered color. How many colors do you see?
On view
In Collection(s)